John Duval Plexus Barossa Shiraz Grenache Mourvèdre 2021
£24.95
The wine
Lifted vibrant black fruits with underlying cinnamon and vanilla.
Plexus is Shiraz with Grenache and Mourvèdre, the southern Rhône blend that suits the Barossa particularly well because all three handle heat and drought. Australia never suffered a full phylloxera catastrophe, so the valley holds some of the oldest producing vines anywhere. John Duval was Chief Winemaker at Penfolds, responsible for some of the most celebrated vintages of Grange, before founding his own label in 2003. He works with growers holding exceptional old-vine material across the Barossa.
The producer
John Duval
View all John Duval winesJohn Duval is the sixth generation of his family to grow grapes in South Australia, and the first to cross from growing to making. That understates the career considerably: before founding his own label in 2003 he was Chief Winemaker at Penfolds, where he was responsible for some of the most celebrated vintages of Grange ever bottled.
Starting again with a single wine at the age of fifty, after two decades at the top of Australia's most famous winery, was not an obvious move. Two decades on, John Duval Wines is among the Barossa's most admired producers. The style honours the family history by working with growers who hold exceptional old-vine material, some of it planted before phylloxera reached most of the world, and by treating Shiraz as a variety capable of restraint as well as power.
The Barossa's reputation rests on those old vines. Australia never suffered a full phylloxera catastrophe, so the valley holds some of the oldest continuously producing Shiraz vineyards anywhere, several dating to the 1840s and 1850s. Fruit from vines of that age is naturally low-yielding and concentrated, and the winemaking here is built to carry it without turning it into a caricature of Barossa richness.
