Mark of Purity: Grenache The Bulman Way
"Mark Bulman loves making Grenache." In 30-point capital letters, those words are the first you see on the Bulman website, pasted above a picture of the protagonist sporting a confirmatory grin.
I first met Bulman in Melbourne in 2017, and he was grinning then, too—as well he might, having just become the first person to win the prestigious Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy for a Grenache with his 2016 Turkey Flat from the Barossa Valley.
This time, we’re talking after the release of the first two Australian reds under his own name: 2023 Glen’s Vineyard and 2023 Gary’s Vineyard Grenache.
They’ve garnered some seriously high scores in the Australian press, and I tasted them earlier in the week among some heavy-hitting Grenache from Australia, France and Spain.
I start by asking how he feels about the praise. “It’s the dream,” he says. “There are so many wines and winemakers around, and we all think we’ve got something special. To see them resonate like that, in the way they have—especially in the style they’re in, tight and coiled—it’s just great.”
Bulman and I were associate judges together at Melbourne Royal Wine Show in 2019, and I was struck by how forthright and articulate he was about Grenache. The new wines are fittingly forthright, and I wanted to give him a chance to articulate their genesis.
First, a bit of background by way of rosé. Before Bulman arrived at Turkey Flat in 2009, he’d been working with cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Shiraz was king—still is, in fact—and no one was rolling out the red carpet for Grenache and rosé, in the valley or beyond. Grenache, which accounted for 20% of the Australian vineyard 50 years earlier—had dwindled to about 1%. And most rosé was properly pink and improperly sweet.
“I thought there was a better and more beautiful version of rosé that could be done,” says Bulman, who went about gradually, stealthily (“I didn’t want to buck them off the horse”) tweaking the style. “It got gradually drier and finer and with more phenolic layers, and was one of the first pale rosés around.”
A few years later, the global rosé revolution took off, and Turkey Flat found itself in prime position to ride the wave. Long before Bulman left the winery in 2022, its Grenache-based rosé had become one of Australia’s best-loved and best-value examples of the style.
That same arc of coaxing people’s palates from something upfront and hedonistic to a slower-burning, contemplative realm of pleasure has been mirrored in Bulman’s red-wine exploits. “Shiraz is cool, but it’s pretty rich. With Grenache, I see shapes and profiles and a depth of flavour that I much prefer to drink,” he says. “It was also underappreciated at the time, and that just meant I could try some things because the market wasn’t really expecting something.”
Those trials took him to the Jimmy Watson, and also to the Southern Rhône cru of Gigondas, where he worked vintage with Pierre Amadieu in the northern summer of 2017. Not surprisingly, he was in his element and even made a one-off under the Bulman Type label from 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah. He’s remained close with the Amadieu family and would love to return when time and family—he now has two young children—allow. “I will definitely go back; it’s just a question of when. I’d love to put all my new thinking into making wines there because I know they’d be sensational. That sounds arrogant, but I just know the potential is there more than anywhere.”
Bulman’s 2023 Gary’s Vineyard (left) and Glen’s Vineyard Grenache
More than any specific lessons, the French connection further cemented his love of Grenache and built confidence in his approach. A key tenet is the primacy of tannin, as both a signature of site and a lynchpin of a Grenache’s tension and intrigue. And from this belief issues another hallmark of Bulman’s wines: early picking.
“First and foremost, Grenache from a good site is a tannic variety, though there’s a preconception that it isn’t.” He cites Yangarra and S.C. Pannell as producers who appreciate and showcase this. “I pick earlier than most to capture certain tannins. As it gets riper, you get more diffuse, broader and grittier tannins, and they start to merge with any site. Go early, and the tannins are in a form that is unique to that site—that’s the point.”
This also addresses a conundrum with the variety. It ripens late and is held to require a warm climate. At the same, its thin skins are susceptible to sunburn and overripe Grenache is wont to be jammy and one-note. “Grenache is so fruity anyway that the fruit will always pop its head up,” says Bulman. “If you’re searching for flavour, you’re going to be well past it when you pick. I’m looking for the point where the greenness goes.”
Bulman’s preference to harvest at the first sign of maturity results in a distinctive set of aromas, and he’s keen to snare these at the outset and luxuriate in them when the wine eventually hits the glass. Grenache oxidises notoriously easily, which risks losing the aromas particular to the site, resulting in more generic, lower-toned, dumbed-down flavours. “Post-crush, I make sure there’s no introduction of oxygen at all, and it’s essentially treated as an aromatic white,” he says. “I’m trying to capture the tannin and keep the aromatics tight, so it’s layered and interesting as opposed to more rounded and ‘usual’.”
Layered, interesting and unusual—yes, those are apt epithets for Bulman’s 2023s. I liked them a great deal, and they were the source of engrossing discussion among a set of winemaker friends on the Mornington Peninsula. They are also wines that show why Bulman has faith that the more the wine-loving public delves into this variety, the more they’ll dig it.
“What Grenache brings is a shape and finesse that we struggle to get in Australia, and that’s something that really goes to the top echelon of fine wine of the world,” he says. “We have some fantastic vineyards—in some senses, only the best sites have survived—and our winemaking is competitive and open. [Stephen] Pannell went to the front of the pack, showing just how fine Grenache can be with evolved thinking and winemaking. We’ve tried a lot of things and worked out a lot of things. Australian Grenache is in a fantastic spot.”
Contemporary drinkers appear more attuned to detail and focus in their wines, a trend promoted by the Pinot Noir obsession among more aspirational palates. Grenache, which might once have played into the bigger-is-better ethos of the Parker era, may, in fact, be better placed to thrive in the new world order. “Yes,” says Bulman. “People seem to be looking for pleasure as well as something that makes them think more, which is exactly what you want.”
The Wines
2023 Bulman Glen’s Vineyard Grenache Eden Valley RRP $75
Mark’s notes: From the Stonegarden Vineyard, established in 1857. Glen Monaghan grew the Grenache for the 2023 vintage. Thin loam over a substrate of red-brown clay covering sandstone with gold-bearing quartz veins. Micaceous schist fragments scattered throughout. 390m Altitude. In the rain shadow of the Mount Lofty ranges on a plateau looking easterly over the Murray Mallee. Picked on 1st April, 2024. 12% whole bunches. 28 days on skins pre-ferment, eight-day ferment, 36 days on skins post ferment. 178 days in a sandstone amphora.
My tasting: The nose shows a touch of crushed-gravel reduction that quickly dissipates to leave a gorgeously pure waft of pomegranate, strawberries, cherries and orange blossom over warm sandstone. The entry is distinctively red fruited with a kiss of apple skin, and feels sunlit and lucid. A touch of blue fruit enters the frame of a tight, almost delicate palate. That nerviness reels you in and the wine remains buoyant and channelled with puckering, ultra-fine sandy tannins. Those tannins drive the finish improbably long with saline, sherbetty red-fruit contrails.
2023 Bulman Gary’s Vineyard Grenache Blewitt Springs, McLaren Vale RRP $75
Mark’s notes: Dry grown by Gary Whaite in the 2023 vintage. The vineyard features ironstone conglomerate mixed with sand and gravel over mottled orange yellow clay at various depths. Part of the North Maslin Sand formation, the site sits at 200m altitude on a ridge above—and benefits from the orographic lift of—McLaren Vale. It faces north on a gentle slope above the Onkaparinga Gorge. Picked on 23rd March 2023. 7% whole bunches. Nine-day ferment, with 71 days on skins post ferment. 178 days in a sandstone amphora.
My tasting: Some smoky, crushed-rock reduction again, with ruby grapefruit, pomegranate and red berries swelling up over Mediterranean herbs, Moroccan spices, white pepper and terracotta. There’s lovely density and spread to the tannins. Again, there’s a sense of space and light in this wine—perhaps room for more flesh—and the glow of the red and blue fruit with the grounding rasp and tug of tannin is utterly compelling. The finish is saline, sappy, spicy and moreish, with fan and carry.
Conclusions: Observing both these wines from a tasting sample retained in near-empty bottle four days after taking my initial notes, the benefit of giving them time is clear. The unfurling tannin mesh makes for expansive fruit and texture, while the wines retain their luminosity and excellent tension.
The just-ripeness of these wines perhaps makes them a little edgy. But they aren’t merely distinctive; they are distinct from one another as single-site wines, have plenty of pleasure to offer and are really quite riveting to drink and follow.
