Grant’s name is synonymous with Otago Pinot Noir. He has been crafting wines in the region since 1993 when there were only 20 hectares planted – today there are over 2,000. Over the past 30+ years he has made the first wines for a number of iconic Otago wineries, but now the serious focus is on his own creation, Valli.
Established in 1998 and named after his Great-Great Grandfather, Giuseppe Valli, who immigrated to New Zealand from an Italian winemaking background, Grant founded Valli with the aim of creating true representations of Otago’s subregions with unflinching intensity and purity. This was also a first for the region – no one had attempted to capture, let alone master the developing subregional plot that has now begun to unfold as the next exciting chapter in the Otago wine story.
In 2015, established Otago winemaker Jen Parr joined Grant in the winery where the pair aims to create wines with honesty, integrity, and most importantly, a sense of place.
The location of Valli’s Bannockburn Vineyard is only 20km from Gibbston in the Cromwell basin but the difference in climate is responsible for creating markedly different wines. The Bannockburn wines reflect this warmer area by displaying darker fruits, by being denser, more powerful and with longevity based more on their tannin structure, as opposed to Gibbston wines which are based more on their acidity. The soils are also windblown loess over gravelly schist but with sandier, deeper topsoil, which allows for free draining. Climate, rather than soil, attributes to the main difference in the wines.
