Extreme
“Extreme” - That's how I describe the 2021 Chardonnay: powerful, complex, multifaceted and penetratingly long. This in itself brings a dilemma- pricing. I have been told many times recently from all over the world to raise the price drastically, as the Chardonnay is looking like very good value compared to some other Australian wines, not to mention the current prices of good White Burgundy. However, this is not going to happen. The main release will be next year with only a small price rise to account for increases in our cost of production.
As many of you probably know, there were no wines produced at Giaconda from the 2020 vintage due to the bushfires. However we are offering some of the 2021 Estate Vineyard Chardonnay for en primeur pre-orders; the quantity is not large, so order quickly! If you miss out please remember there will be more next year once this wine is bottled and ready to be released.
In lieu of the 2020 vintage not being made, we are also releasing two vintages of Nantua Chardonnay. We have kept back the 2019 to release with the 2021 so as to make a bit more available. These are mini Giacondas so don't miss out! 2019 is ready to drink, whilst I suggest you put the 2021 away for a few years. And in all honesty, these are among the best ever vintages of Nantua.
There is also a Nantua Shiraz from 2019 vintage which is from a declassified part of the Warner Vineyard and represents excellent price/quality rapport. There is plenty to like here and the extended time in bottle has enabled this wine to put on weight: now quite rich with a touch of briar.
ROUSSANNE - this remains a work in progress - witness the 2019 Amphora version, an interesting dry white wine but not quite what I feel reflects the beauty of Roussanne. This time I have created another style, a blend of skin contact amphora and barrel fermented aged wine. This will be released under our Nantua label, not due to a lack of quality: in fact, it's incredibly aromatic and complex on the palate. Nevertheless, I feel I'm still developing an ultimate style for this wine... more news will follow on this next year.
NEBBIOLO - the 2018 continues an upward curve on quality. This release can hold its head high against many a good Barolo in a blind line-up. We are refining this wine year by year with some interesting tweaks in winemaking which are proving to be the catalyst for immense complexity and depth.
PINOT NOIR - an exceptional 2021 will be released next year. At this stage it seems to me to be possibly the best ever! Unfortunately, there will only be 1800 bottles. This wine represents both a new style and winemaking process for Giaconda with more depth and tannin present whilst delivering greater complexity and refinement on the palate. It mostly comes from a small parcel of vineyard planted 10 years ago in a much cooler corner where the Pinot Noir seems to thrive, especially the MV6 clone which is new to us.
There will be some interesting new developments announced in next year’s release, but in the meantime it's worthwhile noting:
*We are organic certified across both the vineyard and winery and use very strict traditional winemaking practices e.g. no modern pneumatic press, no filtration or pumping to the bottling line.
*Solar power supplies virtually all our electricity and most of the wines are aged deep underground in natural conditions with no cooling or humidification required.
*The 2022 vintage (still in progress) is an exceptionally cool year producing wonderful Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. A couple more weeks of fine weather should do the same for the Roussanne, Shiraz and Nebbiolo.
Finally, a word on my personal winemaking philosophy - it's simple! I make the type and style of wine I like to drink and enjoy. I am not interested in the thin, acidic "fashionable" Chardonnay that appeals to many influencers. Our grapes are picked properly ripe and the wine is fermented and aged in small barrels with full malolactic fermentation in the traditional manner of the great white burgundies of years past. The reds are treated in the same manner. I am not interested in light, fruity "gluggable" wines, often accompanied by exaggerated acidity. I aim for serious body (though never heavy) in the wines with good firm tannins.
View release details and tasting notes >
Sincerely,
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.