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Take a walk through Swinney’s untrellised Grenache bush vines, and things change about halfway down the block planted in 2004 on the estate’s upper northeast-facing hillside crest. The gravel gets deeper, and there is less clay. “That’s Farvie,” says Rob Mann. This fruit is different, too; it is more ferrous and mineral with fine, velvety tannins and so much complexity. Vines are picked over multiple passes, with only the best bunches from each vine—those sitting in the dappled light of the vine’s architecture—set aside for Farvie.
The bunches are berry sorted, then gravity-fed to French oak for natural fermentation, incorporating 30% bunches. Small bunches and berries in 2023 resulted in fruit of intense colour and concentration, so this year, the wine is 100% Grenache (previous releases have included small amounts of Mourvèdre). The wine spent 11 days on skins before being pressed to large, fine-grained, seasoned French oak vessels, where it matured for 10 months. Rob Mann was happily surprised with the depth of colour in this year’s release: “The bunches were loose, and the berries were small in 2023, so the colour is this amazing deep purple. It’s a freak of a wine,” he told us, “but a very exciting one.”