McHenry Hohnen Rocky Road Margaret River Shiraz 2020

McHenry Hohnen is a family-owned grape grower and wine producer in Australia’s Margaret River sourcing grapes from four vineyards within the families of David Hohnen and his brother-in-law Murray McHenry. David Hohnen was the winemaker behind the early success of Cloudy Bay in New Zealand and Cape Mentelle in Australia, and now shares his winemaking wisdom with the estate’s talented young chief winemaker, Trent Carroll.

Their philosophy embraces minimal-intervention winemaking as well as small-scale, labour-intensive farming in the vineyards. David and Trent both live by the philosophy that good grapes make a wine, and as such they prefer to let the grapes’ character and reflection of their terroir shine through: ‘We are a taste of Margaret River,’ says David, ‘instead of just making wine to specification and being driven by numbers, we focus on making real Margaret River wines – on a smaller scale – that truly reflect the region.’

In all, 120 hectares of vines have been established on the McHenry’s, Calgardup Brook, Rocky Road and McLeod Creek sites. A significant part of the grape production is sold to others (including Cape Mentelle) but the family business has the pick of the crop with 18 grape varieties in total cultivated. David Hohnen’s sauvignon blanc vineyards in particular are among the most prized in all of Margaret River.

With the beneficial maritime climate here, white and red Bordeaux varieties clearly do well. Semillion, sauvignon blanc, malbec, merlot, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot are complemented by Mediterranean varieties including marsanne, roussanne, viognier, grenache, shiraz and tempranillo.

The resulting wines are characterised by balance, texture and real drinkability, true to the pragmatic and no-nonsense nature of David Hohnen himself. He believes in ‘barrels, not oak’ – barrels play an important role in the maturation of wines, but the team never lets oak mask the natural character of the grape or the vineyard – and the use of oak changes from vintage to vintage.

The Society was amongst the first merchants to recognise the intrinsic quality of McHenry Hohnen wines, and one of their earliest UK importers and stockists.