Grenache is a red grape variety. It is believed to have originated in Spain at first. In Australia, this grape is grown in famous wine regions of Riverland, Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek and Clare Valley. The first two regions take up as much as 60% of the total growing area for this grape. Grenache grape is grown in 1.51 thousand hectares of land area within these regions. This is just more than 1 percent of the total vineyards area of Australia. The acreage under this grape has seen a constant decline since 2001. The peak area under cultivation for this grape was 2.5 thousand hectares in 2002. The decline is attributed to many reasons, chief among these being the fact that growers give preference to other varieties.
Grenache is one of the grape in popular wine blend of GSM wines. The other two being Shiraz and Mourvedre. Shiraz is undoubtedly the most important wine grape variety in Australia. It is grown in the largest area in Australia. However, Mourvedre wine grape is rather insignificant, growing in only 750 hectares of land area. Mourvedre is also called Mataro or Monastrell and is believed to have originated from Spain. The following chart summarises the relative positions of these grape varieties in Australian context:
| Variety | Area (in ‘000 hectares) | Tonnes (in ‘000 ) |
| Grenache | 1.51 | 13.0 |
| Shiraz | 39.89 | 395.0 |
| Mourvedre | 0.75 | 7.4 |
In the making of the blended GSM wines, these three varieties are mixed in different proportions. Grenache or Mourvedre are rarely produced as single varietal wines, but Shiraz is very popular as a single varietal wine.
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