Merry Christmas

Seasons greetings from everyone here at Sandihurst. We hope you have a great Christmas and enjoy the holiday period. Despite all the winter imagery, here in New Zealand it is summer so its usually hot - our holidays usually feature BBQs and beaches at some stage or other. Especially since nowhere in NZ is further than about 1.5 hours from a beach. Its a great time for friends and family - and of course to enjoy a special glass or two of wine. Sandihurst wine. And if you dont have any then drop by the tasting room, we'll be open right through.

Growing Berries...

Practically no rain for a month and then over the weekend we get 30mm. It warm again now but that little burst should get the vines (and the weeds) moving.

Canopy work continues, thinning, leaf plucking and adjusting the folliage wires. Things are tidy, bunches are exposed to the light and airflow, the weeds are under control and the vineyard dogs are slowly working their way through the local rabbit population. Soon it will be time for a pre-bunch closure botrytis spray to keep the grey mould in check.

In the Vineyard just before Xmas

At this time of year the flowering is now complete and the little grapes are beginning to grow. Presently they are around 3-5mm diameter. As well as finishing our shoot thinning we are also starting remove leaves from around the fruiting zone. This has a number of benefits. It aids berry development and can reduce green flavours. Berry skins thicken which is great for tannin and colour extraction in red varietals. It increases airflow in the canopy which reduces disease pressure. It exposes the berries to UV light early and reduces the risk of sunburn later in the ripening process.

This video just briefly shows the mechanism of leaf removal - essentially the leaves are pulled into a rotary blade by means of a vaccum. Other more technical machines such as the Collard Defoliators work on pulsed air pressure to do the same job.

Everything you need to know about French Wine in a minute

Excerpt from the recent James May/Oz Clarke TV series. Some of it might be true.

Give some wine this Christmas...

Boxing clever

Sandihurst has a great Christmas wine special on at the minute. For only $115NZD and including free delivery anywhere in New Zealand you get;

2 x 2008 Sandihurst Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
2 x 2007 Sandihurst Central Otago Pinot Noir
2 x 2006 Sandihurst Canterbury Riesling

Amazing value and a real saving. This would be a great Xmas gift as these wines are all drinking beautifully now.

You might also consider a great looking wooden box for your wine, as seen in the photo above. The boxes cost $8 for a single, $11 a double and $23 for a 6 bottle box. In addition you will get a further 5% off the retail price of any wine you decide to purchase to go into the box.

Order forms can be found on our website or you can email us directly at info@sandihurstwines.co.nz

In the news today...

Put that down!, slowly.

The most expensive wine for sale in NZ at this moment - here's a shameless just-in-time-for-Christmas piece of journalism about two bottles of Chateau Petrus. Is there anyone in NZ who could do it justice? - can I suggest instead a case of Sandihursts finest every week for a year would be a better bet. Practically the same price.

No such thing as bad publicity of course but this article, in NZs national Sunday newspaper, is about the Waipara Valley wine region. Substance not included.

More worrying for small wineries like ourselves is the next article in toady's NZ Herald regarding the huge volume of Sauvignon Blanc 2008 that is available and the cheap prices it is selling for. With last years crop 40% up on previous years, massive new plantings about to crop and a fabulous fruit-set period just passed, this years crop is likely to again be huge. Great for the consumer perhaps but those in the industry must be seriously worried. With 50% of the nations vineyard under SB we cant afford to ruin our reputation overseas.

How much is out there ??

With fruit set in the vineyard practically over its time to get a feel for how much crop is out there. It was warm and fine throughout the fruit-set period so its likely each vine will be carrying a reasonable sized crop. This initial crop estimation is a general guideline as to whether we need to drop any fruit at this stage.

Usually growers will randomly select a number of vines through the vineyard, count the number of clusters per vine, apply a historical bunch weight average, add a dose of gut instinct and then arrive at an approximate yield.

We expect each vine to carry not more than 2kg of fruit through to harvest. At our average row spacings of 2 x 1.5 this should equate to around 5 tonnes/hectare - a figure in line with most quality conscious vineyards and will also give a juice yield equal to legal limits in France for Grand Cru vineyards.

On a vine spacing of 1.5m each vine will have approximately 10-15 shoots each supporting 2 bunches of fruit. Depending on the varietal we can expect the average weight of each bunch to be around 100g. Growers will keep annual bunch weight data to help predict yield more accurately. And so we arrive, after thinning and other canopy management techniques, at something around 2kg/vine.

What we don't want is a repeat of 2008 when everyone everywhere seemed to be caught out by larger than average berry sizes which resulted in huge crops and overflows in wineries all over the place. Not good for the wine quality and ultimately the image of NZ wine abroad.

The issue that wont go away...

A good article written by Jamie Goode over on WineAnorak prompted by the BBCs new TV programme called Cork,Forest in a bottle. The basic premise of the article is that cork is a wonderful natural product with a current problem (TCA). This resulted in the inevitible rise in popularity of alternative closures which , in turn, has forced the cork industry to make huge inroads into solving this issue. Corks are fighting back !

The fact of the matter is that if screwcaps did exactly the same job as cork then of course we would all be using them. They dont and cannot. The interesting point surrounding corks is their ability to aid in the bottle development of wine via the interaction with air. Not air from the outside but from the compressed cells within the cork itself. There is some semi-technical but really interesting reading on the subject over on AppelationAmerica here and here dispelling the myth that corks 'breathe'.

A word from the floor...

Just a word on what is going on in the cellar at this time of year.

08 Pinot Noir - 140 barrels, most of which have been there for around 6 months were recently tested for levels of Malic acid to see how complete the MLF was. All barrels came back with a level of below 0.01g/l

The 08 reds are exhibiting slightly higher pH levels than in the past as growers tried to give the grapes extra hang time in order to achieve full ripeness. Bacteria work better the higher the pH levels are so the current dose now is needed to keep them at bay. This should see the barrel maturation period out nicely before I need to rack/blend and bottle in April next year. Its the first sulphur the wine has had since the grapes arrived.

08 White Wines - Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer - Our whites spend a little longer than most on lees and consequently we bottle later too. While there are a lot of 08 whites on the shelves already ours wont come out for another 4 months or so. All the whites have been sitting on lees up until now - gaining a little texture and complexity. From today I will be giving each wine its first coarse filtration as I begin to assemble the blends. Coarse filtration by plate/frame filter as we use here, essentially brightens up the wine from its cloudy state, takes out the larger particles and gives us a clearer idea of where each wine stands.

At this stage the Gris and Gewurz are going to be dry wines whereas we will have two Rieslings - one Canterbury and one Waipara - with between 15-25g/L sugar. This is a great fresh style balanced with higher acidity and low levels of alcohol, around 10-11%. Its a winner.

Another reason to love corks...

At Sandihurst all our wines are bottled under cork. We believe it is the best closure for the developement of the wine in the bottle. Now Decanter magazine reports on another reason to love the mighty cork.

A year-long life cycle analysis of the environmental impact of cork, plastic and aluminium screwcap stoppers has found what is already widely accepted: that cork is the most environmentally-friendly stopper. The was study undertaken by analysts Pricewaterhouse Coopers and was commissioned by Amorim, the world's largest cork manufacturer.

The report found plastic stoppers, including the plastic capsule that goes over the top of the bottle, are nine times more damaging to the environment - and aluminium screwcaps are twenty-two times - than cork stoppers, including corks with a plastic capsule.

The first independent survey comparing all three main types of wine bottle stopper, the study was conducted in accordance with ISO (International Standards Organisation) protocols which require peer review, and involved representatives from manufacturers of the other types of closures as well as a life cycle analysis expert.

It calculated various environmental impacts: non-renewable energy consumption, water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, atmospheric acidification, formation of photochemical oxidants which cause ozone layer depletion, the production of solid waste, and the eutrophication (loss of animal life) of surface water. Of the seven environmental impacts studied, cork performed best on six of them.

The anti-cork brigade will no doubt be up on their soapboxes already, yes we know the report was funded by a cork manufacturer. But this result is clearly not in question. Most of these people are forever on about cork taint as opposed to wine developement, i think a more important issue. One day cork manufacturers will beat the taint issue and where we we be then ?

Sandihurst - Google Street View

Here we are , as seen from the new Google Street View application launched this week. Not that exciting really.

Where in the world is......Brennan Vineyards

Driving out of Queenstown towards Cromwell/Wanaka. The first Valley you come to is the Gibbston Valley, home of Bungy Jumping and a number of well known wineries - Peregrine, Chard Farm and Gibbston Valley to name a few. Just past Peregrine but not as far as Waitiri Creek, on the opposite side of the main highway, you will find the Brennan and OVO Vineyards. This is where we source our Central Otago Pinot Noir. Check out Google Earth for a broader view of the region.