Bulman

MARK BULMAN LOVES MAKING GRENACHE

Drawing on this love, and wide experience from different facets of the industry, he has received accolades achieved by very few other winemakers.

His philosophy on winemaking is simple: make delicious wine; wine that will be easily enjoyed; wine that will make you and those around you happy.

But a detailed subtext sits below this simple statement, as he focuses on making wines that speak clearly, but uniquely, from the place that they were grown. He sees things in sites that others have missed, and manages to make these differences sing. He calls the Barossa Valley home, but deep down wishes he was a native to Gigondas in the Southern Rhone.

2026 [GRENACHE] ROSE

‘Mark Bulman is a dead set genius when it comes to making rosé.’ Gary Walsh, The Wine Front, June 2026.

After making Rosé for others in the Barossa Valley for over 15 years, Mark chose his 2 favourite 100+ year old vineyards to make his Rosé, both in excess of 100 years old. Both sit on deeper richer more fertile soil. I find this suits Rose production, where you want high aromatics and low colour (the opposite of dry red Grenache making).

Hand picked. Run straight through the press, cold settled with cold fermentation. Purity of fruit and aromatics the aim. I push ferments to dryness, with final sugar sitting just above 2g/L. The difference for my Rose from others is I use a percentage of Pinot Gris fermented on skins each year for phenolic detail and a twist in the aromas (think ginger and fennel). The percentage changes with vintage but usually sits between 4 and 14%, with the 2026 sitting at 6%.

The reason for using Pinot Gris is that it has a tannin profile that sits in the middle of the tongue, much like a lot of red varieties but without the colour. This holds the palate together, controls the cloying nature of the fruit, dries out the mouth and makes you want to go back for more. It also makes the wine a lot better with food. I tried a lot of white varieties on skins before finding Pinot Gris, but all the others just broadened the back palate making the wine more flabby rather than adding definition. The end result should be a very aromatic dry rose, with a purity of fruit held together by phenolic detail.

A Rosé that is easy to get along with yet nuanced with texture and aromatic detail.

Review for 2025 Vintage:
‘There’s not much more you could ask for in a classically styled rosé – from the brilliant rose gold hue, the lifted aromatics, textural slosh of the palate and crisply vibrant and pithily detailed conclusion, with rose and orange blossom scents and good-time feelings trailing oh-so long. The vintage has gifted depth and intensity without overt weight. It’s complex, too. Pink grapefruit, musk, rosy florals, cinnamon, fresh pomegranate, watermelon, cut fennel and blood orange all feature in a headily lifted expression that is a pure joy to drink. It’s full throttle but deliciously so. Yes, I say! Drink 2025-2028.’ 95 points and Red Star for Value, Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion, July 2025.

2025 GARY’S VINEYARD GRENACHE

Springs Hill Vineyard established in 1974 with the Grenache planted in 2007.

Ironstone conglomerate mixed with sand and gravel over mottled orange yellow clay at various depths. Part of the North Maslin Sand formation. 200m Altitude. Sitting on a ridge above and benefitting from the orographic lift of McLaren Vale. Facing North on a gentle slope above the Onkaparinga Gorge. Dry grown. Skye Salter, Charlie Seppelt and Gary Whaite grew the Grenache for the 2025 Vintage.

2025 Gary's Vineyard Grenache - Picked 14/2/2025. 14% Whole Bunch. 21 Days on skins pre-ferment, 32 day ferment, 38 days on skins post ferment. 172 days in a sandstone amphora.

The 2025 vintage was very dry and warm. Blewitt Springs proximity to the ocean saved it from the worst of the Spring frosts and dry heat that were prevalent during the 2025 South Australian growing season. The resultant wine is fresh and lively for the vintage, the layered tannin for which this vineyard is known is ever present.

Gary used a sledgehammer and pick to break the conglomerate that runs through the vineyard whilst planting the Grenache. The label is of a broken piece of ironstone conglomerate gathered from the vineyard. The broken face of the rock shows reflective fragments within the rock combined with the milky way.  Subtly embossed on the label is an image of Gary holding the sledgehammer looking simultaneously into the rock and sky at once.

‘Springs Hill vineyard; 14% whole bunch, with 91 days on skins, then 172 days in a sandstone amphora. Pale in the glass, and typically spicy on the nose. Dehydrated orange and clove, dried cherry and cranberry, rosehip, coriander seed, cardamom, cassia. Tannin’s quite a thing, as with its sibling (Glen’s Vineyard), but here the sandy, silty grenache grip is dialled up even more, structuring, of course, but lengthening the palate and giving this irresistible savoury energy, enveloping but not occluding fruit. Mark Bulman pours all his considerable gifts into making the wines that he wants to drink. No bending to a market here, and you can feel every bit of that passion in the glass. Brilliant, again.. Drink 2026-2035.’ 97 points and Red Star for Value, Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion, August 2026.

‘I stood near this wine for a couple of hours. I smelled it. I didn’t taste it. When I finally did, I swore out loud. My daughter popped her head out of her room and asked, Are you OK dad? This Bulman is the shit, I said. She said, What? I said, I’ll tell you later.

I shouldn’t say this but it comes to pass that I taste the new Bulman releases, each year, somewhere in the vicinity of the time when I taste the new Penfolds releases. There are only two Bulman grenache wines released and there are roughly 503 Penfolds wines released, so the two tastings aren’t comparative. And yet the juncture of these tastings is always such an interesting moment in my mind. I love Penfolds, I shouldn’t but I do. But when I taste the wines of Bulman and others like it I wonder why I bother with the corporate stuff at all. Every wine industry needs a hinterland and the Bulman wines and those like it are that hinterland. They are what wine love springs from. Bulman exists up river, right up near the source.

This wine saw whole bunches, but only 14% of them. It spent 21 days on skins pre-ferment, 32 days in ferment, and 38 days on skins post ferment. It then cubby-housed away for 172 days in a sandstone amphora. It was grown on the Springs Hill Vineyard, established 1974. Skye Salter, Charlie Seppelt and Gary Whaite tended the vineyard through the 2025 growing days.

This wine is insanely good. Not only is it transfixing, but there’s a logic and an explain to the transfix. It’s a web-like wine with such genuine translucence that drinking it is like looking at a bare mid-riff uninterrupted. It drives red berries into orange blossoms, stones into black tea, woody spice into a marriage of red roses. The colour of this wine is more art-house than Hollywood; it’s light and delicate, like fragility in red. What made me swear though, out loud, was the tannin. The tannin here is like an argument where everyone is in furious agreement. This wine exists on the edge of tension, in the space where joy peeps above heartache. It’s sure. It takes your hand. It comforts and it holds. If you took a dress and cut it back to a skirt and trailed it through dirt and berries and dew, you’d have this wine, or the idea of it. It’s light. And it’s shockingly good. Diam closure. 13.9 % alc/vol.’ 97 points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front, June 2026.

2025 GLEN’S VINEYARD GRENACHE

Stonegarden Vineyard established in 1857.

Vineyard established in 1857. Thin loam over a substrate of red-brown clay covering sandstone with gold bearing quartz veins. Micaceous schist fragments scattered throughout. 390m Altitude. In the rain shadow of the Mount Lofty ranges on a plateau looking easterly over the Murray Mallee. Wayne Boughdill grew the Grenache for the 2025 Vintage.

2025 Glen’s Vineyard Grenache – Picked on 5/3/25. 6% whole bunch. 10 Days on skins pre-ferment,18 day ferment, 37 days on skins post ferment. 172 days in a sandstone amphora.

The 2025 vintage was very dry and warm. A spring frost delayed vintage and reduced yield. The resultant wine has a strong core of fruit. The challenge of the vintage was to supress early opulent flavours and reserve them for a slow release over time. I feel I have done this.

Built by quarrying into the hill and using the extracted rocks to build its walls, the original Stonegarden Winery sits proudly on the vineyard to this day. One small segment of wall within the winery has not been rendered and remains exposed. Over the winter a damp creeps into the wall and a small garden of maidenhair fern grow from the rock, creating a ‘stone garden’.  The label shows a silhouette of a maidenhair fern sitting within subtly embossed rocks from the stone wall.

‘Stonegarden vineyard; 6% whole bunch, 65 days on skins, 172 days in a sandstone amphora. That time on skins adds a savoury layer, yet the fruit swells a little more generously in this warmer, drier year. Yet that’s academic. Here we are again; a dazzling wine of such precision, subtle detail, sense of place and serene balance, with no rough edges and no intrusions. Fruit and place through the Bulman lens. Red fruited, floral, layered with spice, fruitful yet never fruity, so refined, tannins an intricate etching. If you’re not across it, there’s nothing quite like proper grenache tannin. Come try this, experience the glory. This is grand cru Barossa grenache, no question. Drink 2026-2035.’ 97+ points and Red Star for Value, Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion, August 2026.

‘I opened both the new Bulman 2025 releases and did a quick assessment of both, just by smelling and swirling, no tasting. The Gary’s Vineyard release wins by a nose, so to speak, in that it’s so very expressive aromatically. When I came back maybe 90-120 minutes later and actually tasted them, I was surprised by the amount of expression on the Glen’s Vineyard – Eden Valley – release. That’s the one I’m focussing on here. In a very short period of time these wines have come to be a celebration of the vintage and of their region, I would argue. I also like the fact the winemaker Mark Bulman takes care of his loyal customers first, and goes to the media and the wider world second. On the subject of the former, they come from far and wide to attend the Bulman release dinner, held in the Barossa. If I had a bucket list, the Bulman release dinner would be on it.

Stonegarden Vineyard. Established 1857. Tended by Wayne Boughdill. 6% whole bunch.

I’m a sucker for a great grenache and this is a great grenache. As soon as I tasted it I could feel a river of Eden Valley schist rolling through my brain. This wine spent six months in a sandstone amphora and the purity of the fruit and the glimmer of mineral is strong. This wine tastes as though a sword has been pulled from a stone and then plunged deep into an ocean of red berries. I want to ride with it into battle or through to dawn or whatever comes last. There’s a crush of roasted spice notes mashed into the wine, a blackened billy full of metal and berries and licorice, a sense that oxygen is scare, a sense that that the wine is sucking in on itself in order to make it all last. It’s mid weight in Grenache terms, which is light-ish to the wider world. Mid or light matters not. Everything in this wine stays around and presses in until you’re convinced. The tannin is fine and gritty and grapey and ground. Some wines you taste. Some wines you sink into. This wine, I fell in behind. I am biased towards Blewitt Springs and to McLaren Vale. But this Eden Valley wine, and those which have preceded it, have forged me into a Glen’s Vineyard animal. Drink 2027-2036+. Diam closure. 13.9 % alc/vol.’ 96 points, Campell Mattinson, The Wine Front, June 2026.