On the face of it the idea behind what has become the new wine brand Grange La Chapelle is simple enough. Take 50% of Syrah grapes sourced from the vineyards of Hermitage in Northern Rhône and blend them with exactly 50% of Shiraz that has come from the vineyards of the Barossa Valley in South Australia.
But dig below the surface and a whole world of complexity and intrigue opens up. Not all the answers to which can be, or will be, revealed from either side. Which only, potentially, adds to the allure and fascination of a wine that is now on sale, through a select number of wine importers and merchants, for €2,600 a bottle.
Grange La Chapelle is a true 50/50 partnership down to the blend, the branding and the cork...
One fascinating aspect to the launch of Grand La Chapelle is how on earth did both sides, operating on the other sides of the world, manage to keep the whole thing secret.
Particularly as what was apparently secretly known, even within the confines of the two producers, as “Project Crochet” goes back as far as 2021, until the moment the embargo was lifted and news of the wine hit the press on February 09.
A partnership that started as the result of the long-standing friendship between Caroline Frey, chief winemaker and vigneron at La Chapelle in Bordeaux and Peter Gago, chief winemaker of Penfolds Grange.
Together they wanted to create a wine that “truly intertwines the rich heritage of French wine tradition and the innovative spirit of Australian craft”. For Frey it is the culmination of their combined “imagination” of what was possible by working together.
“The story made a lot of sense and I was very curious about what would happen if we blended these two wines together,” she says.
What is particularly fascinating is how the wines are so different when tasted separately, but then something “happens” when they are blended together, she adds.
She likened it to an artist and what happens when you blend primary colours together. You create something new and you can’t go back to the original.
“It’s La Chapelle and it’s Grange. But you put them together and it is something completely new with a great story behind it. It works. But it is curiosity that has lead me to this point,” she says.
Gago says the blend is so complete in creating a totally different and new wine that you can’t pick out the usual characteristics you would expect to taste in a La Chapelle or Grange wine.
“This wine is all together different,” he adds. “It’s a real thing. It’s brave new world kind of stuff. It has not been put together by a focus group.”
Celebrating Syrah and Shiraz
Caroline Frey says she was attracted by the "curiosity" to see what would happen if you blended Rhone Syrah together with Barossa Valley Shiraz
At the heart of the project is Syrah and Shiraz - two grape varieties that share the same ancestry and DNA. A variety that made its home in the Northern Rhône and then was taken all the way to Southern Australia in 1832 by James Busby where it found new life there.
Now all these decades later they are being “reunited, reinterpreted, reassembled” into this one wine, she says. A wine that has been made from grapes grown in different soils, vines, altitudes, climates and, arguably, winemaking cultures.
For the collaboration to truly work it had to be a true 50/50 partnership, says Frey. “For something completely new it has to be 50/50,” she stresses. “It’s a new story. It’s a new wine.”
“It’s really simple and I think the simplicity of it confuses people,” adds Gago.
Which meant the wine had to be a 50/50 blend of 50% La Chapelle Syrah grapes from the steep, sun drenched slopes of the Hill of Hermitage in Northern Rhône and 50% Grange Shiraz grapes sourced from a collection of select South Australian phylloxera-free vineyards (many of which date back to the 19th century) across the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Clare Valley.
The two varieties might share a common ancestry, but how have they evolved on opposites sides of the world, grown in very different terroirs and climates.
The two winemakers are clear. For the wine to succeed they had to find a wine to marry “the elegance of Grange, with the strength of La Chapelle,” says Frey.
The 50/50 collaboration goes right through the project, from the tasting notes to the joint branding on the corks, and the label. With the red from The Grange and the blue from La Chapelle.
Peter Gago says it was the chance to bring the two country's wine history together with a true 50/50 collaboration between Grange and La Chapelle
They also had to find a way to get the La Chapelle grapes from the Northern Rhône to Penfolds’ winery in Magill, just outside Adelaide where all the magic of the Grange happens. For that they turned to customised stainless steel 1,200 litre pallet tanks that are air freighted and temperature controlled all the way on the long flight Down Under. The ultimate in premium bulk wine.
On arrival at Penfolds the grapes then go straight into 50% new French oak barrels.
Long term collaboration
What started out as an idea, soon became a trial, says Gago. The trial has now become a finished wine now out in the market.
Now they have created Grange La Chapelle 2021, Gago and Frey are excited to see how the wine will develop not only in age, but vintage to vintage, year to year. “We have noticed that in bottle every month it is getting more complete,” says Gago.
The next release, the 2022, is already in bottle and that will be followed by the 2023 Grange La Chapelle which is currently in barrel. But future releases, stresses Gago, will also be determined by mother nature and they can’t guarantee there will be a Grange La Chapelle every year, but that is the intention.
It will, though, remain very much a limited production as La Chapelle itself is only producing 20-25,000 bottles a year for its main wine and there is a “finite resource” to work with, says Gago.
Peter Gago and Caroline Frey at Wine Paris last month
This is not the first time the two producers and their wines have come together in a professional setting. Both Grange and La Chapelle were included in a comparative tasting organised by The Institute of Masters of Wine many years ago. In 1987, a special Hermitage Luncheon was held at the Rakel Restaurant in New York with a then, young chef, Thomas Keller, co-hosted by Gerard Jaboulet and Max Schubert. A lunch that saw the 1971 Penfolds Grange poured alongside a 1978 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle.
There has, understandably, been a “massive interest” to the wine, says Gago. “But I think the wine industry needs good news stories like this. There is a lot of gloom and doom at the moment.”
Now the wine has been made the big task comes in not letting down long standing private and trade customers who are desperate to try it for themselves even at €2,600 a bottle. Eighteen distributors and merchants around the world have been selected to sell the wine, on allocation, to their customers.
What they don’t get is the chance to hear directly from Frey and Gago on how the whole collaboration has come together. A story that has been nearly 200 years in the making but finally the world now has the best Syrah from the Rhône and the finest Shiraz from the Barossa Valley in the same bottle of wine.
