Yangarra Estate Vineyard

The Free Bacchus Story

Some of the Grenache blocks at Yangarra are over seventy years old, planted on sand over ironstone in McLaren Vale — a region far better known for commercial Shiraz than for anything requiring careful study.

That old-vine material is among the most impressive raw ingredients in the region, and the estate's approach to it is essentially conservative: the farming, certified under Australian Certified Organic standards, is aimed at preserving what those vines already do rather than correcting anything. ACO is the Australian organic standard, and growers here certify under it or under Demeter rather than both, so a single mark is the complete picture, not a partial one. Mourvèdre, Roussanne, Carignan and other southern French varieties are farmed alongside.

Nearly half the property is native vegetation and ecological corridor rather than vineyard: eighty of its hundred and seventy hectares are deliberately left unplanted. On land this suited to vines, that is a decision to forgo income rather than an accident of topography.

The High Sands and Ironheart single-vineyard Grenaches have drawn 96 points from Wine Advocate, and the Roussanne is among the most compelling whites in South Australia. Peter Fraser has spent two decades extracting genuine site expression from McLaren Vale rather than the warm, oaky profile that shaped the region's export reputation.

It remains less well known than the quality warrants, which for anyone who has found it makes it unusually good value, and is a reasonable argument for looking past what a region is famous for.