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.
Purchased by Grant in 1998 and planted from 1999-2000, Valli’s estate vineyard in Gibbston is planted at 4050 vines/ha and cropped at only1kg/vine to ensure perfect ripeness. The first vineyard in the valley to be planted in the true North-to-South direction, it maximises the amount of sunlight hours the vines receive, contributing dramatically to the uniform ripening of fruit, a critical factor in Pinot Noir quality. The vineyard soils are mainly schist derived, windblown alluvial loess. The topsoil is between .5 and 1m deep over free draining gravels that allow the vine roots to easily access water and nutrients. Gibbston, one of the coolest sub regions of Otago, has one of the slowest ripening seasons. A key factor in quality Pinot Noir from such a cool area is long hang time, that is, the amount of time the grapes are on the vine; this allows them to develop elegance and complexity of flavour.
