McClay Rd Shiraz
This year's release sees our McClay Rd wines being available on mail order for the first time - a rare opportunity to secure our Shiraz at a bargain price. It is a blend of all our three Shiraz; Warner Vineyard, Estate Vineyard and the joint-venture wine with Chapoutier, into one wine under the McClay Rd label. Thus this release contains all our best Shiraz made into a more ready-drinking style with less time in barrel and lower proportion of new oak. I feel this wine is worthy of your attention and represents great value for money. In the past we have reserved this label for small quantities of "culled barrels" and released it only into the wine trade. This release being of a much larger volume, representing the only Shiraz we have from 2009, we decided to give the mail order the chance to purchase. Even though this wine can be drunk at an earlier stage it still has significant body and will have very good ageing potential.
In addition to the Shiraz we are also offering 2008 McClay Rd Cabernet. I always felt that although this wine was good it didn't seem quite good enough for our normal Giaconda Cabernet label and thus I downgraded it to McClay Rd. I sometimes wonder why I did this as all early tasting reports on this wine have been extremely positive. So to all Cabernet lovers, don't miss out as quantities of this wine are very limited.
Meanwhile, I am totally happy with the 2009 Giaconda Cabernet released here.
You will notice that there is no 2010 Ergo Sum en primeur release. The reason for this being that from now on Ergo Sum will be marketed separately from Giaconda. We made a decision anyway not to do an en primeur release as the quantities of 2010 are still quite small as the vineyard is still being developed, thus no Ergo Sum will be released until next year.
Probably the most exciting news is that we have finally released the 2008 Nebbiolo, which will be bottled after sitting in a large Italian Bota for nearly three years! I will leave it all to Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW of Robert Parkers Wine Advocate and you can read her tasting notes under the release information. This neurotic wine has taught me some new things about grape growing and wine making.
Last but not least come the comments on the 2010 vintage and wines. It came as a great relief to finally have a really model vintage again, beautiful weather conditions have given us some great wines. The Chardonnay represents almost exactly where I like to be with this variety - focused and characterful, highly refined and elegant. All the 2010 wines are the first ones to be totally aged in our new underground cave and their tightness and elegance reflects these great ageing conditions - stable low temperature and high humidity.
The Shirazes are rather European styled, powerful yet ethereal. The Warner Vineyard Shiraz now has an established reputation and I am excited to feel that the Estate Vineyard now with a small Viognier component is rapidly following in it's footsteps with the current release wine.
The Pinot Noir represents the culmination of our Beechworth and Yarra Valley blend, complex and interesting, an Australian with true Burgundian overtones. I feel this wine is much greater than the sum of its two parts.
Early indications are very good for the 2011 vintage as I have not seen such a beautiful cool and wet spring for many years. The vineyard and surrounding countryside is such a picture of health at the moment that along with many other farmers I feel a sense of optimism and happiness.
In a first for us I am pleased to offer with this release, 'Inside Burgundy', a book by Jasper Morris MW. Jasper is a friend and has been the Giaconda agent in the UK for many years, as well as living in and writing about Burgundy.
Regards,
Rick Kinzbrunner
Back to the future for Giaconda's Pinot Noir
30 April 2015A decade or so ago Rick Kinzbrunner was dismayed at the quality of the pinot noir he was producing from his Giaconda vineyard near Beechworth. So dismayed that this figurehead of the Beechworth wine industry actually made several pinots between 2008 and 2012 in which Yarra Valley fruit from the Toolangi Vineyard (for whom he makes its Reserve Chardonnay) was the dominant fraction. This despite the still memorable qualities of estate-grown pinot noir vintages such as 1989, 1991 and 1992, not to mention the first-ever Giaconda wine I tasted, the 1988. I remember this wine as if I tasted it an hour ago. I was with my father, who was equally seduced, and I was immediately convinced Kinzbrunner was a genius.
I’ve just had rather a profound flashback to that very moment, 25 years or so ago. Why? I ripped the top from the 2013 Giaconda Pinot Noir, a wine that is again 100% estate-grown but which is taken from relatively recent plantings at a significantly higher – and therefore cooler – location at the Giaconda site. Here’s a truly stellar pinot noir, but one that talks its site as much as its variety. Having followed the 1989 very closely – and this is the vintage the 2013 most resembles – I speak with genuine confidence that this wine will age superbly, for the long term. It will become more complex and ethereal – which it is already to an extent – and will become firstly more powerful and then more delicate. It will remain elegant and savoury, will retain its effortless natural balance and freshness, and will please many a Burgundian collector, not just because it will age into something more Burgundian than many a Burgundy.
If you have the chance to taste this wine, do so. It has an Old Worldliness and a reserve that takes my breath away. For me it ticks the most important boxes: it’s about the place, the vintage and the maker. And most importantly, no other maker in the world could have created it. I hope Kinzbrunner is as satisfied as I am with his latest creation.
Jeremy Oliver
https://www.jeremyoliver.com