2024 Bulman Wines Glen's Vineyard Grenache | 97 Point Barossa Valley Grenache

🏆 97 HALLIDAY | 96 WINE FRONT | HISTORIC STONEGARDEN VINEYARD | EXTRAORDINARY GRENACHE

This Is One of Australia's Most Exciting Grenaches

Glen's takes you somewhere completely different. And arguably somewhere even more extraordinary.

97 Points – Halliday Wine Companion
96 Points – Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front

Stonegarden Vineyard, Eden Valley, South Australia

RRP $75 a bottle

If the 2024 Bulman Gary's Vineyard Grenache shows the brilliance of Blewitt Springs, Glen's takes you somewhere completely different.

And arguably somewhere even more extraordinary.

The 2024 Bulman Glen's Vineyard Grenache comes from the historic Stonegarden Vineyard at Springton in the Eden Valley, a site first established in 1857. It sits at approximately 390 metres elevation, on thin loam over red-brown clay, sandstone, gold-bearing quartz veins and fragments of micaceous schist.

This is a vineyard with genuine history.

Put it in the hands of Grenache specialist Mark Bulman, mature it in sandstone amphora rather than oak, and the result is something seriously special.

97 Points – Halliday Wine Companion.
96 Points – Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front.

At RRP $75, this is one of the Australian Grenaches I'd be putting straight into the cellar.

97 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

97 Points – Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion

His verdict?

“Stunning.”

And there's something particularly significant about the 2024.

This was Glen Monaghan's final vintage growing the fruit, with the Stonegarden property subsequently sold to Rockford.

That gives this release another fascinating chapter in the history of the vineyard.

96 Points – Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front

Then comes 96 points from Campbell Mattinson.

And Mattinson was clearly blown away.

For someone who tastes as much Australian wine as Campbell Mattinson, that's a serious endorsement.

Tasting Notes

The 2024 Glen's Vineyard Grenache is extraordinarily detailed, showing layers of:

• Red cherry
• Sour black cherry
• Raspberry
• Wild strawberry
• Red florals
• Fresh violets
• Black liquorice
• Bitter red aperitivo
• Fennel
• Black and white pepper
• Warm spices
• Alpine herbs
• Tobacco
• Red earth
• Rust and iron
• Wet stone
• Fine, intricate tannins

There's fruit, but this wine is about so much more than fruit.

It's the violets, herbs, pepper, liquorice, earth, stone and spice that make it fascinating.

And underneath everything is an extraordinarily detailed tannin structure.

Fine rather than forceful.

Persistent rather than heavy.

Powerful without being remotely cumbersome.

That's modern Grenache at a very high level.

Stonegarden Vineyard – Established 1857

This is the heart of the story.

Stonegarden Vineyard was established in 1857.

That's extraordinary history by Australian standards.

Halliday notes that the original vines have been reworked over time, but the site itself dates back more than 165 years.

The vineyard sits at around:

390 metres elevation

on a plateau looking east across the Murray Mallee, in the rain shadow of the Mount Lofty Ranges.

And then there are the soils.

Sandstone + Gold-Bearing Quartz + Schist

If you love vineyard geology, Glen's is fascinating.

The vines grow in:

Thin loam

over:

Red-brown clay

covering:

Sandstone with gold-bearing quartz veins

with:

Micaceous schist fragments scattered throughout the vineyard.

That's quite a geological cocktail.

You can't simply say that one particular flavour comes directly from quartz or sandstone, but the combination of geology, altitude, exposure and old-vine material gives Glen's Vineyard a profoundly distinctive identity.

And the wine certainly has a remarkable stony, earthy and mineral personality.

The Original Stonegarden Winery Still Stands

There's another incredible piece of history here.

The original Stonegarden Winery was constructed by quarrying directly into the hillside.

The rocks removed from the hill were then used to build the winery's walls.

And the building still stands in the vineyard today.

That's the kind of site Australian wine should celebrate.

This isn't simply a patch of vines planted somewhere convenient.

It's part of South Australian wine history.

182 Days in Sandstone Amphora

Then Mark Bulman does something very modern with this historic vineyard.

He doesn't mature the wine in conventional oak.

The 2024 spent:

182 days in sandstone amphora.

That's a crucial part of the style.

There's no layer of obvious vanilla, toast or sweet oak sitting over the fruit.

Instead, the amphora allows the wine to develop while keeping the focus firmly on:

Fruit.

Tannin.

Herbs.

Spice.

The vineyard.

For a wine coming from such an extraordinary site, that makes perfect sense.

77 Days on Skins

The winemaking is equally fascinating.

The 2024 was:

Picked – 8 March 2024
9% whole bunch
14 days on skins pre-fermentation
8-day fermentation
55 days on skins post-fermentation
182 days in sandstone amphora.

That works out to an extraordinary:

77 days on skins.

Yet the wine isn't brutally extracted.

Quite the opposite.

Halliday praises its lithe, refined and detailed character and its intricately etched tannins.

That's impressive winemaking.

2024 – More Power, Less Whole Bunch

The vintage played an important role.

According to Bulman, 2024 was considerably drier and warmer than 2023.

The resulting wines have:

Less overt spice

but:

More inherent power.

Mark Bulman therefore reduced the whole-bunch component to push the fruit and tannin further forward.

That's one of the things I like most about Bulman's approach.

He's not following a fixed recipe.

He's allowing the vineyard and vintage to dictate the wine.

Mark Bulman – The Grenache Specialist

Mark Bulman's connection to Grenache is now one of the great stories in modern Australian wine.

He spent more than a decade as winemaker at Turkey Flat, from 2009 to 2021.

Then came the breakthrough.

His 2016 Turkey Flat Grenache won the 2017 Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy.

It was the first Grenache ever to win the Jimmy Watson.

That was a significant moment.

Grenache had traditionally lived in the shadow of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon in Australia.

That result helped prove that Grenache could stand alongside Australia's finest red wines.

Now Bulman is taking that obsession even further with his own label.

Glen's vs Gary's – You Really Need to Taste Both

This is what makes the Bulman project so fascinating.

Two Grenaches.

Same vintage.

Same winemaker.

Same basic winemaking philosophy.

But completely different vineyards.

2024 Glen's Vineyard – Eden Valley

97 Halliday | 96 Wine Front

Red Cherry • Raspberry • Violet • Liquorice • Pepper • Fennel • Stone • Earth

390m elevation
Historic Stonegarden Vineyard
Sandstone • Quartz • Schist

2024 Gary's Vineyard – Blewitt Springs

97 Halliday | 96 Wine Front

Sour Cherry • Cranberry • Rose • Bay Leaf • Cardamom • Cinnamon • Clove • Iron

200m elevation
Springs Hill Vineyard
Ironstone • Sand • Gravel • Clay

Both received exactly the same headline scores.

But they taste completely different.

That's what single-vineyard wine should be about.

Which One Would I Choose?

If Gary's is the more exotic, perfumed and spice-driven wine, Glen's is the more stony, earthy and haunting expression.

Gary's gives you:

Rose • Cardamom • Cinnamon • Red Fruit • Herbs

Glen's gives you:

Violet • Liquorice • Pepper • Stone • Earth

Personally, I'd want both.

Because tasting these two side-by-side is essentially a masterclass in how Grenache can translate two very different South Australian vineyard sites.

And at $75 each, that's a fascinating tasting experience.

Food Pairings

The 2024 Glen's would be superb with:

• Peking duck
• Roast duck
• Lamb cutlets
• Slow-roasted lamb shoulder
• Chargrilled quail
• Pork belly
• Mushroom and truffle dishes
• Middle Eastern lamb
• Wood-fired vegetables
• Charcuterie

Interestingly, Peking duck pancakes are specifically suggested as a match for this wine.

I can see exactly why.

The raspberry, violet, liquorice and spice characters would work brilliantly with duck.

Serve around 15–17°C in a large Burgundy-style glass.

Drinking & Cellaring

Don't underestimate this wine's ability to age.

There's beautiful fruit now, but the real excitement is in its tannin architecture, freshness and savoury complexity.

I'd drink it:

2026–2040+.

If you're opening a bottle young, give it at least 1–2 hours in a decanter.

But I'd strongly recommend buying enough to cellar.

This is only the second release of Glen's Vineyard Grenache, and Halliday is already describing it as a high-water mark for refined modern Barossa Grenache.

That's a pretty good reason to put a few away.

Why We Love It

This wine has almost everything I look for in great Australian Grenache.

97 Points – Halliday Wine Companion
96 Points – The Wine Front
Stonegarden Vineyard – established 1857
390 metres elevation
Sandstone + gold-bearing quartz + schist
9% whole bunch
77 days on skins
182 days sandstone amphora
13.5% alcohol
RRP $75

And then there's the flavour.

Red cherry. Raspberry. Violets. Black liquorice. Fennel. Pepper. Alpine herbs. Tobacco. Red earth. Stone.

This is not big, sweet Australian Grenache.

It's lithe, perfumed, savoury, mineral and incredibly detailed.

If you love the best Australian Grenache from producers such as Alkina, Yangarra, MMAD, Thistledown and Willunga 100, Mark Bulman's wines absolutely belong on your radar.

And between the two 2024 Bulman single-vineyard releases, Glen's may just be the wine that stops you in your tracks.

97 Halliday. 96 Wine Front. Historic Stonegarden Vineyard. Sandstone amphora. $75.

The 2024 Bulman Glen's Vineyard Grenache is one of the most exciting expressions of modern Australian Grenache I've come across.