2024 Giaconda Estate Roussanne, Beechworth

Giaconda Estate Roussanne from Beechworth is one of Australia’s rarest and most fascinating white wines, a cult bottling from Rick Kinzbrunner that combines Rhône-like depth with the tension and minerality of Beechworth’s granite slopes. The Estate vineyard sits high in the foothills of the Victorian Alps where poor granitic soils and brisk mountain winds limit yields and intensify flavour. Roussanne is famously tricky in the vineyard, but when grown with Giaconda’s rigor, hand harvested at perfect ripeness and wild fermented in barrel before extensive ageing on lees in French oak, it becomes something extraordinary: textural, savoury and totally unique in the Australian wine landscape.