Gruner Veltliner in the Adelaide Hills

At Hahndorf Hill we are passionate about Austrian varieties and are pioneering Gruner Veltliner, Blaufrankisch, Zweigelt and St Laurent in Australia.

It is our familiarity with Blaufrankisch, which has grown at Hahndorf Hill for over 25 years, that led us ultimately to its exciting white counterpart - Gruner Veltliner.

Having been unable to source Gruner plant material in Australia, we managed in 2006 to import three different clones directly from Austria, and again in 2009 a further three clones/clonal selections from Austria, all of which passed successfully through the Australian quarantine system.

In 2010 we released our debut vintage - which we affectionately named Gru. This was the first production of Gruner in South Australia (and the second within Australia, the first being Lark Hill from the Canberra wine region in 2009).

Gru becomes a hit

After eight vintages our Gru continues to be enthusiastically received by the wine critics, who applaud its fresh feel and varietal authenticity.

In The Sydney Morning Herald, Huon Hooke wrote of our debut vintage: 'I was shocked by how authentic an Adelaide Hills gruner veltliner tasted. It's a strikingly close replica of the Austrian model.'

Since then, our Gruners have been awarded numerous Gold Medals as well as three Trophies within Australia, and our Gru Gruner Veltliner 2016 was awarded 97 points by James Halliday.

Commenting on our Gruner Veltliner journey, James Halliday wrote: '2010 marked the first release of a South Australian gruner veltliner and Hahndorf Hill has led the way ever since.'

The HHW Gru has been making waves on the international stage, too. Austria's influential Falstaff magazine rated our 2012 Gru as the best Gruner Veltliner outside of Austria in its 2013 International Gruner Veltliner Tasting. (Our Gru topped 28 other Gruners from Europe, USA, New Zealand and Australia.) For the full results, click here.

Our Gruner Veltliner wines have also received Gold Medals at the Berliner Wein Trophy competition in Germany, whilst our 2015 vintage was selected to represent Australia at the prestigious Six Nations Wine Challenge, where it was awarded a Double-Gold Medal.

We now produce four different styles of Gruner Veltliner - a classic style, Gru; a fruit-driven style, White Mischief; our more opulent style, Reserve Gruner; and a late harvest style, Green Angel.

Gruner's new home - putting down roots in the slate

At the top of the hill where our vineyard lies, is an old and now defunct slate mine. The slate from this mine was harvested over 100 years ago to be used as water-proofing between the foundations and walls of the homes that the new settlers were building. Testimony to this mine is the abundant red-blue slate in the loamy topsoils of our vineyard - plus generous intrusions of quartz and ironstone. This forms the perfect foundation for our Gruner vines and helps underpin the great minerality for which this variety is famous.

The importance of climate

Gruner Veltliner may be new to Australia, yet we believe the Adelaide Hills offers the perfect terroir for this grape. This is a variety that thrives on the dynamic pull between warm days and cold nights during the growing season.

The Adelaide Hills wine region is defined as being a premier 'cool-climate' region, not because it has particularly cool days during the growing season, but because of the cold nights. It is these cold nights during the summer growing season that significantly reduce the mean daily temperature - see The secret behind Gruner Veltliner success in the Adelaide Hills

The Adelaide Hills is a wine region with one of the biggest diurnal temperature variations. (Diurnal variation is the difference between the maximum day time temperature and the minimum night time temperature.) The growing conditions in our region are thus very similar to the growing conditions in Austria. On a research visit to Austria's Gruner winelands, the producers all emphasised to us that this diurnal variation is an essential ingredient for quality wine production.

It is precisely because of the dynamic interplay between the warm days and cold nights during the ripening season that our wines have the ability to possess the sublime contradiction of being both opulent yet fleet-footed, or elegant but also deep and complex.

Gruner Veltliner Project

In 2009 we initiated - together with the Adelaide Hills Vine Improvement association - the Gruner Veltliner Project whereby our clonal material was made available to other growers in our region. This was to assist these growers who were keen to access Gruner plant material, and also to facilitate the Adelaide Hills' effort to become the premier Gruner producing region in Australia.

Part of the Project was the establishment of the Adelaide Hills Gruner Growers Group (GGG). This Group meets regularly to discuss and swap information regarding viticultural and oenological issues that arise with this variety, and to taste local Adelaide Hills Gruners as well as international versions. The aim of the GGG is to promote Gruner Veltliner in the Adelaide Hills, with the hope it will one day become a star variety for our region.

The Adelaide Hills now has the largest concentration of Gruner vines in Australia, with approximately 30 different labels being produced.

Discover more about Gruner

Keen to learn more about Gruner Veltliner? Click on the links below to read a selection of interesting articles spotlighting this wonderful wine and its key attributes, including its remarkable food-friendly nature. You can also follow the evolution of our Gruner at The GRU Files blog.

Get to Know Austria's Wine Regions
The ultimate Gruner Veltliner
About Gruner Veltliner
Europe's sexiest grape
Now is the time to commit to Gruner
Guide to Austrian wine
Gruners of the Danube
Austrian whites - A Lover's Guide
Gruners of the Wachau