Mourvedre Wine

Mourvedre is a late ripening variety of red wine grape with blue-black coloured, thick skinned fruit. Its wine is rich and high in acid and alcohol, but softens with age. Mourvedre prefers hot climates, is not prone to fungal diseases and due to its late ripening is frequently grown in areas where late spring frosts are likely. In Portugal, California and Australia, Mourvedre is often known as Mataró, while in some areas of France it is known as estrangle chien (‘dog strangler’). This last may refer to the harsh taste of the grape before processing or it may simply be a web induced myth made real by continual repetition, such is the modern world!

Mourvedre is common in Rhone-style blends, most famously it is used in producing Châteauneuf-du-Pape (‘New Castle of the Pope’). Mourvedre goes particularly well with Grenache, which is the main component of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

The two names this grape is known by reflect its Spanish origin, Mataró being a town in Catalonia and Murviedro not far from Valencia. Certainly this variety has been known in Spain since at least the sixteenth century, from where it spread into southern France. Mourvedre was popular right up into the 1860s when, like so many other varieties, it was severely affected by the great phylloxera outbreak, though in more recent times it has gradually become more popular again.

Mourvedre came to Australia as part of the large 1832 collection of James Busby and today it is most often found in South Australia and New South Wales. Here Mourvedre is mostly used in Rhone-style blends, in particular the blend of Grenache, Shiraz, and Mourvedre known as GSM. Mourvedre is also often used to make many fortified wines, though it is not unknown as a varietal. Those who use Mourvedre as a varietal include the Hewitson Old Garden Mourvedre, made from 150-year-old vines in the Barossa Valley, and Cascabel in the McLaren Vale wine region, which is made under the Spanish name Monastrell.

One of the relatively few examples of Mourvedre as a varietal is the Turkey Flat Mourvedre 2005, from the Barossa Valley in South Australia. This is the first time the historic Turkey Flat vineyard has produced a Mourvedre only vintage, previously having always blended it with Grenache and Shiraz. What they have come up with is a deep red wine with a penetrating aroma; it is middling in body, with good acidity and has moderate tannins. The Barossa Valley suits Mourvedre, as this late ripening variety enjoys the hot, dry conditions it provides.

The Barossa is not the only region that can create a good Mourvedre, however, and the Terra Felix Mourvedre of the Goulburn Valley wine region in Victoria amply demonstrates this. In company with a handful of others, Terra Felix began a few years ago to focus its energies on using Rhone grape varieties. Prominent among these was of course Mourverdre, which, when its yields are kept moderate, is capable of producing fruit with outstanding flavour and intensity, and wines that are medium bodied with dry, light tannins and fresh acidity.

A long established use of the Mourvedre variety in Australia has been as the basis of fortified wines. And one of the oldest established maker of such wines is Penfolds and its

Penfolds Grandfather Liqueur Tawny, created from a blend of Shiraz and Mourvedre grown at Penfold’s Barossa Valley vineyards. Penfolds was begun in 1844, when Christopher Rawson Penfold began planting vines to produce fortified wines. Christopher Penfold was a doctor who, like many of his profession at the time, firmly believed in the medical benefits of wine. An oak cask used by the family became known as the ‘Grandfather’ cask, giving birth to the name of this great award winning Tawny.

A wine of a different type and even with a different name, though the same variety, is Torbreck vineyards’ The Pict Mataro 2004. Torbreck of the Barossa Valley has here developed a powerful red wine using minimal intervention and eighteen months maturation in French oak. The Pict is a black, full-bodied, complex, vintage of intense flavour.

Mourvedre is once again becoming more popular in Australia, mostly through the increasing popularity of GSM, the Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre blend. This can be seen as part of a trend towards Rhone varieties in general, which is being led by Californian winemakers.