Swinney Grenache Frankland River 2024

Swinney Grenache Frankland River 2024, Western Australia | 100% Grenache | 13.8% alc

The estate Grenache is where most people first encounter what this vineyard does with the variety, and for many it’s the wine that resets their expectations about Australian Grenache entirely. It’s not a wine that arrives shouting about itself. It’s fragrant, relatively light in colour, and on first impression it can seem understated. Give it time — in the glass, and ideally in the cellar — and a different picture emerges. This is a wine built on precision rather than power, and it rewards the approach.

The fruit comes from dry-grown, established bush vines on the Wilson’s Pool Vineyard, the same vineyard that supplies the Farvie Grenache but without the specific site selection that narrows the Farvie to the highest-gravel, lowest-vigour sections. Multiple passes of fruit thinning and selective hand harvesting over several pickings ensure the fruit that does make it in is as close to ideal as possible. The 2024 was harvested on the 5th and 7th of March — a couple of days later than the Wilson’s Pool picks for the Farvie, reflecting the broader site selection and the different intended style.

In the winery, 40% whole bunches are included — noticeably less than the 60% in the Farvie Grenache, which is a deliberate choice that keeps the palate profile softer and more immediately accessible. Wild fermentation, two weeks on skins (longer than the Farvie’s ten days, interestingly), then pressed to large-format seasoned French oak for 11 months on lees. No fining, minimal filtration. Alcohol at 13.8%, a trace above the Farvie’s 13.9%, though both are low for Australian reds. Residual sugar at 0.3g/L, functionally dry. Bottled February 2025.

The colour is pale and clear — a light ruby that you can read print through without difficulty. Compared to the Farvie Grenache it’s a noticeably lighter pour, which can initially create an impression of delicacy that the wine then complicates when you actually taste it. The rim is transparent and clean. The first thing from the nose is fragrance: bright red fruit — raspberries, a hint of wild strawberry — and above it rose petals, almost powdery and precise. There’s a slight earthiness underneath all of that, a faint whiff of warm soil or dried herbs, but it’s not dominant. The overall impression on the nose is lifted, high-toned, and genuinely pretty without being insubstantial.

On the palate the entry is bright and lively. Light to medium-bodied, with a slight tartness on the attack that’s typical of Grenache grown in cooler conditions — that natural acidity arriving before the fruit fully opens. Red cherry, raspberry, a hint of pomegranate. The tannins are present but fine and smooth, nothing that creates resistance. The texture is seamless, which is the word most often used about this wine and which turns out to be accurate. The whole-bunch inclusion at 40% is doing enough structural work to give the wine some shape without any roughness or herbal bitterness showing through.

Moving through the mid-palate, the earthy dimension that showed at the back of the nose makes itself known on the palate as well — a kind of warm minerality, slightly spiced, that grounds the brighter fruit without pulling it down. The acidity maintains its presence throughout, keeping the mid-palate fresh and driven. There’s a suppleness to the texture that builds as the wine opens. The lees aging shows here as a very subtle creaminess — not buttery or heavy, just a smoothing of the edges. The fruit stays consistent and clear from entry to mid-palate with no muddiness or drop in intensity.

The finish extends further than you’d expect at this price. The cherry and raspberry fruit fades gradually, the earthiness picks up slightly in the final seconds, and the acidity stays present right to the end, keeping everything lifted. There’s good length here without drama. The tannins fade cleanly and don’t leave any drying sensation. What’s left is a quiet, mineral, slightly floral impression that dissipates slowly.

There’s no complexity here that will distract you or challenge you — this is a genuinely enjoyable wine that asks nothing difficult of the person drinking it. At $46, it’s the most accessible entry point into what this vineyard does, and it makes the case for Frankland River Grenache efficiently and without fuss. It’s a wine you can confidently open now and drink over the course of an evening, and it will reward two or three years in the cellar if you have the patience. The entry point into a remarkable lineup.

Harvested: 5th & 7th March 2024 | Bottled: February 2025 | pH 3.48 | TA 5.21 | RS 0.3g/L | 13.8% alc