PAX ÆTERNA* {Eternal Peace} Single vineyard old (survivor) vine Grenache. Nouveau style with 30% whole bunch. This is bare Barossa beauty. Our friend Kevin Schild, is the custodian of these gnarly 87 year-old vines on a beautiful site in Vine Vale/Light Pass, Northern Barossa (GPS coords: 34° 29'07" S 139° 00'57"). Unfined & unfiltered. Only 333 dozen made.
Winemakers: Daniel Chaffey Hartwig, Theo Engela + Huon Fechner
Varietal: Grenache
Region: Barossa Valley
Country: Australia
Alc/Vol: 13.8%
pH: 3.7
Acidity: 4.8
2020
91pts "A bold, rich, raspberry-fruited style that has round and easygoing, fleshy texture. The palate has generous raspberries and red plums. Approachable and easygoing. Drink now. Screw cap." - James Suckling Reviews
2019
92pts "Bright raspberries and some florals here with a fresh, intense impression on the nose, leading to a ripe, supple palate that has plenty of ripe, smooth, raspberry and red-plum flavor. Fresh, flavorful and fun style." - James Suckling Reviews
90pts "Old vine grenache. 27% whole bunches. Fresh and free-flowing. Emphasis on raspberry/redcurrant flavour with earthen spice and clove whispered through. Light on its feet. Delicious to drink." - The Wine Front
91pts "Medium to light purple/red colour, with a youthful, slightly sweaty and somewhat raw strawberry, raspberry aroma. The wine is medium-bodied and easy on the palate, rich and gentle and finishing with some firmness. A very pleasant wine for what it is: a lighter-weighted, balanced, fruit-forward red for earlier drinking. The light colour is deceptive. There's a hint of carbonic maceration and this confers a passing resemblance to Beaujolais. Delicious." Huon Hooke, The Real Review
2018
"Light and fresh, strawberry, floral, spicy, slightly smoky and reductive. Fine and red fruited, soft but balanced acidity, tastes (and feels) like whole bunch spice here, with subtle stickiness, light emery tannin, and a savory finish, which is tasty, though not especially long. Stylish." - Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
2017
90/100 "83yo vines from the Kevin Schild Vineyard at Light Pass, fermented with 33% whole bunches. Light and bright to the point of rose; strawberry/raspberry/red cherry flavours and the barest hint of tannins. I suspect it didn't meet up with any form of oak during its vinification." - James Halliday, Halliday
92pts "Perfumed and pretty to kick off - then the meat on bones. It's a plush grenache, a little more meat on bones, but has a savoury lick and a freshness underlying that assists drinkability. Feels like quality from the get go. Great drink" - Mike Bennie, WBM
92pts "Grown by Kevin Schild at Light Pass in the northern Barossa. 33% whole bunches. Unfined and unfiltered. Cloudy in a good way. Freeflowing and tense at once. An unfettered wine, free in its expression, ripped with spice and cranberry, anise and general woody spices. There’s a gentle twigginess here but it washes straight through. Energy. Crunch. Almost crisp. The red wine equivalent of frost. Have to admire it." - Campbell Mattison, The Wine Front
"Chaffey Bros Wine Co Pax Aeterna Old Vine Barossa Nouveau, Australia 2017 (£17.95, Great Western Wine) I’m not always one for choosing wine by grape variety on its own. More usually it’s the region and producer that come first in my decision-making hierarchy. But one variety I do keep coming back to at the moment is grenache. That might be because I’m making up for lost time: I wasn’t always in love with grenache, made as a single-variety (it was different when it was blended, as it often is in southern France, with syrah and others). It could be a little bit too liberal with its natural assets, those great gushing geysers of soft-tannined, dark ripe berry fruit and alcohol. These days, however, you’re as likely to find grenache in more gentle mode: still soft, but pale, refreshing – even, on occasion elegant, and certainly, in the case of Chaffey Bros’s supple, spicy, young vine from old vines, refreshing." - David William, The Guardian
"Grenache is the thing right now, and this wine takes it to another level of generational change in thinking and style... The style is far out to the youthful side of the Grenache spectrum yet still retains good tension, flavour and structure - and it's bloody delicious" - Tony Love
2016
Adelaide Review's Hot 100 Wines "Beautifully lithe and supple. Finely framed, poised and precise."
93pts "Bang on. Both fresh and characterful. Not at all overdone – indeed it’s only light- to medium-weight – and yet there’s enough power to the fruit to make an impression. It’s made to be fresh and accessible and yet it pays homage to the age of the vines; it lets tension in through the front door. Sand, red and black cherry, graphite, cloves and rusty dry spices. A leathery, licoricey kick to the finish. Just enough tannin. Poise, presentation, the lot." Campbell Mattison, The Wine Front
93/100 "Of all things, a nouveau-style made from 82yo vines with 25% whole bunches in the fermentation, so it adds up to a light, bright, juicy and youthful drink, yet distinctive. Sweet raspberry and red licorice, woodsy spices with lightweight tannins and hits the right note." - Jane Faulkner, Halliday
