97 Points - Marcus Ellis | 96 Points - Campbell Mattinson
The family-owned Aphelion winery has established itself as one of the star wine producers of South Australia's McLaren Vale region. With a sharp focus on Grenache, the Aphelion Hickinbotham Grenache is part of their premium SV Grenache range, which continues to recent rave reviews.
The highest altitude wine in the Aphelion range, the grapes for the 2024 Aphelion Hickinbotham Grenache Noir are sourced from a single vineyard in the Clarendon area of McLaren Vale. This features wonderful vibrancy and crisp acid drive, red fruits mingle with herbal briar characters to create a wine of freshness and depth. Herbal characters abound on the palate, with rosehip, just-ripe strawberry, and blood orange flavours. A rasp of light tannin provides good length and a savoury finish. The Hickinbotham Grenache has superb energy and vitality in a medium bodied frame.
"97 Points. There were three Aphelion single-block micro-bottlings from the Hickinbotham vineyard, Clarendon, in '24. This is not an assemblage of those, rather a 100% whole bunch ferment (the block wines were destemmed) of 111–112 blocks as one. This is my pick of the three – gloriously fragrant and complex, invested with depth and absent of heft. A swirl of red florals, souk spices, sandalwood, cranberry, sour cherry and umeboshi. The whole bunch adds savouriness, detail, lift and finely etched tannin, but knits in so quietly, with effortless integration. It’s a wine that makes me want to linger over the nose, so captivating is the fragrance. But it’s equally good on the palate, trailing long, the flavour fanning out expansively. Superb. $90. 14.1% alc. Drink: 2025 - 2036. Diam"- Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion.
"96 Points. From the highest patch of the Hickinbotham vineyard in Clarendon. I lost an hour or so today because I was sitting and marvelling at this wine and wondering how the hell I could do it justice in words. Some wines are better than the person writing about them. This wine pulls out the spice box and throws it at you, the fortunate thing being that the box wasn’t full and so what hits you seems reasonable. There are red licorice notes, red and black cherry, sandalwood, potpourri, an assortment of dry, roasted spices, a musky-vanillin-strawberry-shake note, and a peppercorn aspect. The way the flavours here volley through the palate, and the way it feels dry in the face of its own ripeness, and the way it then pulls a film of firm tannin right back through the wine - is all both magnificent and elite. Tasted: Sep25 14.1% alc. $90 Cork Drink: 2026 - 2034+"- Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front.
