Decanter World Wine AwardsAustralian shows make 'boring' wine: Kinzbrunner
- Friday 7 October 2011
Kinzbrunner, founder of Giaconda in Beechworth, Victoria, tells Andrew Jefford the shows have become moribund.
In the ‘early years’, he says, the system helped ‘drag the bottom end up’ but now it’s doing the opposite.
‘It’s holding people back. It just drives wines to a certain level of interesting boredom, clean boredom.’
The problem is one of winemakers’ egos, Kinzbrunner says, and the solution would be to have consumers in charge.
'Why do winemakers run the show? They're not the people who drink the wine. It's absolutely crazy. You should have consumers in charge, with a small winemaking contingent.'
Giaconda’s wines are feted by critics as diverse as Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson and Jefford himself. Berry Brothers, which imports the wines, is begging for a ‘stay of execution’ on a Roussanne vineyard that Kinzbrunner is thinking of pulling out – Giaconda’s Aeolia, pure Roussanne, is one of the most renowned of the range.
‘Despite his success, he’s still very much the outsider,’ Jefford writes, ‘his famed Chardonnay … is the antithesis of modern Australia’s …critically acclaimed ideal.’
In the course of a wide-ranging interview, Kinzbrunner airs his views on a number of subjects, including the Australian need to ‘cut you down to size’, his countrymen’s ‘insane preference for screwcaps’, and his love of Schubert, Bach and Beethoven.
‘Bach's cello sonatas [are a ] wonderful example of harmony in art as in nature – it reminds me of the synergy I think there can be between a terroir and a winemaker.’
Read the full interview in this month's Decanter magazine, out now.
Have your say!
Warren Mason
October 10 10:02
Sugar sweet! Isn't Rick's point about the consumer, at whatever point of the wine pleasure curve s/he may be, is it not the point that wine is not just another alcoholic beverage? But rather, to be applied intelligently to the sensibilities on the dining table?
crash
October 10 08:56
Thank God someone has finally put to print what most Aussie wine producers would think. I have been a wine show steward and seen the number of wines judged in a class, heard the deliberations of judges and quite frankly it is a LOTTERY. Objectivity (judging a wine on its own merits) has given way to subjectivity on hysterically embarrassing grand scale. There is a massive population of labels that are simply overlooked for many reasons. Get entries down, get classes sorted, allow more time for evaluation and get the objectivity back into the system to allow styles to be judged for what they are-not for what they're not!
John Hancock
October 09 21:42
Who says winemakers don't drink wine? That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard!!
Dan Traucki
October 07 21:40
Couldn't agree with Rick more, having been to the Adelaide Wine Show yesterday, all the really interesting wines were not highly rated, and most of the medal winners were very similar to one another.
they may have been "technically perfect" but they weren't the sort of wines that most people would sit down and drink.
The original concept of the wine shows was "peer review" to help imporve the breed, but now the winemaker judges seem to be looking for technical perfection rather than drinkability, interest and food compatability, after all most wine is consumed with food. the Sydney International Wine Show run by Warren Mason is the only show in Oz that matches the finalist wines with food as part of the judging process.
Cheers
Dan Traucki MWCC
Wine Assist P/L