Winery gets its riesling rocking
A Marlborough wine company believes it is the first in New Zealand to use granite wine tanks, a fitting tribute to the stonemason heritage of its founding family.
The three-tonne tanks at Giesen Wines might not hold anywhere close to some of their stainless steel counterparts, but they do offer something a little different, says chief winemaker Nikolai St George.
The wine coming out of the 1000-litre granite tanks, compared to 100,000-litre steel tanks, had more ‘‘smokiness’’, partly because there was less oxygen in the stone tanks, St George said.
St George believed the tanks were unique to the country.
‘‘As far as we’re aware these are the only ones of their kind in New Zealand.’’
The tanks had a cooling element on the wine without using refrigeration.
‘‘Granite has been used for a long time to store wine in. They use large blocks in France and other parts of the world. They like using it because it keeps everything very cool.
‘‘When you put wine in the [granite] tanks, they sort of sweat, so the tank allows some liquid to come through [the stone], which is quite bizarre and they allow some filtration through the granite as well,’’ St George said.
The tanks were imported from Germany, and St George had custom made ‘‘floating lids’’ for the tanks to keep the wine fresher.
Each tank was formed through one block of granite, which would then be carved using high-velocity water.
Giesen used the three granite tanks to produce a premium riesling, released only in New Zealand.
‘‘So we did the gemstone riesling and released it three months ago and it’s done really well.
‘‘It’s off a single vineyard block that we own up in Waihopai Valley and we just decided to store some of it in stone, stainless steel and oak – all giving it different flavours – and it’s been very well received,’’ St George said.
The new tanks meant the company was going back to the Giesen family’s roots.
‘‘It’s quite interesting that the [Giesen] brothers, their family were stonemasons back in Germany and they’ve got that heritage and it’s quite fitting to have purchased tanks made of stone now and gone full circle with their history,’’ St George said.
At this stage, Giesen had no plans to add to their existing three granite tanks.