The battle of good versus evil...

News from the Marlborough Express that some growers who, having had their fruit rejected by the wineries, have banded together to produce a bulk wine rather than let their fruit go to the ground. This is yet another twist in what is turning out to be quite a major shift in the NZ wine industry. The article goes on to say how , despite having thinning their crop twice, the winery rejected the fruit as the crop load was still too high. The winery limit was 12 tonnes per hectare whilst the grower had 19 tonnes per hectare. Read more here.

Both these figures astonish me. 19 tonnes! or 15 for that matter. We crop here around 5 which is the oft quoted mark for quality fruit both here and in Europe. How can the NZ industry and image, which is made up of more than 50% Sauvignon Blanc, survive on poor quality fruit ? Especially with a fickle world market that is starting (supposedly) to tire of the style.

This article also highlights the fact that wineries and growers have been operating in a them-and-us situation for too long. Overcropping and overcharging for fruit in demand but after the a year like 2008 the boot has gone onto the other foot with prices plummeting and huge amounts of fruit going to waste. Wineries and growers need to move beyond the price-per-tonne model to a more inclusive win-win level of cropload/price structuring. Just don't ask me what that is. But one thing is for sure, the tough times are not over and change is inevitable.

Spooky...

First there was the image of Jesus appearing in a t-shirt stain and then Elvis Presley turned up on a cheese toasted sandwich. Now a new miracle has occurred right here at Sandihurst Winery in New Zealand - Lassie, or possibly Scooby Do, has appeared in the floating grape seeds of our Waipara Pinot Noir fermenter. Sadly it was but a fleeting moment or I would have had it on Ebay by now. Fear not though, another 12 fermenters of Central Otago Pinot have yet to finish fermentation so with any luck...

Signs of Life...

The Pinot Gris ferment is nearing its end. Checking it yesterday it still had around 12g/L residual sugar. It started with around 250g/L. Thats alot of sugar. Im looking for this wine to go dry and then to leave it on full lees for a bit with some occassional stirring to build up the texture. Ferment temperatures were controlled intially to a maximum of 15C but have switched it off for the last half and temps hav epeaked at around 22C so there should be interesting as a wine and not just alcoholic fruit juice.

Heres a super exciting video of the action from the fermentation lock at the top of the tank. Much more exciting than watching grass grow or paint dry. Honest.

Pick a number...

Part 5 of the Jancis Robinson Wine Course - surely a bit dated (check out those white coats) but an interesting view into the world of wine judging all the same.

Cork news...

News via Twitter today that top Alsation producer Hugel has decided to use the Diam cork for ALL of their wines from the 2007 vintage onwards. They have posted a video on their website to announce the decision. As they explain it was not a decision taken lightly but after years of trials. Watch it in full here. This is a great endorsement and boost to those of us already using Diam and for the cork industry in general. I expect a good number of other quality producers will follow suit over the course of the next few years. Learn more about the Diam cork from their website here.

We can, in fact, be thankful for an issue like cork taint. This prompted the rise in alternative closures which in turn forced the cork industry to up its game. Everyone wins in the end.

Learn some new skills and impress your friends...

Green, clean and a little bit mean...

This Riesling comes from the Georges Road Vineyard in Waipara. The fruit is hand harvested into small 10kg bins and transferred to these 400kg bins for transport to the winery. The fruit looked great (its been a very good year in Waipara) - around 21 Brix 3.1 pH and with around 8g/L acid.

Ready to go - all our white are whole-bunch pressed

We use the forklift to tip the fruit onto our conveyor.

The 'cellar rats' aid the fruit onto the conveyor

Our press holds around 3 tonnes of whole-bunch fruit. Each press cycle takes around 3 hours to complete.

Tweet for a reason...please...

Twitter - its a social media phenomenon but in amongst all the networking and commerce there does seem to be an awful lot of 'just had breakfast' or 'loving life' type comments. This video sums it up well.

Sugar turns to alcohol...

Heres a photo of a hydrometer measuring the juice Brix levels. Brix is the measure of the soluble solids in the juice, effectively translating into the amount of sugar which in turn can tell us the amount of potential alcohol we will end up with once fully fermented. The basic equation is that yeasts consume the sugar and the result is ethanol and CO2 gas. Unfermented grape juice often has around 250g/L sugar which is sweet !, twice as sweet as Coke and sweeter than almost all other fruits by a long way. In this picture here our 2009 Pinot Gris juice prior to ferment is around 23 brix which may equate to around 13% percent alcohol give or take 0.5% juice to factors such as temperature. Once the juice is fermenting we need to monitor the drop in brix regularly as well as making sure the yeasts are well fed (otherwise they can start to produce off flavours) and keeping an eye on juice temperature and residual sugar levels too.

Eeek, snow...

Heres a photo of Queenstown taken early this morning. Snow on the hills! Im waiting to hear from our grower in Gibbston about what, if any, effect this had had on the vines. Weather station monitors had the temperature at 0C for most of the night. With grapes 3 weeks + from ripening, this is a little worrying. Stay tuned.

The Punch Down...

When the Pinot ferments are in full swing the gas (CO2) created by the yeasts pushes all the skins to the surface of the fermenter. This creates a crust or cap which needs to be punched down back into the liquid 4-5-6 times a day. This is important because the skins are where the extraction of wine phenolics, the colour and the tannin, comes from. And if you were to let them dry out on top then that exposes the fermenter to bacterial attack. Its physically hard work as the cap can be quite tough, strong enough even to support the weight of a person. 1 fermenter is no problem but when you have 20-30 on the go it you really need an extra pair of hands to spread the load. By the time you have finished No.20 then its often time to start again on No.1. Of course some wineries have mechanised systems to do this but wheres the 'handcrafted' in that.

Settle down...

Earlier in the week we picked in our Pinot Gris. The fruit was hand-harvested from the Georges Road Vineyard in Waipara. Upon arrival at the winery the fruit was whole-bunch pressed to a tank for a period of 48 hours settling. I racked the clear juice yesterday into another tank to begin fermentation. The photo above shows the difference between the settled juice and the heavy solids that were left behind.

At Sandihurst all our white wines are whole bunch pressed as I believe the resulting juice is of a higher quality, fresher and more pure, without the level of phenolics that can be extracted from crushing the fruit.

Its alive Egor !.....

Ive just added some yeast into one of our Pinot Noir fermenters. The yeast is VR5 from Fermicru. It contains 10 billion active dried yeast cells per gram! Thats a lot. Im adding at a rate of 20g per 100L. The yeast manufacturers make all sorts of claims about the properties of their yeasts. This one proports to 'support structure, body, and aromatic finesse'. Just what I need. In fact I have used it before and found it to be reliable, strong and with good effects on both fruit and colour.

Heres a few photos as I rehydrated the dried yeast over a 30 minute period before adding it to the fermenter.

First add the yeast to some tepid water. Then add the dried yeast. Let it acclimatise for a bit.

Mix it in and add a little sugar in the form of juice for the yeasts to feed on.

The yeast cells begin to be active. The volume in the bucket begins to grow.

All the while adding a little more juice to bring the temperature to within 10C of the juice temperature. Otherwise the yeast might get too much of a shock when added to the juice and begin to die. Lastly tip the bucket into the fermenter and mix well ! The yeasts must go crazy at this point, all that sugar...

Take a closer look...

Plucked from obscurity, this Pinot Noir bunch is pictured prior to losing its stem and ending up in an open topped fermenter. In a month or thereabouts the juice from the these berries will be wine. In a year or so, after ageing gracefully in a French oak barrique, they will end up in a bottle. Six months after that you will be pouring your first glass of the 2009 Sandihurst Waipara Pinot Noir.

First Fruit - Vintage 2009 begins...

It all starts with some beautiful fruit. Ripe, clean, handharvested. A touch over 24 brix, acidity around 6.5 g/L and pH of 3.4

Weighed, then gently tipped into the conveyor.....

Up the Conveyor into the Destemmer, with the open-top fermenter in place below...

No pumping here. The destemmed berries fall directly into the fermenter.

Each fermenter holds around 1.5 tonnes of fruit.

A little sulphur for health and to hold off the wild yeasts for a few days while a pre-ferment maceration takes place (good for colour extraction).

French culture at risk !

Decanter published this piece yesterday about the upcoming banning of alcohol consumption anywhere outside, even on cafe terraces. I was 3/4 the way of of my chair, en route to the roof, about to scream, when I noticed the article date..... Very good.