Hahndorf Hill Winery
  Adelaide Hills
The 2014 vintage of Gruner Veltliner will soon be upon us and will be our fifth vintage of this exciting white variety at Hahndorf Hill.
2014 is also the Chinese Year of the Horse which, to me, seems a most appropriate symbol to characterise the future hopes that I hold for this variety here at Hahndorf Hill and also in our Adelaide Hills wine region. The horse is one of the Chinese people’s favourite animals with the Year of the Horse being a time for all people to go forward confidently in the direction of their goals and dreams, just as the horse gallops at top speed toward its destination.
So too is it my goal and dream for Gruner Veltliner to march positively forward into the future of the proud and confident Australian wine industry.
Here at Hahndorf Hill, we planted our first Gruner Veltliner vines in 2008 and it is no less exciting today, nearly seven years on, to plan, watch and anticipate as the crop slowly develops under the January South Australian sky.
Gruner has been a challenging, yet brilliant and versatile variety to work with and each passing year has coaxed out new insights and understanding of this charming grape. For example, it is clear that this variety has an extremely giving nature and, if left to her own devices, will swamp you with an abundance of juicy golden/ blue-green berries at harvest time. As attractive as this might seem, it is important to curb this variety’s lavish generosity in order to achieve the desired results in the winery.
In a broader celebration, the past vintage has hatched several new Gruner labels in the Adelaide Hills region, all who have produced exciting and creditworthy examples of this wine. No doubt, vintage 2014 will launch further new examples under Adelaide Hills’ labels and the ones to look out for include Longview, Nepenthe, Tomich Wines, By Jingo, Henschke and others.
You don’t need a Freudian analyst to tell that part of my future dream is for Gruner Veltliner to become the ultimate hero-variety of this wine region, the Adelaide Hills.
If I were a wealthy race horse breeder I would christen my next best nag ‘Gruner’ and I’d be in the front row at the races shouting ‘Go Gruner, Go!’
To register for pre-release allocations of our 2014 GRU Gruner Veltliner and for further Gruner information – please go to http://bit.ly/XUJJct