In a very short space of time, Stephen Pannell has gone from being one of Australia’s best and brightest young talents to one of their most lauded winemakers.
He is a two-time winner of the fabled Jimmy Watson Trophy, the most prestigious wine award in Australia, and has won the top prize at the Alternative Varietals Wine Show numerous times. Stephen moved into his own McLaren Vale winery in 2014 and now owns 36 hectares of vineyard. This control over his fruit has enabled him to take quality to an even higher level.
One of the key factors behind his success is the freshness in all his wines, something he achieves by picking earlier. “I can only pick early due to better viticulture”, he says. He is looking for a varietal ‘stamp’ rather than ‘varietal character’, causing him to create blends such as the Grenache/Shiraz/Touriga, where the sum is greater than the parts. Because of this fresher ‘stamp’, he is also actively reducing oak influence in his wines by moving to larger, more neutral oak vessels.
It is difficult to pick out just one star among his wines. The early release ‘Basso’ Garnacha is unfiltered, with low sulphur, for drinking in its youth. The Grenache/Shiraz/Touriga has brilliant colour and is fresh and lifted on the nose with soft, supple tannins on the palate. When asked about the Tempranillo/Touriga blend, Stephen explains, “the more I work with Touriga, the bigger a part of this blend it becomes.
The ‘Dead End’ Tempranillo is perfumed and juicy with well-integrated tannins, backing up Stephen’s belief that Iberian grape varieties are ideally suited to McLaren Vale. ‘The Vale’ is an old-vine Grenache/Shiraz blend made from over 70-year-old vines, with rich black fruits on the palate and a silky texture. Like all of Stephen’s wines, the ‘Field Street’ Shiraz is made with minimal intervention and therefore faithfully expresses the purity and breadth of McLaren Vale Shiraz. The ‘FiFi’ Fiano, named after Stephen’s wife, is as exciting as it is delicious. It has a beautiful textural quality, with aromas and flavours of white nectarine, pink grapefruit, lemongrass and honeysuckle.
In 2021, Stephen and Fiona purchased the nine-hectare `Little Branch` vineyard in Blewitt Springs, planted with 30-year-old unirrigated vines at an elevation of 140 metres. Defined by superb concentration, vibrant fruit and lifted floral aromatics, the `Little Branch` Grenache is a beautiful counterpoint to the powerful, structured, juicy dark fruits and savoury character of the ‘Old McDonald’ McLaren Vale Grenache from Blewitt Springs. Both wines show Grenache’s great potential for site expression in McLaren Vale and, says Stephen, “its place in the line-up of the world’s great varietal wines.”
Stephen's newest wine, ‘Sunrise 99’, is made from Block 5 of the `Little Branch` vineyard, also known as the Sunrise block due to its east-facing aspect. The maiden vintage, 2022, received a perfect 100-point score from The Wine Advocate, with Erin Larkin commenting that “the release of this Sunrise Grenache marks the arrival of an 'off-leash Pannell'...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.”