Regarded as the best medium-sized red wine producer in Australia, Henschke has gone from strength over the past three decades under the guidance of winemaker Stephen and viticulturist Prue Henschke. The red wines fully capitalise on the very old, low-yielding, high quality vines and are superbly made with sensitive but positive use of small new oak. Hill of Grace is second only to Penfold’s Grange as Australia’s red wine icon. A founding member of Australia’s First Family of Wine.
The Mount Edelstone vineyard, situated in the Eden Valley, was planted in 1912 by Ronald Angas, a descendant of George Fife Angas, who founded South Australia. Unusual for its time, it was planted solely to shiraz. The ancient 500 million-year-old soils on the vineyard are deep red-brown clay-loam to clay, resulting in low yields from over 100 year-old dry-grown, ungrafted centenarian vines. First bottled as a single-vineyard wine in 1952, it became recognised as one of the greatest shiraz wines in Australia.
98 Points James Halliday
Is it worth the price? Yes, absolutely. You are buying history. You are buying part of the most valuable vineyard land in Australia, as rare as Romanee-Conti in Burgundy, both in reality beyond price or value because they will never be for sale at any price. The use of 100% French oak gives the wine as additional point of difference from Hill of Grace, in which American oak still plays a minor role. This to one side, the wine has superb colour, a racy, superfine palate of exceptional length and the balance that is endowed by that balance (or vice versa, it doesn’t matter). Drink by 2040.