Rick Kinzbrunner needs little introduction to anyone really interested in Australia’s finest wine. It was for his pinot noir that he was first feted. Then we discovered his unique chardonnay which appears to have reached something of an apogee with the stunning 1996 vintage, perhaps the greatest Australian chardonnay yet made. Meanwhile, his blend of red Bordeaux varieties is as restrained, earthy and distinctive today as ever it was. Given that his vineyard is found on poor soils, faces the ‘wrong’ way and is close to the most un-wine-like town of Beechworth, his achievements become all the more remarkable. But it is for his personal views on Australian chardonnay that OnWine is talking with Rick Kinzbrunner. Where do you see Australian chardonnay heading today? Commercial wines and the show system tend to dominate the scene, but there’s a small trend to less squeaky-clean wines. Most Australian chardonnays are well made, with a good balance of fruit and oak, but I’m still left cold by many of them. Some are just too perfect. There’s still a lot of recipe winemaking, with good fruit, good oak and good balance, but the package still comes out uninteresting, quite unlike smelly old white burgundies which the show system wouldn’t have a bar of. Even those trying to go for broke with chardonnay are coming out with an over-worked result. Not many people are getting the right balance. It’s a temptation to use processes without knowing how they will affect their wines. I use a full malolactic fermentation in my wine and you hardly see the evidence, but a full malolactic can over-dominate. What are the sort of characters you look for in chardonnay? I’m looking for a few warts I suppose, some dirty characters on the nose, for instance, like sulphury matchstick characters. My 1996 Chardonnay was close to the limit, but I’ve never had any complaints. There’s an acidity culture in Australia you don’t see in other countries. Giaconda gets a natural balance between low acidity and low pH. It’s a vineyard thing. Too often acid is added like recipe to get pH right, something that’s often outside the winemakers’ control. People are too nervous about leaving acids on the low side so they add more and find it tastes unbalanced. With oak, you get what you pay for. For me, American oak and shaved barrels are no-nos; you don’t get the same character. I’ve proved many times that the result is inferior. While it may sound good, it just doesn’t work in practice. People are also afraid to leave wine in oak for long enough, causing their wines to taste more woody, not less. You need to find the right balance of when to stir and how often, when to rack and how often, but these are decisions each individual must make. Wild yeasts create completely different wines with more complex flavours, a richer body, and a fermentation that is easier to control. Sure, they’re dangerous to use and I’ve seen ruined reds and whites as a result, but they’re essential to the character of my wine. The only inoculated yeasts I’ve used created quite different wines. Can a winemaker express himself with chardonnay? Chardonnay can so often be a reflection of its maker. In many cases the best wines of Burgundy are so much like their makers. One day in Burgundy I went to four small makers, each of which had their personalities reflected in their wines. How do you do this with your wine? I’m not after a full frontal impression, but long-lasting impression of concentration without a ‘knock you down’ style. I want balance, complexity and subtlety without being too full on. I don’t mind if it’s warts and all. That’s what white Burgundy is about, without fatness. Length is another thing – my 1997 Chardonnay is the longest wine I have ever made. You just can’t take shortcuts. Although you won’t taste any difference in a triangular quality test after most individual compromises, if you do the same thing ten or fifteen times in a wine’s life the differences will be huge. People often ask what I do and when I do them, but what I do isn’t necessarily relevant to their own wines. In Remington Norman’s book on Burgundy you see the entire spectrum of ideas from place to place – some use a cold soak, others don’t, some add SO2 before fermentation, others don’t. You have to think of these things and work the answers out for yourself. It’s easy to see why some wines are over-worked. Another Australian concept I question is the idea of picking fruit at different levels of ripeness to get more complexity. My view is that grapes are at their best at a certain point and that’s when to pick them all. Why pick inferior fruit? You get under and over-ripe characters. What about all the things that Robert Parker doesn’t like? I use no additives, no enzymes, only a little SO2, no erythorbate, no centrifugal pumps and I don’t filter. I’ve no doubt that the wine is better if it’s not filtered. The technocrats say that even if a process downgrades a wine by 4% in quality, it recovers again to 98%. But that’s just another little thing, isn’t it?
