Celebrations and plant-ations … planting a new Gruner Veltliner block

Hahndorf Hill ‘GRU’ Gruner Veltliner 2011

We’re over the moon to discover that our Hahndorf Hill ‘GRU’ Gruner Veltliner 2011 was awarded a place on the prestigious Adelaide Review list of ‘Hot 100 South Australian Wines.’ This cutting-edge wine show has redefined what wine shows are all about. For judging purposes, the wines were not grouped by variety as is the usual format, but rather by style and region. Said wine critic and judge Max Allen: “.. the way this competition was organised was a huge departure from conventional wine shows, and introduced innovations that I think many other competitions should consider adopting.”

I was extremely pleased that our GRU ‘11 had been given its award in the category “Wines that are all about texture.” This is particularly appropriate for this variety and style of wine, which has little to do with a fruity-tooty personality, but rather its charms lie in the extraordinary mouth-feel and textural components that it offers. It’s all about the palate being stimulated by a rollercoaster of fresh mineral components, textural nuances and a spritzy, peppery finish.  In fact, the judges’ comment was that the “Palate texture feels like ice-skating …” Interestingly, this echoes an earlier review of our Gruner Veltliner 2011 by wine critic and writer Philip White, who describes the wine as being like “ … fizzy cool waves on granite …”
I personally like to think it’s like drinking dazzling starlight!

Our joy with the GRU award was doubled when we discovered that the Hahndorf Hill ‘Blueblood’ Blaufrankisch 2009 was also honoured with a spot on the Adelaide Review’s ‘Hot 100’ list.

Baby Gruners ready for planting

Last week was also a huge step forward for Hahndorf Hill, as we planted an additional 1.1 hectares of Gruner Veltliner. This brings our total plantings of this new-wave variety to nearly 3 hectares. As can be seen from the attached picture, it was a pretty challenging exercise because of the tiny size of the plant material. Each little mini-Gruner had to be carefully transferred from seed-tray to soil by gentle and caring fingers and then launched with a good drink of water and prayers to Bacchus to ensure their wellbeing! Hopefully these tiny plantings will survive all the obstacles ahead such as heat, cold, wind and rabbits and by the end of this year will have grown up to the cordon wire.

Completed new Gruner block at Hahndorf Hill