"Steve Pannell is The Real Review Vigneron of the Year Australia 2026, a consummate all-round wineman who has an intuitive understanding of the many aspects of wine production—viticulture, environment, winemaking, tasting and judging, as well as managing his own business together with his wife Fiona and dedicated staff."
"Steve’s career continues to blossom as he adds more grape varieties to his portfolio and his wines become increasingly assured, captivating and engrossing."
Single Vineyard Grenache Releases
2026 Arido Grenache
The previous vintage release was crowned Rosé Wine of the Year Australia 2025 by The Real Review. If you loved the award-winning predecessor, don't miss this the latest release—a wine that continues the benchmark for Australian rosé.
"I often say rosé should be the most popular white wine we make in Australia, as it suits our way of life so well. Too many people don't respect rosé as a style, making it from leftover fruit that wasn't good enough for red wine. We make our rosé from the best quality fruit — just like cooking, the food you make is only as good as the ingredients you use." - SCP
Aromas/Flavours: Highly perfumed, with dried flowers, cranberry, blood orange and pink grapefruit, and hints of thyme and sea spray.
"Why drink rosé from Provence when you can reduce your carbon footprint and support Australian wine? Give it a try" - SCP
Flavour: Fruit-driven, fresh and seductive, with red and pink citrus and a crisp, dry mineral finish.
Goes With: A great way to start a meal. Perfect with salad niçoise, sushi and sashimi, burrata, grilled seafood, poached salmon and ceviche.
Cellaring: Please don’t cellar, drink it now.
2023 Basso Garnacha
The idea for a low sulphur, unfiltered Grenache had been bubbling away for a few years and in 2017 access to the right fruit from an old dry-grown vineyard sparked the Basso project to life.
From the Latin Bassus, meaning low, in reference to the minimal preservative used in the winemaking, enabling this precious variety to speak clearly of where it is grown.
Medium bodied, warm-climate red wines based on Grenache particularly from McLaren Vale have a well-deserved place on the tables of diners. They offer welcoming aromas and flavours, with a texture often described as European but proudly Australian. They match where and how we live and the food we love to cook and eat.
Flavour: Pommegranate, boysenberry, raspberry, cherry, liquorice, musk lollies and exotic fenugreek aromas and flavours to match. The finish has a persistent raspberry jelly-crystal and pommegranate Turkish-delight flavour that is so appealing. Gateway Grenache ready for willing explorers.
Texture: There is volume and richness that speaks of luxury but this year there is an exotic layer of rose petal and pistachio flavour lying in the tannins. The texture is supple, long and unabashed
without being drying. Exotic, medium-bodied red wine from a warm region by the sea. Happy.
Goes with: Try Joseph Abboud’s Barbecue in his excellent book, Rumi – Food of Middle Eastern Appearance.
Cellaring: Will cellar but delicious now so why wait?
2024 'Blewitt Springs' Grenache
Winemaking
Variety: 100% Grenache
Varietal Origin: Sardinia or Spain; an ancient variety with origins that are hotly contested.
Vineyard: Blewitt Springs, McLaren Vale
Process: Hand harvested on the 8th of March. Fermented in one stainless steel open-top fermenter with regular pump overs, 12% whole bunch. Left on skins for 10 days before a gentle press. Settled in tank for 13 days before transfer to an old French oak vat for malolactic fermentation and maturation. Racked twice and bottled without fining, additions, or adjustment in December 2025.
Alcohol 14%
Ph 3.41
TA 6.8
Total Sulphur 82ppm
For the Senses
Flavour Profile: Classic raspberry and spice, aromas and flavours typical of McLaren Vale Grenache grown on sand. Excentuated by pommegrante and satsuma plum on the back palate, laced with musk and Turkish delight.
Structure & Texture: A juicy, vibrant, fruit-driven palate with a blood orange character gives lift and refreshment and the tannins ripple and flow to give length.
Cellaring: The first vintage so we’ll hedge our bets and say 10 years.
Serving: Try with a Pannell family favourite from Jose Pizzaro’s ‘Andalusia’ cookbook: Chickpea and Spinach stew - A dish with a long history and a nod to Moorish culture.
2024 'Little Branch' Grenache
Stephen's interest in Grenache stretches back to the mid-nineties. Upon arriving in McLaren Vale, a preference for making medium bodied wine led Stephen to Grenache and the love affair began. Given the region's warm Mediterranean-climate and proximity to the ocean Grenache is ideally suited to McLaren Vale and perfectly at home with our food and lifestyle.
Stephen proudly states, whenever given the opportunity, that McLaren Vale Grenache ages more gracefully than Shiraz. Grenache is well on its way to becoming McLaren Vale's most recognised wine and our true wine of place.
Winemaking
Variety: Grenache Noir/ Garnacha Tinta / Ganaxa / Cannonau -whatever the name its all the same to us!
Varietal Origin: Sardinia or Spain; an ancient variety with origins that are hotly contested
Vineyard: Little Branch Vineyard, Blewitt Springs, 30-year-old unirrigated trellised vines grown on 50 million year old soils comprised of Maslin Beach Sands flecked with iron stone at 140m above sea level. Purchased by Stephen and Fiona in 2021.
Process: Hand picked on the 18th of March and immediately de-stemmed leaving whole berries with 14% left as whole bunches. Carefully fermented in stainless steel with daily pump overs. Left on skins for 10 days before gentle pressing. Settled in tank for 12 days before transfer to an old French oak vat for Malolactic fermentation and extended maturation. Racked three times and bottled without fining, on the 20th of September 2024.
Alcohol: 14.0%
pH: 3.49
TA: 5.4
Total Sulphur: 64 ppm
For the Senses
Flavour Profile: Dark red fruit signals the start of the race with dark spice soon taking the lead: Raspberry compote, maraschino cherries, pomegranate molasses, clove, cassia and liquorice with black tea suddenly in the frame followed by ancient earth, bone broth, roasted venison and a very subtle lift of menthol. Duty rose and sweet tar ebb and flow on the back palate creating a moment of contemplation before the next sip.
Structure & Texture: Calm and composed, soft and inviting, subtle and kind but then the textural landscape is revealed with hills and valleys of fine tannin shaped by pinpoint accurate tone. The layers build and flow offering tremendous length. Not a hair out of place!
Cellaring: 10 +
Serving: Crispy pork bao or Mapo from a vendor in any China street near you.
2023 Sunrise 100 Grenache
Halliday Wine Companion review by Marcus Ellis
Published on 31 July 2026
"The second release from this home vineyard in Blewitt Springs. The 100 here references 100 years of vintages from these vines (omitting the fledgling unproductive years). All destemmed fruit, old oak, frugal quantities. This sits in a moodier, brooding zone – refined and unadorned, though – with dark red fruits corded into a structure of assertive natural tannin and energetic acidity. Air reveals dried cranberry and cherry, raspberry leaf tea, subdued souk spices, tobacco leaf, rusted iron, dried rose, bergamot, a brooding malty note, like dark rye bread. It’s a wine of many layers, so closely serried that they are initially easy to miss. That compression, the complex weave of tannin, the vibrant drive of acid all mark this as a wine that will age spectacularly."
98 Points
2023 Sunset 100 Grenache
Halliday Wine Companion review by Marcus Ellis
Published on 31 July 2026
"Missing in '22, this is the debut pair to the Sunrise, with these centenarian vines catching the afternoon sun. Two blocks, same material, same age, quite different wines, though kindred. While the Sunrise is a little coiled, a little within itself, this is expressive and lifted, yet no less a wine of future promise. Steve Pannell likes a nebbiolo comparison for grenache, and while that often feels akin to Langhe Nebbiolo or Barbaresco in McLaren Vale, here Barolo is a more apt touchstone. Warm terracotta, papery faded flowers, pomegranate, blood orange, cherry, rosehip, star anise, dried orange peel, dried black cherry, sun-drenched wild fennel seeds. So much going on. A truly stellar wine, resting on a foundation of vigorous but cohesive acidity and a classically ensnaring web of complex natural tannins with resounding length of flavour. A wine of place, and one that I had open for four days without it tiring, rather further revealing itself. Such beauty, such intrigue. A wine to sit back and admire; great by any measure."
98+ Points
2022 'Sunrise 99' Grenache
Stephen’s interest in Grenache stretches back to the mid-nineties. Upon arriving in McLaren Vale, a preference for making medium bodied wine led Stephen to Grenache and the love affair began. Given the region’s warm Mediterranean climate and proximity to the ocean Grenache is ideally suited to McLaren Vale and perfectly at home with our food and lifestyle.
In 2021 the oportunity to purchase a nine hectare Grenache vineyard planted in 1922 in the heart of Blewitt Springs including two bush vine blocks one facing the morning sun and the other warmed by the setting sun, was too good to pass up. Finally, Stephen had a home for S.C.Pannell Grenache .
The Vintage
The second year of the current La Nina cycle saw a wild, wet winter and spring followed by a mild summer and a dry autumn leading to veraison being two weeks behind normal. Poor flowering due to wild spring weather including high winds, frost and hail led to lower than desired yields. However, a long, slow ripening period allowed tannins to fully mature making this vintage one to watch.
Winemaking
Vineyard: Block 5, Little Branch Vineyard, Blewitt Springs, 103-year-old bush vines grown on typicall Blewitt Springs sand at 140m above sea level facing East. Unirigated, managed organically, pruned and harvested by hand.
Process: The 99th vintage for the Sunrise block started with harvest on the 14th of March. Whole berries were gently shaken from the rachis and sent to a stainless steel fermenter for twice daily pumpovers. Gently pressed on the 29th of March and settled in tank for seven weeks before racking off gross lees and dispatch to a ten year old French oak vat for malolactic fermentation and maturation. Racked once and bottled on the 1st of August 2023 without fining or filtration.
Alcohol 14.5%
Ph 3.33
TA 6.5
Total Sulphur: 61 ppm
For the Senses: All to say and nothing at all. The greatest of all red table wines that Stephen has tried defy easy description. They are powerful yet restrained, elegant whilst commanding attention are medium bodied with tension and tannin. They have purity and clarity and speak of the season and the soil. No one character dominates; the flavours are layered and unfurl slowly.
You might find raspberry, cherry, Luxardo, cumin, citrus, grilled nuts, apricots on the tree, coffee, Turkish delight, spring flowers, sea spray and the purity of a mountain stream.
Cellaring: Patience will be rewarded. Give it twenty years in a cool cellar.
Serving: Please decant well before service. Try with Peking duck.
The Wine Front review by Gary Walsh
Posted on 3 September 2025
"Block 5, Little Branch Vineyard, Blewitt Springs, 103-year-old bush vines, with 2022 being the 99th vintage. It’s likely a daft thing to say, but if the 2023 Little Branch leans into Barbaresco, this has a touch of Serralunga (Barolo) about it. My frame of reference is likely a little different to some, admittedly.
Raspberry rope, cherry pie, lots of dusty exotic spice, rosewater and musk, an earthy coffee ground bass note. It’s medium to full-bodied, lavish earthy and stony tannin, ginger and dried spice, almonds, a juicy orange character in flavour and acidity, then grainy and gently sappy on a finish that’s bold and long, though not without succulence of red fruits and so much energy. It’s superb."
97 Points
The Wine Advocate review by Erin Larkin
“…The wine here is silky and seamless, packed with tannin, flavor and perfume. "I didn't make it any differently [than the other Grenaches]; I've just let the vineyard sing," he said. And sing, it does. This is a wholly complex, complete and persistently long wine. There are notes of Boscobel rose, sweet licorice, graphite, ironstone and tobacco. What a wine. In terms of character, this combines the texture and complexity of the Smart vineyard and the ethereal spice and delicacy of the Little Branch and then raises the bar of both to a whole new level. The release of this Sunrise Grenache marks the arrival of an "of-leash Pannell"; he has been tirelessly championing premium Grenache from McLaren Vale for years in his own oeuvre of structure, shape, tannin and freshness. The acquisition of this vineyard site has given him all the permission he needed, it seems. In many ways, it feels as if all of the Grenache that Pannell has made over the decades has been leading up to this point. It was worth the wait. And there are great things to come in future releases too.”
100 Points
The Wine Companion review by Marcus Ellis
Published on 30 October 2025
"From the Little Branch Vineyard in Blewitt Springs, this block of centenarian bush vines is warmed by the morning sun, with this their 99th vintage, though the first under Pannell ownership. Damn, this is a thing! You can look at the winemaking – destemmed, raised in a decade-old vat – to find why it is so different to other wines off this site, or to those from similarly sandy soils in the district, but you won’t find an answer. And nor should you. Primacy of place. It’s the thing. Nothing new, perhaps. But when it booms from the glass, makes you pause, sits you down in hushed silence... Well, that’s a thing. This does that. It’s impossibly deep and moody, intense, yet also not, with all the fragrant delicacy and detail of the great grenaches of today. Dehydrated cherry/cranberry, black cherry, ground dried orange peel, warm terracotta, sun-faded rose, bergamot tea, struck iron, heady Moorish spices. Barolo resonances. But individual. Utterly so. Tannins silty, chewy, complex, emphatic but not dogged. Another great Vale grenache. Top Tier. Bravo."
98 Points
Suckling.com review
“Bold and deeply brooding aromas of blackberries, dark cherries, plums, blackcurrants, rose petals and pencil shavings. The palate is medium-bodied with firm yet refined tannins, bright acidity and a high-tension mouthfeel. There is a lovely savory edge to this wine, finishing with a plush, rounded texture.”
96 Points
Australian Financial Review by Max Allen
Top 20 Drinks of 2025
"In 2021, winemaker Steve Pannell bought a block of grenache vines in the prized Blewitt Springs subregion of McLaren Vale. At the heart of the block are some century-old, dry-grown vines; this is the first release of a special wine made from them. It’s one of the greatest red wines I tried all year: deep, brooding colour, sensational fruit intensity – kirsch, and rhubarb compote, layers of flavour swirling, driven by pulses of fine-grained tannin. Charming, profound, disarming, delicious.”
(Image: Stephen Pannell - S.C. Pannell | www.pannell.com.au)