Passion pays off
15 April 2015
True winemaking and the great wines of the world come about from following your passion and simply doing that which you love and can do best, rather than trying to create something to please everyone.
From my view point, the policy of doing less and concentrating only on those things for which I am truly passionate about is beginning to pay off. This is contrary to many other winemakers who are caught up in the trend of doing more – more complexity, more varieties, more spin - which I feel actually equates to less.
The evolution and continuation of great Chardonnay here at Giaconda is a direct result of this philosophy. I believe the slow maturation in our underground granite cave, combined with more careful work in the vineyard and further honing of the winemaking techniques we employ, has given us an unprecedented run of great Chardonnays from 2010 right through to the extremely exciting 2015 vintage.
After 30 years of refinement it requires focus and detail to gain small improvements in the wines.
As a direct result of fermenting underground at lower temperature with a naturally high humidity, we often observe an elongation of the fermentations. There is something special about these longer fermentations: they build more complexity into the wines. It is not uncommon for wineries in Burgundy to have fermentations last up to a year, sometimes more. Under our unique conditions here at Giaconda the wines spend more time maturing before any sulphur additions are required, resulting in greater complexity.
You may have read or heard something about natural winemaking? At Giaconda the definition of natural winemaking is to run the juice by gravity to barrel and allow it to ferment spontaneously, using our indigenous yeasts, and always with full natural malolactic fermentation. Our regime and the environment created by our cave also enables us to reduce the sulphur additions to much lower levels than previously used. We do not filter the wine before bottling. In Europe this approach has consistently produced some of the worlds most acclaimed wines for hundreds of years.
In reference to Pinot Noir, we are starting to see great results from our new plantings with more of the 'old fashioned' MV6 clone showing it has as an essential role to play. I think we can make more consistent and great Pinot Noir going forward, compared with the past flashes of brilliance. From now on this will be entirely Estate grown fruit with no Yarra Valley contribution. This is not to denigrate Yarra Valley Pinot Noir, but I feel we need to concentrate on single vineyard wines for our Giaconda label.
In other news, we were very proud to be represented on the front cover of Decanter Magazine March 2015 as one of the worlds best Chardonnays (outside of Burgundy). You can read more about their tasting of our Estate Vineyard Chardonnay below.
Last year Jeremy Oliver awarded the 2012 Estate Vineyard Shiraz 'Wine of the year' in his book the Australian Wine Annual. In a tightly contested field with many wonderful wines it was gratifying to see years of planning and dedication to creating another truly inspiring Estate Vineyard wine come to fruition with such an acknowledgement. In addition, the 2012 Estate Vineyard Chardonnay was awarded fourth best wine, and his top Chardonnay of the year.
In common with many other regions, the 2014 vintage was very much reduced in quantity by frost. As a consequence of this our En Primeur offer will be limited to a release of two wines only: 2014 Estate Vineyard Chardonnay and 2014 Estate Vineyard Shiraz.
Coming in next year's newsletter... barrel tasting notes of the first Nebbiolo from our new Red Hill (Beechworth) vineyard. In addition, we will have information on our new terracotta amphorae wine trials.
Thanks for your continued support.
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Regards,
Rick Kinzbrunner
Cork or screwcap wine? Even age cannot settle this debate
30 March 2017Australian Financial Review
Life and Leisure Mar 30 2017
by Max Allen
There are two glasses of 2006 Giaconda chardonnay in front of me (lucky me...). One is very youthful, a pale straw colour, lean and powdery, with a hint of reductive, sulphidey struck-match scent, and a refreshing, lemony acidity. The other is a touch more golden, a little more developed and rounder in flavour, with slightly richer, toasty, spice and button mushroom aromas.
What's going on? Are these wines from different parts of the Giaconda vineyard? Made in different ways? Matured in different barrels?
Nope. They're both exactly the same wine, bottled at the same time, cellared in the same place (underground at Giaconda, in a tunnel dug into the stone of the hill). And yet these wines undeniably taste different. So what sets them apart?
The first comes from a bottle that was sealed with a screwcap, the second from a bottle under cork.
It's been almost two decades since the Australian wine industry started using screwcaps en masse. Today, almost all wines out there in bottle shop land are sealed this way. And yet there is still ongoing debate about the suitability of a screwcap for fine wines destined for long-term cellaring: yes, we know the seal works perfectly well at keeping the liquid in the bottle and keeping it fresh, but we just don't have enough experience comparing the same wine under cork and cap over many years to be sure we like how the wines age the new way.
Which is why, when Rick Kinzbrunner and his winemaker son Nathan, of legendary Beechworth, Victoria producer Giaconda, held a recent tasting comparing their chardonnay, pinot and shirazes from 2004 to 2010 bottled under both seals, I was keen to attend.
So many factors
The results? Inconclusive, I'm afraid. For a start, there are so many variables at play, it's almost impossible to be definitive. In the case of the 2005 chardonnay, for example, the screwcap unequivocally outshone the cork – but Rick told me all the corks he bought that year were far from perfect.
In some cases the peculiar nature of the vintage overrode any differences between the seals: both the 2008 Warner vineyard shirazes, for example, showed the softer tannins and globby fruit of the reds from that warm vintage more than they showed anything else.
And while I tended to prefer the cork-sealed chardonnays, particularly the 2006 mentioned above and the outstanding 2008 and 2010 wines, I tended to prefer the screwcapped reds (the 2006 Warner shiraz sealed this way was utterly entrancing, an intense and spicy shiraz at a lovely stage of its maturity). That said, the magnificent 2010 Estate shiraz, under cork, was my pick of the reds: the best shiraz Giaconda had produced up to that point.
This aspect – personal preference – is possibly the most important factor of all. Rick Kinzbrunner tended to prefer the screwcaps for his chardonnays. He liked the way the seal retains the youthful, reductive aspects of the wines; whereas I'd liked the way the corks led to the slightly rounder, more developed flavours I would traditionally associate with bottle-aged chardonnay. And he's not so much of a fan of screwcaps for reds. He doesn't like the way they mature. Indeed, he's decided to bottle his shiraz only under cork.
After the tasting comparison of Giaconda's chardonnay, pinot and shiraz, the Kinzbrunners also opened a magnum of their 2008 nebbiolo – under cork, of course. And it turned out to be my favourite wine of the day: deep wells of entrancing perfume for the nostrils to explore and beautiful poise on the palate, with skeins of brick-dusty tannin falling like a lattice across the tongue.
If you're a fan of this great Italian grape and the wines it produces, and you like the character of those wines after a few years in the cellar, you really need to put Giaconda high up on your nebbiolo shopping list.