Jericho Ancient Sands Grenache 2022

Jericho Ancient Sands Grenache 2022Founded on generations of family tradition and more than 60 years of winemaking experience, Jericho Wines is dedicated to crafting approachable, character filled wines that celebrate South Australias rich viticultural heritage. What began as a vision to continue a family legacy has grown into a winery focused on one simple goal, creating wines to be enjoyed and shared. The Jericho story dates back to 1945, when first generation grapegrowers Vic and

Founded on generations of family tradition and more than 60 years of winemaking experience, Jericho Wines is dedicated to crafting approachable, character-filled wines that celebrate South Australia’s rich viticultural heritage. What began as a vision to continue a family legacy has grown into a winery focused on one simple goal, creating wines to be enjoyed and shared.

The Jericho story dates back to 1945, when first-generation grapegrowers Vic and Grace Jericho planted their vineyards in the Riverland region of South Australia. With varieties including Shiraz, Grenache, Pedro Ximénez and Palomino, they laid the foundations for future generations of the Jericho family to continue their passion for grape growing and winemaking. 

The companion wine to Ancient Stones, our Ancient Sands Grenache is hand harvested from rows 30 to 34 of a block planted way back in 1955. The fruit is crushed into an Italian made concrete egg, where it spends a total of 12 months on skins before the wine is finally pressed away from the marc. 

The extended maceration process used here keeps the skins and seeds in contact with the wine for far longer than the typical 7 to 10 days that a red wine would spend on skins. The skins and seeds of a grape are where the phenols are located; these are the molecules that give wines their colour and tannin structure. As you would expect, the longer the skins are in contact with the wine, the more tannin content in the resulting wine. Curiously, this doesn’t actually make the wines taste more tannic, as these molecules are polymerising (binding up to become larger) during this process, which actually makes the wine appear smoother, and more elegant. 

The concrete egg promotes a very slow and steady rate of oxygenation into the wine, allowing just the right amount in for the wine to develop, but not so much that the freshness of the Grenache is lost.