Halliday Top 100: The Story of Yangarra’s 2024 Roux Beauté Roussanne
Some white wines are defined by fruit. Others by freshness. Roux Beauté Roussanne is a wine built around texture.
From a single one-hectare block of mature Roussanne at Yangarra Estate Vineyard in Blewitt Springs, McLaren Vale, Roux Beauté combines richness and generosity with savoury detail, freshness and finely structured phenolics.
The 2024 Yangarra Roux Beauté Roussanne has been selected for the Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wines 2026, following a 97+ point review from Halliday Wine Companion critic Marcus Ellis.
For a variety that remains relatively unfamiliar to many Australian wine drinkers, the recognition is another significant chapter in Yangarra’s exploration of Roussanne and Rhône varieties in McLaren Vale.
Discover the 2024 Roux Beauté Roussanne
What is Roux Beauté Roussanne?
Roux Beauté is Yangarra’s single-block expression of 100% Roussanne, grown on our certified organic and biodynamic estate in Blewitt Springs, at the northern edge of McLaren Vale.
The fruit comes from Block 6, a one-hectare parcel at 175 metres above sea level. The vines were planted in 1999 and grafted to Roussanne in 2003, making this Yangarra’s oldest Roussanne planting.
The site is defined by weathered sands mixed with ironstone gravels, underlain by the ancient North Maslin Sands geology, approximately 54 million years old.
From these mature vines, Roux Beauté has developed into a wine centred on depth, texture, savoury complexity and freshness. Yangarra describes the wine as one in which months on grape skins in ceramic eggs create luxurious texture and distinctive flavour.
Roussanne itself originates in France’s Rhône Valley. The Australian Wine Research Institute describes the variety as naturally textural, generally medium to full bodied, with characteristics that can include peach, quince, lime peel and savoury notes. In Australia it remains much less established than mainstream white varieties. AWRI
Yangarra’s journey with Roussanne began in 2003, part of a broader exploration of varieties traditionally associated with the Rhône. Australian Wine
Why is the 2024 Roux Beauté a Halliday Top 100 wine?
Halliday Wine Companion critic Marcus Ellis awarded the 2024 Roux Beauté 97+ points, finding a wine with both fruit depth and mineral character, supported by pronounced texture.
His review highlights orchard fruits, green almond, sage, quince, green tea, spice and dried citrus before describing the wine as a “treasure trove for texture seekers.” Acclaim
Its selection in the Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wines 2026 continues a strong history for Roux Beauté. The 2022 vintage was also selected for Halliday’s Top 100 Wines of 2024, receiving 97 points. Yangarra Estate Vineyard
It is recognition not simply of an unusual grape variety, but of the evolution of a wine that has become increasingly distinctive within Australian white wine.
Halliday Wine Companion has previously described Yangarra’s interpretations of Roussanne as being among Australia’s leading examples, with Roux Beauté particularly recognised for its combination of texture, power and precision. Wine Companion
What makes Block 6 at Yangarra unique?
Roux Beauté begins with a very small piece of the Yangarra Estate.
Block 6 is just one hectare, planted on weathered sandy soils mixed with ironstone gravels at approximately 175 metres elevation in Blewitt Springs.
The mature vines provide the concentration required for Roux Beauté, while the objective in the vineyard is not simply ripeness. Maintaining vine balance and natural freshness is equally important.
The 2024 vintage was farmed under then-viticulturist Michael Lane and the Yangarra vineyard team. Today, Yangarra Vineyard Manager Cliff Wickman continues that work, with the mature Roussanne block providing an opportunity to better understand how the variety responds to the soils, elevation and growing conditions of this part of McLaren Vale.
For Cliff, the next chapter is as much about the future as the past: how Roussanne develops with vine age, how the variety performs within the region and how thoughtful farming can continue to build flavour and balance.
That is an important part of the Roux Beauté story. The wine is not an isolated winemaking experiment. It starts with a specific variety responding to a specific piece of the Yangarra vineyard.
What was the 2024 growing season like?
The 2024 season began with a normal wet winter followed by a dry spring.
Weather patterns initially pointed towards a shift from La Niña to El Niño and the likelihood of warmer and drier conditions. Instead, unexpected rainfall through December and January encouraged larger bunches and consistent berry development.
Warm conditions returned through February and early March, promoting flavour and sugar development before an intense period of harvest across the estate.
The Roussanne for Roux Beauté was hand-picked from Block 6 on 12 March 2024. Yangarra Estate Vineyard
Senior Winemaker Shelley Torresan sees the finished wine as a reflection of the team's response to that season:
“Despite an unusual growing season, patience and attention to detail in both the vineyard and winery delivered a wine with remarkable balance, generosity and site expression.”
That balance is particularly important with Roussanne. The variety can naturally deliver richness and body, but Roux Beauté seeks to retain energy and precision alongside that generosity.
How is Roux Beauté Roussanne made?
This is where Roux Beauté becomes particularly distinctive.
The idea behind the wine developed through experimentation with ceramic eggs and extended skin contact. An early Roux Beauté trial in 2013 compared Roussanne fermented on skins in a 675-litre ceramic egg with a parcel fermented without skin contact. It became the foundation of an approach designed to use Roussanne’s natural phenolic material to create greater texture and structure. Wine Companion
For the 2024 Roux Beauté, part of the hand-picked fruit was destemmed and crushed into ceramic eggs.
Sixty-six per cent of the final blend was fermented on skins and remained on skins for approximately four months. At pressing, only the free-draining portion was retained.
The remaining fruit was whole-bunch basket pressed into ceramic and fermented without skins.
The components were then blended and matured exclusively in ceramic eggs for a total maturation period of seven months, before bottling in November 2024. Yangarra Estate Vineyard
There is no oak maturation competing with the fruit. The emphasis is on the interaction between Roussanne, skins, time and ceramic.
Head Winemaker Guillaume Camougrand describes the intention:
“Extended skin contact and maturation in ceramic eggs allowed us to build texture and complexity while preserving the wine’s natural energy and sense of place.”
And ultimately, the goal is one of balance:
“Our aim with Roux Beauté is to capture the richness for which Roussanne is known while maintaining freshness and precision. The 2024 vintage achieves that balance beautifully.”
Why use ceramic eggs and extended skin contact?
Skin contact is not used simply to make Roux Beauté unconventional.
Grape skins contain tannins and other phenolic compounds that can change the structure, texture and flavour of a white wine. Here, extended maceration gives the wine additional grip and shape, while careful selection of the free-draining portion helps manage that extraction.
Ceramic provides a neutral maturation vessel, allowing texture and development without adding the flavour of oak.
The result is a wine that can be rich without being heavy, structured without becoming hard, and textural while retaining freshness.
That character is becoming a recognisable thread through successive vintages of Roux Beauté.
What does Roux Beauté Roussanne taste like?
The defining characteristic is texture.
The 2024 combines orchard and stone fruits with more savoury characters, herbs, nuts, citrus and spice. Its generosity is supported by acidity and a gently gripping phenolic structure that carries the wine through the palate.
That character has been consistently recognised by critics.
Alongside Marcus Ellis’ 97+ points from Halliday Wine Companion, the 2024 received 96 points from Erin Larkin for Robert Parker Wine Advocate, who highlighted its concentration, freshness and tightly wound phenolics and gave it a drinking window extending to 2039. Yangarra Estate Vineyard
QWine Reviews awarded 96 points, noting how the wine continued to unfold over several days and praising its silky texture, stone fruit, nutty complexity and composure. QWineReviews
Winepilot’s Ray Jordan awarded 95 points, finding that the combination of skin fermentation, whole-bunch basket pressing and ceramic maturation captured Roussanne’s plush texture while maintaining balance. Winepilot.com
Shanteh Wale also awarded 95 points, describing Roux Beauté as a benchmark expression of Roussanne and highlighting its melon, baked apple, honeysuckle, honeycomb and citrus characters. Winepilot.com
The consistency between those assessments is important. Roux Beauté is not simply defined by its method. It is increasingly recognised for the way that technique translates into texture, balance, varietal character and longevity.
What should you eat with Roux Beauté Roussanne?
Think Mediterranean long lunch.
Our pairing for Roux Beauté is roast chicken with lemon, fennel and thyme.
The richness of the roast chicken meets the wine’s weight and texture, while lemon and fresh herbs complement its citrus, floral and savoury characters. Fennel works naturally alongside the herbal edge of Roussanne, while the wine’s freshness and phenolic structure keep the pairing lively.
It is generous food without unnecessary complication, which is exactly where Roux Beauté feels most at home.
A distinctive expression of Roussanne from Blewitt Springs
Roux Beauté begins with an uncommon white grape, but the story has become much bigger than the variety itself.
It is the story of one hectare of mature vines in Blewitt Springs, weathered sand and ironstone, organic and biodynamic farming, extended skin contact and maturation in ceramic.
For Shelley Torresan and Guillaume Camougrand, it is about finding the point where richness meets freshness, and texture meets precision.
For Cliff Wickman and the vineyard team, the story continues in Block 6 as the vines mature and Yangarra continues to learn what Roussanne can express in this part of McLaren Vale.
The inclusion of the 2024 Roux Beauté Roussanne in the Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wines 2026, together with its 97+ point review from Marcus Ellis, is another important recognition of that journey.
And perhaps the best way to understand it remains the simplest: put Roux Beauté on the table, give it some time in the glass, and discover just how distinctive Roussanne can be.
