Three Ancient Grapes, One Remarkable Wine
How Rahona’s Scarlett 2023 draws on 10,000 years of winemaking history — and lands on the Mornington Peninsula
There’s a question worth asking the next time you open a bottle of wine: how old is the grape in your glass?
Not the vintage. Not the vine. The variety itself.
For most of the wines we reach for on any given evening, the answer is surprising. Cabernet Sauvignon, the world’s most planted red grape, is a relative newcomer — a spontaneous crossing that occurred somewhere in 17th century Bordeaux. Pinotage, South Africa’s signature variety, was bred in a university laboratory in 1925. Even Müller-Thurgau, once Germany’s most planted white grape, was created by a Swiss botanist in 1882.
But then there are the ancients. Grapes so old that their origins dissolve into prehistory — varieties that were being fermented into wine long before Rome was founded, before the pyramids were built, before written language existed in most of the world.
Rahona’s Scarlett 2023 is made from three of them.
Georgia, Spain, and Burgundy Walk Into a Vineyard
The blend reads simply on paper: 44% Tempranillo, 34% Pinot Noir, 22% Saperavi. But look closer and you’re holding something quietly extraordinary — a wine assembled from grapes whose collective history spans roughly ten millennia.
Saperavi is the elder statesman. Native to the Kakheti region of Georgia, archaeologists trace its origins back approximately 8,000 years, placing it at the very dawn of human winemaking. Georgia is widely regarded as the birthplace of wine itself, and Saperavi — whose name means to dye or to paint in Georgian, a reference to its rare red-fleshed pulp — was almost certainly among the first grapes pressed into clay qvevri buried in the earth. It is one of the oldest cultivated plants still producing wine today.
Pinot Noir comes from Burgundy and has a remarkably long history. It’s genetically very close to the wild vines that grew across Europe before farming, and Roman writers were already describing a grape like it growing in France in the first century AD. Most strikingly, DNA from grape seeds found in a 15th century French hospital matched modern Pinot Noir exactly — meaning the grape has stayed virtually unchanged for over 600 years.
Tempranillo completes the trinity, carrying the story of Iberian viticulture that stretches back over a millennium. Spain’s most planted red grape, a natural cross between two ancient varieties, it was being cultivated by the Phoenicians and later championed by medieval monastic orders. Its name — from temprano, meaning early — speaks to its nature as much as its age.
Three continents of origin. Three distinct winemaking traditions. All converging on a single hillside on the Mornington Peninsula.
The Wine Itself
The 2023 Scarlett is crafted with a winemaker’s instinct for restraint and balance rather than spectacle.
All fruit was hand-picked. The Tempranillo and Saperavi were fully destemmed, while approximately half of the Pinot Noir was included as whole bunches in the ferment — a classical Burgundian technique that builds aromatic lift and structural complexity without heaviness. Fermentation took place in stainless steel, preserving the freshness and fruit expression that defines this wine’s character. After fermentation, the wine was basket pressed to seasoned French oak barriques, where malolactic fermentation completed slowly, allowing the three components to find each other and soften before bottling.
Only 700 bottles were produced.
Appearance: Bright red with deep purple hues — that vivid colour the Saperavi, with its extraordinary pigmented flesh, cannot help but contribute.
Nose: Aromas of cherry, strawberry, cola, and a lift of alpine herbs.
Palate: Juicy and lively, light to medium-bodied but full of character, moving through plums and red candied fruit before finishing with a pleasantly refreshing twist.
Best enjoyed with: Tapas, charcuterie, or BBQ. As something different – try it slightly chilled on a warm day — this is a red wine that genuinely rewards a brief stint in the fridge.
Why Ancient Grapes Matter
There is a tendency in the wine world to chase novelty — new regions, new techniques, new varieties bred for disease resistance or climate resilience. And those innovations matter. But there is also something deeply compelling about a wine that turns in the opposite direction, toward varieties so ancient they predate the concept of viticulture as we understand it.
Saperavi was being fermented into wine before the wheel was invented. Pinot Noir was already ancient when the first Burgundian monks began mapping their vineyards in the 8th century. Tempranillo was travelling the trade routes of medieval Iberia long before anyone thought to write it down.
Scarlett doesn’t wear this history as a marketing badge. The wine earns it — in the vibrancy of its colour, the layered complexity of its aromas, and the way three seemingly disparate grapes from three corners of the world have found a common voice on a cool-climate peninsula in southern Victoria.
Some wines tell you where they come from. Scarlett tells you when.
Rahona Scarlett 2023 — Mornington Peninsula. 700 bottles produced. rahona.com.au
