GOOD WINE WON’T necessarily be fashionable – or popular. Vintners that grow grenache know this too well; the grape variety is renowned as a blending workhorse, and is too often over-cropped precisely to perform such labours. Rarely does it win respect as a wine of distinction, even though winemakers who care for grenache make wines of outstanding quality. McLaren Vale, in particular, grows outstanding grenache – and the grape’s image dilemma mirrors that of the region that produces much good wine, but no style to claim as an icon.

The Cadenzia Project takes an initial step to address just this issue. The project presents wines from 11 McLaren Vale wineries that each feature grenache, either as a straight varietal or in a range of blends. The ambition of the project is, therefore, complex. As a varietal statement, it shows the virtues and versatility of grenache. As a regional statement, it heralds that McLaren Vale produces some of the finest grenache in the country. And as a commercial statement, it promotes and endorses a new type of wine closure, as all Cadenzia wines have been sealed under Zork, the radical synthetic pop-top bottle closure designed in Adelaide.

Curiously, the Cadenzia idea was born outside of the region; wine writer Philip White, impressed by the invention of Zork, suggested promoting the new product in conjunction with a fresh regional and variety profile. Several key McLaren Vale winemakers supported the idea and, mindful that the Clare region had successfully done a similar positioning exercise with riesling and Stelvin screw-cap closures, a group of 11 wineries were convinced that the idea had merit.

But for the winemakers, the Cadenzia project is only partly about Zork closures. Using the new closure is a valuable statement broadcasting that McLaren Vale winemakers are open to embracing innovation, but they believe Cadenzia is a more valuable statement about innovative winemaking. Several believe it makes an appellation statement similar to French regions, but without their rigid style controls. And so you have different McLaren Vale wineries taking bold steps with their take on grenache wines for the Cadenzia project; Gemtree is testing the Spanish style of blending grenache with tempranillo, Dog Ridge blends grenache with petit verdot and Pertaringa blends grenache with mouvedre. Kangarilla Road takes another, more experimental line, blending grenache with zinfandel and shiraz.
The project was launched last month as a tentative beginning – volumes of each wine produced range from a mere 50 dozen to about 700 dozen (an average of about 250 dozen released) – but organisers are confident the annual release will grow in size and stature. Chester Osborne, winemaker at d’Arenberg, has committed the largest volume of wine to the project but believes that Cadenzia needs to have outstanding wines for critics and discerning buyers to focus on, or else initial interest will be lost. “Winemakers will have to concentrate on this; there’s no point drawing attention to yourself unless you offer something pretty smart to be judged,” he says. Although happy with his offering of d’Arenberg’s 2003 The Cadenzia (a blend of grenache, shiraz, mourvedre and viognier), Osborne believes the second annual release of Cadenzia wines will be crucial to the project’s enduring success. He says that icon wines will need to emerge if respect for grenache is to develop further.

Other key participants in Cadenzia include Kangarilla Road proprietor Kevin O’Brien, one of the more energetic visionaries of the region who had served as president of McLaren Vale Winemakers Association until recently. “This emphasises the long history that McLaren Vale winemakers have of working together, and recognises something that the region does very well – and deserves more recognition,” O’Brien said. He is confident that Cadenzia wines will be judged in a new class at the 2005 McLaren Vale Wine Show, to serve as a benchmarking for quality of the wines and to entice participation from more winemakers.

Winemaker Mike Brown, who works at Kangarilla Road and also makes wines for Gemtree and Dog Ridge, saw great potential for personal expression of winemaking through the Cadenzia project. In explaining the project name – a play on the classical music term cadenza, which is a passage improvised by virtuosos – Brown said Cadenzia presented a chance for different winemaking expressions that break from convention. “It’s important for us to improvise. It’s a feature of this region.”

The first release of Cadenzia wines is largely a promotional exercise; with such small amounts of wine bottled it means a higher cost of production for each winemaker, but raises the profile of grenache. However, for the collective benefit to be significant to the region, more participants need to be involved. Winemakers such as Tony De Lisio of Classic McLaren Wines have access to outstanding grenache fruit and he agrees that it could become an icon variety of the region, but is yet to be convinced of a collective project that is inexorably linked to an experimental wine closure. Still, the Cadenzia project has at least piqued his interest in premium-quality grenache wines; “It should be one of the best wines this region offers,” he admitted. The life of this project is also a powerful statement about the new union of business and industry interests in the region. Andrew Buttery, president of McLaren Vale Grape, Wine and Tourism, says Cadenzia wines have strong cellar door appeal, which is a boon for flourishing wine tourism operations. “This is proof that people are starting to work together better,” he says. “It’s a truly regional association and not just the winemakers. Co-operation between everyone here will help the region to prosper in many ways.”

The success of the Cadenzia project ultimately will be measured in the retail market; Vintage Cellars is interested and has entered discussions for stocking Cadenzia bottles nationally. It is notable that Vintage Cellars were key supporters of the successful marketing of Clare Riesling under Stelvin closure. Perhaps the greatest advantage of Cadenzia marketing is that it allows consumers a chance to compare many different expressions of grenache. Reactions from this experiment will give the wine industry interesting answers; not only on what wine styles emerge as most popular, but also a statement of whether consumers are willing to be more bold and adventurous in what wines they are prepared to taste and buy.