Tall Poppy Syndrome
Following on from last year's newsletter,
I am very pleased to say that the International distribution of our Estate Vineyard Chardonnay, by Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix, has been a great success. This has put the wine before a much wider international audience with some great reviews by overseas journalists – however I have some more to say about that below.
Although this chardonnay is now reaching a broader audience, we have not forgotten you, our loyal and faithful mail order clients. Even with the increased demand for export we will continue to make the majority of our production available for domestic customers.
Even better news is that the price from our winery is not going up, even with many people commenting that this is still well under-priced. I feel the prices of some wines are getting out of hand and there are many more expensive Chardonnays on the Australian market. On tasting some of these, we believe Giaconda Chardonnay offers comparatively better value and complexity!
My thoughts on the paucity of SOME Australian wine journalism and Tall Poppy Syndrome:
Recently I was informed... "In a blind tasting with Antonio Galloni and the international Vinous team, the wine of the night among serious global competition was Giaconda Chardonnay 2017, which everyone had marked as white Burgundy from an iconic producer."
A few years ago in Adelaide, industry professionals gathered to taste 43 chardonnay wines from renowned Australian and French producers. All were tasted blind and ranked and Giaconda Chardonnay 2017 was ranked first.
Yet local journalists' scores were as low as 95 pts!
Jane Anson, author of 'Inside Bordeaux' gave 100 points to Giaconda Chardonnay 2021 (along with 4 other international and 2 local journalists) and said "This is as good as Chardonnay gets and then some."
Local scores were as low as 97 points here in Australia.
James Sucklings tasted the 2019 Giaconda Nebbiolo and rated this wine alongside other producers such as Gaja; “Yum. This is real nebbiolo, with cherry, black-truffle, earth and walnut aromas and flavours. It’s full-bodied with a solid center-palate and chewy tannins. Powerful finish. Real deal here.” Score: 97 Points.
Again, local scores go as low as 90 points!
Enough said here, however it's disappointing to be the subject of the tall poppy syndrome and to be considered fair game for not playing mates to some very inflated industry egos. I'll let my wines do the talking instead.
However, there is still some excellent wine journalism to be found here in Australia and the wine consumer always has the final say. Giaconda wines sold out in the blink of an eye last release and this gives me confidence to keep focus on what we are currently doing in the vineyard and winery. Giaconda is now a world wine, to be judged by a much wider audience whom appears to greatly appreciate our style of wine.
A summary of the 2024 vintage:
This year saw an early season even though it was not at all hot. An early spring, with moderate weather and vines in excellent condition has made for very good quality fruit. It's early days yet, but the Chardonnay is powerful, refined and complex: the reds have excellent colour, body and tannin.
All of our reds have been fermented in terracotta amphorae this year. I really like these vessels as they do not give a lot of heavy extraction and require no artificial cooling - lovely natural ferments being the result.
Some comments regarding the 2022 wine releases:
Our new plantings of Roussanne are proving to love their new site on the Estate Vineyard. If you are interested in Rhône whites, then don't miss the 2022 Estate Vineyard Roussanne about to be released. This new wine follows on (and probably surpasses) our original 'Aeolia' Roussanne, which was produced up until the 2009 vintage. This new wine is an exceptional pairing with Asian food and will only grow in stature with more bottle age.
I should add that the current release represents another very good batch of wines, which demonstrates how complex each varietal can be when grown here in the foothills of the Victorian Alps. You can read more detail in the release tasting notes linked below.
View wine offer and read the 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.