Flirting with Perfection - Giaconda Chardonnay 2011-2021
BY ANGUS HUGHSON |
Blink, and you will miss Beechworth, a small yet grand inland Victorian town with a history of gold and bushrangers. The wide main street, with its 19th-century architecture, has an almost Wild West feel, coming as a welcome surprise as you drive through the broad, empty plains and mountain landscapes of northeastern Victoria. It is easy to imagine the region’s vibrant history—the streets full of horses and gold prospectors searching for their fortune during the second half of the 1800s. But today, this town prospers on new seams of gold as ground zero for revolutionary Australian Chardonnay. At its epicenter is Giaconda.
Granite boulders were unearthed on the Giaconda Estate in preparation for new plantings.
Beechworth and the surrounding vineyards are a blip in the national crush, totaling a mere 130 hectares under vine, a shade less than the small Northern Rhône appellation of Condrieu. Yet despite its size, the unique terroir should place it firmly on the radar for fans of ultra-premium Chardonnay. This small and isolated outpost is a diamond in the rough, thanks to a freakish mix of a highly advantageous climate, naturally low fertility and a complex mix of granite and sandstone soils.
There is a distinctive intensity to the mid-summer heat in Beechworth—the sun here is powerful and searing. But its proximity to Alpine influences, with cooling winds and gentle elevation, also provides significant protection to carefully chosen sites. It all adds up to impressive diurnal variation, so much so that Beechworth is Australia's most continental wine region, even driving some growers to flirt with Nebbiolo. The cycling from warm summer days to cool nights is at the heart of the Beechworth wine style, yielding Chardonnays that marry raw power with surprising detail and subtlety.
There is little doubt that the soils also play an important part in the regional style. Hard and mean on the whole, volcanic granites dominate to the north, in the form of a rocky base that helps to craft flavorsome wines. Here, massive granite boulders pepper the landscape, and the use of heavy earth-movers is often the only solution. Thankfully, there is also decent water-holding capacity, as the granites have degraded over time into clay loams. To the south of the region is a combination of more gravels and sandstones, with outcrops of siltstone, quartz, silica and shale, which help to build more structural wines.
It is a testing environment, so much so that early grape growers abandoned their plots. Only the hardiest vines can tolerate such demanding conditions. Beechworth is a place where only the strong survive and few succeed, but that was exactly what drew the eye of ex-mechanical engineer and budding winemaker Rick Kinzbrunner.
I remember my first meeting with Rick Kinzbrunner almost 20 years ago when Giaconda was already firmly on the fine wine radar. It was a nerve-wracking experience as Kinzbrunner sat back in a rocking chair, surveying his prey. This is not a man who’s one for small talk. He brings a searing intellect to the table, coupled with a take-no-prisoners approach to the pursuit of quality. He does not say much, but each word and action is carefully considered, an ethos that carries through into the vineyard and cellar.
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There are more famous Chardonnays in Australia, but none are more keenly collected or tightly held than Rick Kinzbrunner’s enigmatic Giaconda. Originally conceived in California, Giaconda not only put the small outpost of Beechworth in Victoria on the international map, it also helped an entire nation to find its Chardonnay mojo. A rare chance to taste the last decade of vintages exceeded expectations and showcased a world-class wine that can compete with the very best.
