A year of grand consolidation
This year has been one of grand consolidation. I have decided that in the past we have had too many distractions and made too many wines. I now want to concentrate on what we do best. To this end, and I will speak in more detail below, we will no longer make Aeolia Roussanne and Cabernet Sauvignon. The 'Ergo Sum' partnership with M. Chapoutier has also been terminated.
Here at Giaconda we have planted new clones of Pinot Noir in the coolest location on the vineyard and some Nebbiolo on a wonderful new site on the other side of Beechworth at Red Hill. I have come to the conclusion that Nebbiolo probably does not best suit the granitic soils, as we have had such a good result growing it on red shale soils. The new Red Hill site offers a similar soil profile with more elevation. I hold great hopes for Nebbiolo from this site as the vines become established. We are currently aging three vintages of Nebbiolo in the cellar with the 2010 being due for release next year.
Regarding the Aeolia Roussanne, this special wine has never really been recognised by Australian wine writers but has always received spectacular reviews by some of the best International wine critics. With the export market now extremely difficult (due to the high Australian dollar) I have deceided this was the first candidate in our consolidation programme.
Another change has come about with the necessity to pull out a small block of vines from the oldest part of the vineyard, which used to be planted as Cabernet Sauvignon. This was suffering from poor drainage and the gradual ingress of Eutypa dieback. I decided ultimately it would be better to replant a small amount of Chardonnay and the balance of Pinot Noir on this part of the site. I have selected new root-stocks and clones of Pinot Noir that were missing from the previous mix. An increase in the quantity of Estate grown Pinot Noir will gradually allow me to reduce the component of Yarra Valley fruit in the current blend.
Regarding the Ergo Sum break up. We were informed last year by Michel Chapoutier that due to difficulties in Europe with the global financial crisis, his board of directors has ordered a substantial pull out of their Australian investments. Regarding the above mentioned consolidation I was not wholly displeased by this as it allows us to focus back on Giaconda. As a result, a few rows of Cabernet Sauvignon from the warmer (top part) of the vineyard are being grafted over to Shiraz. This will enable a small increase in the production of the Estate Vineyard Shiraz. With increased vine age I feel that the Estate grown Shiraz (which includes a small percentage of Viognier) is now showing the most exciting potential going forward.
2012 continues to build on the success of recent vintages. We seem to be seeing a string of cooler vintages after a long period of drought. The 2012 Chardonnay will be a great follow on from the superb vintages of 2010/11. The 2012 Pinot Noir I feel will probably be the best Pinot that has been made here at Giaconda. This wine (even at this early stage) has great complexity and depth in true Burgundian style. I feel this will develop into a spectacular wine. To cap off a truly excellent all round vintage, both Estate and Warner Vineyard Shirazes are developing great complexity in barrel.
We are not offering any 2011 Warner Vineyard Shiraz in the upcoming November release. A strong En Primeur offer from last year combined with a small vintage and standing export orders mean we don't have any more to offer the mailing list. Note that the 2011 Estate Shiraz will still be made available as we do not export this wine at present.
As a final point to this newsletter I must emphasise the 2011 Estate Vineyard Chardonnay. As a product of a very cool year this wine is absolutely spectacular. In many ways I feel the 2010 is the best and may even surpass the 1996 vintage. However, the 2011 has potential to surpass both! My advice for those who appreciate funky, old world style Burgundies - don't miss out on this one in the up coming November release.
Last but not least, concerning these Chardonnays we are pleased to announce that the 2010 Estate Vineyard Chardonnay has been awarded Jeremy Oliver's 'Wine of the Year' in The Australian Wine Annual 2013.
Regards,
Rick Kinzbrunner
Jeremy Oliver's Wine of the Year - 2012 Estate Vineyard Shiraz!
01 November 2014Australian Wine Annual 2015 - Giaconda Estate Shiraz 2012 (98 points)
Since 1999 Rick Kinzbrunner has been fashioning cutting-edge cool climate Australian shiraz. Fifteen years ago there weren’t too many Victorians making this variety into a style we perhaps more associate with the northern Rhône Valley, but Kinzbrunner has always drawn inspiration from the wines he most enjoys drinking. So until 2008, the only Shiraz from Giaconda was the deliciously perfumed, floral, spicy and savoury Warner Vineyard Shiraz, which has been continually sourced from a sloping, north-facing section of the Warner Vineyard, 6.5 km from Beechworth and located at a marginally cooler, higher site than that of the Giaconda Vineyard itself. For many years I have rated this as a 5-Star wine.
It took a long time for Kinzbrunner to plant shiraz at Giaconda, since for the first decade and a half at his Beechworth site he was more concerned at matching different parcels of the property with chardonnay, pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon. But the consistent quality from the Warner site convinced him that a warmer, north-facing plot at the top of the property was just the place to plant two acres of shiraz, with Hermitage well and truly in his sights. In itself this was a radical but confident decision, because Kinzbrunner initially chose the predominantly south-facing property to reduce the impact of heat on its elevated but still warmish location.
Retarded by the extended drought of the first decade this century, the young shiraz vines struggled to develop and produce a crop, but in doing so dug their feet deep into the site’s granitic loam soils, which overlie decomposed gravel and clay. But when they came, the results were astonishing. The first wine from the new shiraz vines was the 2008 vintage, quickly affirming the site’s potential with what I described at the time as a ‘super Rhône’. It quickly revealed the layered, meaty and mineral attributes we now expect from the site. Kinzbrunner fine-tuned winemaking regimes for the next two vintages, exploring means by which to express the potential of the site’s terroir into anexpression of shiraz fit to rival the Rhône’s elite. Very closed and reductive in their youth, cloaked by layers of oak and tannin, the 2010 and 2011 releases delivered quality, but not enough to meet Kinzbrunner’s expectations, or even indeed the Warner Vineyard Shiraz in 2010. All that has changed with the 2012 vintage. Fermented in tank with a small proportion of viognier, it was matured in the mineshaft-like cellar under the Giaconda vineyard for 22 months inside French oak barrels, around a third of which were new. From its earliest days it looked special. Thankfully, it is safely into bottle for its real journey now to begin.
I like the fact that winemakers like Rick Kinzbrunner, Phillip Jones, Joe Grilli and Roman Bratasiuk are so honest and focused on their extraordinary ambitions. From the outset, Kinzbrunner started this project to make a wine worthy of the greatest sites of the northern Rhône, and he didn’t mind who he told about it. The clearest ambitions can carry with them the highest risk, but the risk can bring the reward.
In this case, the reward is a wine that does what Kinzbrunner has done before with chardonnay, and is also promising to do again with nebbiolo. It is taking the perceptions of what has been considered possible with Australian wine, spinning them about and exposing them for their shameful lack of imagination and inspiration. That’s what great winemakers do and why the Giaconda Estate Shiraz 2012 is such a worthy Wine of the Year.
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