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WINERY RATING |
James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion 2013 |
The stony granite soils, high altitude and cool night temperatures impress the fruit of these 40 year-old Riesling vines with a special refinement and persistence of flavour. These qualities are nurtured through hand harvesting and gentle winemaking techniques to mould a style renowned for its definitive varietal expression, fine natural acidity and the ability to age, gaining even greater complexity with time.
Granite Hills is one of Australia’s highest and most picturesque vineyards – perched atop the spectacular boulder strewn hills of the Great Dividing Range at 550 meters altitude, one hour (85 kms) North/Northwest of Melbourne. Granite Hills lies about half way between Mt Macedon and Heathcote on the famous Burke & Wills Track – the route taken by those famous explorers on their fateful journey north to the Gulf.
The Knight Family, are the pioneers of grape-growing and winemaking in the Macedon Ranges region, and since planting Granite Hills in 1970, have amassed some 400 awards at Australian and International wine shows, including 20 Trophies in the last 4 years, making Granite Hills one of Victoria’s most acclaimed.
The focus at Granite Hills is to produce a select range of quality food wines. To show distinctive varietal and Regional characteristics, are well balanced, finely textured and structured to age over a 5 to 10+ year period. The Philosophy at Granite Hills is that "Great wines are made in the Vineyard”. The approach in the winery is one of minimalist soft winemaking, utilising a mix of modern and traditional winemaking techniques.
Only hand picked grapes are used. An elevated crushing system ensures that berries gently gravitate from crusher to press (whites) or to small open fermenters (reds). Not just gentle winemaking, this system leaves open options to many different winemaking techniques to optimise the character of all Granite Hills wines.
Llew Knight, The winemaker, recognises the need for maturation of many cool climate styles – to allow their natural acids to soften, and their inherent flavours to develop and gain complexity. As a consequence Granite Hills red wines spend up to 2 years in small oak before bottling, and are given some bottle aging before release. The white wines also, Riesling in particular, has shown over 29 vintages at GraniteHills that it benefits from bottle development. The "cellar reserve” Riesling program winning 10 Trophies in Australian and International wine shows as a mature wine.
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