A disastrous vintage across most winegrowing regions, vintage 1983 was one which most Australian winemakers would rather forget. Wildfires such as the cataclysmic Ash Wednesday, hail, drought and heat, it all happened in 1983. Somehow, the Henschke vineyards, cocooned around the higher Eden Valley ranges, seemed to rise above the adversities of vintage and produce a very fine Hill of Grace. A refined Shiraz wine of judicious background oak and good concentration of articulate, old vine Shiraz characters.
Located four kilometres northwest of the Henschke wineworks, Hill of Grace is planted to a unique part of the Moculta landscape, where gently protected slopes nestle against the rocky Boundary Road ridge to the east. Soils on these slopes are thick, red clay rich loams, overlain by a a foot of fine brown, sandy to silty loams. Near Duck Ponds Creek, there is an additional layer of alluvial silty loams. The distinguished Grandfathers and Post Office Block One, in the western parts of the vineyard, are planted to these very special soils, which have good moisture holding capacity down to over one and a half metres. Segregation of the fruit from picking to assemblage, represents the ultimate in selection of terroir.
