Alkina Wine Estate

The Free Bacchus Story

Most Barossa reds are made to be recognised. Alkina's are made to be told apart. The estate is at Greenock, on the western side of the valley, and instead of blending its Grenache into one house style it splits the vineyard into numbered plots and bottles them separately — Polygon No. 3 is the one the Halliday Wine Companion scored 97.

That is an expensive way to farm and an expensive way to sell. Small parcels mean small ferments, more vessels, more labels and a bottle that costs about a hundred and twenty US dollars, in a region whose reputation was built on generous reds at a fraction of that. It only works if the plots really do taste different from each other.

Barossa Grenache is worth meeting on its own terms. It is not the region's famous Shiraz: lighter in colour, higher in perfume, red-fruited rather than black, and it has spent the last decade being taken seriously by growers who used to treat it as blending material.

The certification is the tidiest on this page. Southern Cross Certified's register carries certificate 24068 for the whole estate, and it lists organic and biodynamic against every single product line rather than a subset — Grenache, Shiraz, Mataro, Cinsault, Grenache Blanc, Clairette and the rest. The row previously read "ACO / Demeter (verify)" and the press had said NASAA; the register settles it.