Granjoux Estate in Beechworth. Granjoux Wines
Granjoux Estate is an exciting new name to reckon with in the Beechworth region.
The first vintage of its wines, a chardonnay and a shiraz, have just been released from this single vineyard, located just outside the Beechworth township, on the site of a notable 19th century vineyard. The vines are not trellised in the usual way, they are individually staked – on posts imported from France’s Côte Rôtie region in the northern Rhône Valley, where this method, introduced by the ancient Romans, is still the preferred method of training grapevines.
These wines are not cheap at AUD $125 each, but they are superb quality and scarce, with an interesting story.
The original vineyard was planted in the 1860s by a Frenchman, Ambrose Granjoux, but the land had been fallow for a long time before it was replanted in 2017 by renowned viticulturist Mark Walpole.
The owners of this 2.2-acre walled block of closely-spaced vines, Peter Bartholomew and Donna Pelka, recently launched the two inaugural wines, both from the 2021 vintage. The chardonnay was whole-bunch pressed, fermented in stainless steel and racked into French oak barrels (40% new) for 16 months.
The shiraz includes 2% co-planted viognier. Most of the fruit was destemmed and fermented in stainless steel before aging in French oak puncheons. A minor fraction of the fruit was fermented as whole bunches in a terracotta amphora.
There were 1086 bottles of chardonnay produced and 2650 of the shiraz.
These wines are
This Article was originally published on The Real Review
