How much Hill of Grace and Mount Edelstone would you grab for $3.70 and $3.00 respectively? Yet they’re the prices offered for the 1977 vintages of these wines in the 1980 Henschke newsletter. Sixteen years later the current Mount Edelstone requires $36 per bottle, while Hill of Grace is calling for telephone numbers. Now that his wines are fetching first-growth prices at auction, Stephen Henschke is conscious of treading cautiously over the pricing of forthcoming releases. ‘The relationship between price and perception of quality has to be well balanced’, he says. ‘Our wines must not be too cheap or too expensive. We’re always very concerned about the long-term Henschke supporters, some of whom will be upset with significant price increases.’ Henschke is confident that the retail prices for his premium wines, which have increased to reflect the auction trends and their spiralling global demand, reflect an improvement in quality. ‘You can’t keep giving it away’, he says. ‘How can you invest in a winery in terms of research and development, in vineyards and in improved trellises, in new oak and wine technology to improve your wines unless you do capitalise on it?’ Winemakers need every incentive to invest in quality, so what’s wrong with higher prices? I don’t see too many flaunting new cars and beach houses; what they earn through higher margins they habitually re-invest. The bargain in the Henschke red stable remains the merlot-dominant Abbot’s Prayer, whose creation almost exactly parallels the Cyril Henschke Cabernet Sauvignon, darling of the show circuit in 1996. ‘They result from the same sort of viticultural research and yield restrictions to get the best possible fruit. In terms of effort and new oak, they’re rated equal, although the Cyril has taken the limelight’, says Henschke. ‘Over the long term the Abbot’s Prayer has huge potential; merlot and the Adelaide Hills are a dream together. It’s a merlot area, not a cabernet area. The cabernets are too green and sappy, while merlot has wonderful flavour and structure.’ Today the Abbot’s Prayer retails around $36, the Cyril for $55. Very different wines, the 1993 and 1994 Cyril Henschkes have almost mirrored their spectacular show records. The 1993 (18.7, drink 2005+), has more concentration and power than the finer, more elegant 1994, from which Henschke describes as a picture-book year. The prospects for the 1997 wines? Henschke believes that the Adelaide Hills look very good to date, while conditions have improved in the Barossa and Eden Valleys after two diabolical black frosts in September which badly affected early varieties and old vineyards including Henschke’s vineyards Hill of Grace and Mount Edelstone which lost 50% and 25% respectively. A mild, dry spring after a damp winter has left vineyards looking healthy and disease-free, although some have less fruit to ripen than usual.
