One of the first questions I ever asked Rick Kinzbrunner was why he chose the name of Giaconda for his tiny vineyard in northeast Victoria. ‘Well’, he said, ‘it’s better than Chateau Beechworth, isn’t it?’ So began the eleven years in which I have watched as Giaconda’s wider profile has steadily developed from ‘interesting, but dubious’, to ‘promising, but eccentric’ to its present status of ‘stellar, but elusive’. Rick Kinzbrunner’s wine could hardly stand further apart from that of mainstream Australia. In the late 1980s his pinot noir was his first wine to attract considerable attention, reaching something of a zenith with the 1992 vintage. Complex, restrained, long-term and briary, they age superbly for eight years and more. The 1997 vintage shows a return to the power and weight that made the 1992 such an immediate hit. Although Kinzbrunner has often worked sage magic with his blend of red Bordeaux varieties, it is with chardonnay that he has stretched the head-space of Australian winemaking. For his chardonnay, especially, he’s due this nomination. Since the steely, Chablis-like 1986 vintage through such highlights as the supple but richly powerful wines of 1990 and 1992, Kinzbrunner has woven even more poise and precision into the vintages of 1993 and 1995. Then follow his two truly great Chardonnays, the sublimely complex and complete 1996 and the comparatively retarded 1997, a wine whose barely concealed power and balance make it impossible to predict just how good it might actually become. Despite its scarcity, Giaconda Chardonnay stands as the wine that pushes out the possibilities, the benchmark for Australian winemakers who are prepared to move away from the safety of the commercial blueprint. Here’s what Kinzbrunner feels he’s looking for with each of his three wines. ‘With the Chardonnay I’m going for Mersault-like complexity – big but austere fruit with a nutty or mealy finish. I’m aiming for something more than just big simple fruit and wood, a wine I hope will have a comparatively long life. ‘The cabernet blend seems to me to lean towards a Margaux or Pomerol style, so I’m doing all I can to accentuate this. I want a very minimum of herbaceous character in the nose . So I’m aiming for a nose of rich berry fruits but also with a dimension of femininity – perfume, violets, etc. I’m looking for a palate to match, rich, soft, feminine, but with an underlying power. ‘I feel happy with the progress of the Pinot Noir. I want a rich velvet palate with a finely balancing tannin and a nose of rich cherries or plums. ‘I hope all the wines will have some well-integrated top quality oak, noticeable when young but to marry in completely in a year or two. While I realise it’s probably impossible to emulate the great French wines, I’m quite happy to aim for these styles. Want to know a secret? Rick Kinzbrunner wrote those words in a letter to me way back in 1988, when hardly anybody knew or cared who he was. Since then he’s amply achieved everything he set out to do, at the highest level. Now that’s winemaking!
