2023 Kay Brothers Amery Basket Pressed Grenache, McLaren Vale

94 points Silver at the McLaren Wine Show 2024

A cool year and a floral, lifted and elegantly fruitful wine. Poached strawberry, redcurrant, red cherry, rose, all quite savoury and refined, accented with marzipan and warm spice notes, and stitched together with fine natural tannins. It’s mineral of feel with lifting perfume in the mouth. The '22 version of this wine was more brooding, needing air to unlock, while this is delightfully present, fragrant and offering compelling drinkability. Drink 2025 to 2030.

93 points Marcus Ellis for Halliday Wine Companion, April 2025

The 2023 Basket Pressed Grenache is lean and savory, both aromatically and on the palate, and yet the inherent generosity of the McLaren Vale fruit shines through the length in the finish. The season was cool and wet, and the wines tasted so far have been perfumed; and although lighter-weight, they have been truly lovely, as this is. There are notes of peppercorns, new leather, pomegranate molasses, cherry seed, dried rose petals and shades of graphite laced through the tannins. Drink 2025 to 2038.

93 points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, September 2025

Kay Brothers has been tending the Amery vineyard since 1890, making it the oldest McLaren Vale winery still in founding family hands. The estate spans five distinct soil types across its 54 acres, and winemaking here remains deliberately traditional with open fermenters, hand plunging and a 1928 basket press that has been central to every vintage since it was installed.

The Grenache vineyard sits on a north-eastern facing slope in shallow red sandy loam over complex geology of quartz, ironstone gravels, sandstone and limestone. Fruit is predominantly Grenache with a small inclusion of Mataro, hand harvested and open fermented for around ten days on skins before basket pressing and ten months maturation in seasoned French oak puncheons.

The 2023 was a cool, wet season in McLaren Vale, producing wines of real perfume and finesse. This Grenache opens with poached strawberry, redcurrant and dried rose petal, accented with marzipan, warm spice and a savoury thread of peppercorn and new leather. The palate is lighter in body than warmer vintages but no less compelling, with fine natural tannins, a mineral quality and a long, generous finish

Medium-bodied and a great food companion. Serve with a slight chill alongside lamb cutlets, tapas or a herb-roasted chicken.

Vegan friendly.