The Gift of Flowers

News from Waipara over the last few days is that flowering has begun. In line with their geographical position, Marlborough is usually a little ahead of Waipara with Central Otago a little later than both of them. This is about normal for this stage of the season. Grapes are self-fertilising so once the flowers have open they rely on the weather to complete the job. And warm, fine and settled weather is forecast for the remainder of the week so this bodes well for a great fruit-set. Without any frost issues and with a good level of potential crop on the vine there will almost certainly have to be a reasonable amount of crop thinning done to ensure full ripeness for the fruit come harvest time.

Alot can change in a year, apparently...

From the US magazine Business Week, February 12 2007;

"The cool-climate wines of New Zealand have long been popular with wine critics. But to me, the pinot noirs are often too vegetal and green, the sauvignon blancs reminiscent of cat pee, and the chardonnays grotesquely over-oaked. This is a country of young wine producers where everything remains a work in progress, but for now the prices of these wines do not translate to quality in the bottle."

To today's press release regarding the new (7th) edition of his influential Wine Buyers Guide where 5 NZ wineries have achieved a 5 star rating with a further 21 rated 4 stars and another 80 rated as 'good'. That's practically 20% of all NZ wineries. Parker's team of writers does not grade individual wines but on the wineries overall ability to deliver consistent excellence, bucking vintage ups and downs, delivering regardless of circumstance. The previous editions of the guide granted NZ only the smallest of mentions.

What a difference a year makes.

Where on earth is...Williams Hill

Williams Hill - Waipara - Pinot Noir

Get yourself onto Google Earth and see where our vineyards are. Until I work out how to hyper link all the coordinates I will have to post them up here one by one. Plug in the coordinates from the map above and have a broader, better view.

Just for the record...

As much as I dont like them (or quite often, agree with the judges!) Wine Competitions appear to be a neccessary evil in the ongoing battle, especially for smaller producers such as us, to sell wine. It seems that the wine buying public need the reassurance of a sticker on the bottle in order to make a purchase. And this rule applies the world over. Even our agents and distributors in other countries seem to like stickers or competition results as it gives them a degree of comfort in the product they are trying to sell.

In an ideal world people would trust their own judgement and palate ! Competitions have too many variables in play. The country factor - how would one foreign Sauvignon Blanc fare against a sea of NZ Sauvignons? The judging factor - do they have a nationalised cellar palate - will a wine that is a bit left field do as well? Does Gold Medal in one country mean Gold in another - most unlikely. What about wine age - does a Gold medal now mean it will still taste 'gold' 2-3 years later? All competitions dont use the same judging criteria or scoring systems. Big wine companies who make 'show reserve' wines just in an attempt to win medals - just part of the advertising budget or a sideline to keep the winemakers interested ? I could go on. However, theres no getting away from it so I had better get used to it.

So after all that heres the Sandihurst list to guide you when you are next out..

2004 Riesling Medium Canterbury - Winestate - 5 STARS, Wine NZ - Shortlist Best Buy

2004 Riesling Dry Canterbury - Winestate - 4 STARS
2004 Gewurztraminer Canterbury - Winestate- 5 STARS
2004 Pinot Gris Canterbury - Winestate- 5 STARS

2006 Pinot Noir Canterbury - Liquorland Top100 GOLD, Decanter - 4 STARS, Cuisine - 4 STARS, International Wine & Spirit London - SILVER Best in Class
2006 Riesling Canterbury - Air New Zealand Wine Awards - SILVER, Selections Mondiale des Vins Canada - SILVER, Canberra International Riesling Challenge - BRONZE, International Wine & Spirit London - SILVER Best in Class
2006 Pinot Gris Canterbury - Bragato Wine Awards - BRONZE

2007 Pinot Noir Waipara - Air New Zealand Wine Awards- BRONZE
2007 Riesling Nelson - International Aromatics Competition - BRONZE, Air New Zealand Wine Awards - BRONZE

2008 Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough - Bragato Wine Awards - BRONZE

Modest success then. The one interesting theme for me from this is that we tend to score better for wines that are entered after at least a years maturation in the bottle. Confirmation to me of our wines ability to improve as they age.

Coming to Hong Kong

Heres a photo of a recent tasting in Hong Kong which featured our Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2008.

We are currently putting the finishing touches (ie: labelling and packaging) to a new shipment to HK scheduled to leave next week . So look out for us, for in the not too distant future you will soon be able to enjoy, not only the Sauvignon, but also our Central Otago Pinot Noir 2007, Canterbury Riesling 2006, Nelson Chardonnay 2007 and Canterbury Pinot Gris 2006.

The wines should be available in both Hong Kong and Macau. I will post our agents details and from where you can find our wine shortly.

The monthly Kiwi music video...

Nesian Mystik - Its On

"Like Vietnam in the bad old days"...

Just a wrap on the recent frost event that had up to 500 helicopters on standby around the country. TV3 News featured the story and you can view it here or read more here.

A week of warm settled weather has followed and it appears that, fingers crossed, the spring frost season may be over.

Next key event to look out for will be flowering or fruit-set. Warm temperatures here will ensure healthy crop volumes and give growers the option of deciding on how much fruit to retain through to harvest. Cooler temperatures can reduce and affect crop levels and, as happened in 2007, this may still be excellent for winemakers but will certainly not be welcomed (financially) by growers. Stay tuned...

The Numbers Game

NZ Winegrowers have just released their Statistical Annual 2008. 50 pages of facts and figures - here are just a few I thought were interesting.

1. Half of all vineyards in NZ are Sauvignon Blanc, about 14000ha and is still growing. The next largest is Pinot Noir with 4650ha, then Chardonnay 3881, with everything else a tiny 1380ha or less. Playing to our strengths or having most of our eggs in the same basket??

2. Just over half of all vineyards in NZ are located in Marlborough. No surprise there I guess.

3. The average cropping level is practically 10 tonnes per hectare !! Surely overcropping for a cool climate region. Blame Sauvignon Blanc and wonder how much better could we be if we tried.

4. Of the nearly 30000 hectares of vineyards in NZ only 917 is Riesling. This seems ridiculously small for a country whose terroir is practically tailor-made for the variety. Even Pinot Gris has overtaken it at 1383ha.

5. NZ has 585 wineries and 90% are small (less than 200000L production).

6. Waipara is NZs fastest growing wine region. No major growth in Central Otago is forecast for the few years.

7. People in New Zealand drink on average only 1 glass of wine per week (approx 11L a year). Really ? Not in my house.

You can pore through the report yourself here.

Frosty Reception

At the tail end of last week a storm swept up the South Island brigning rain, sleet and snow to all areas. And it wasnt only the peloton in the Tour of Southland who were affected by the snow. Vineyards across the island were also struck by the freak weather.

In Central Otago the vineyards had helicopters on standby all mornings from Wednesday to Saturday. It was much the same across the rest of the island. Temperatures plummeted to 0C and below on all of those mornings, the lowest being -2.6C in our Gibbston Valley vineyard on Saturday. Newspapers reported that 500 helicopters were working in vineyards across the country that night. Check out the TV3 news video here.

I was up in Waipara on Friday night/Saturday morning with a helicopter on site. Temperatures in the vineyard went from 7C at midnight down to around 0C by 6am but soon warmed up with daybreak and the only thing lost was a nights sleep.

Helicopters are expensive to run. Depending on its size and the area of vineyard you want to protect, the hourly rate can be anything from $600-$3000. Which is enough to give any vineyard owner sleepless nights but is better than the stress of losing your entire crop (and hence income) in a single night.

You can read a little more in a newspaper report Here. The net result for Sandihurst is that we have lost our West Melton fruit - two good Riesling vineyards (potentially 20 tonnes) and our Pinot Gris (5 tonnes). Its disappointing but on the plus side, our vineyards in Waipara, Marlborough and Central have been unaffected. The forecast this week is for fine weather and surely this spells the end of the frost risk this year.

And the winner is....

A man with a 1000 bottle wine cellar at his home has defeated a man who rarely drinks at all and is about to replace a man who gave up drinking because it was getting the better of him. Sounds like a good result all round then.

Did you know that only American wine is allowed to be served at the Whitehouse. Find out how much you know about wine and US politics by taking the Whitehouse Wine Quiz here.

Springtime in Central

Heres a photo taken this morning in Queenstown, Central Otago. Springtime. Not that unusual but not exactly welcome either. No reported vineyard damage at this stage. Temperatures overnight got down as low as 0.8C and havent risen much over 5.0C all day. Brrrrrr.

Keeping an eye out

While we are always in contact with our growers in other regions its good to be able to keep a handle on the season generally just to get an idea of how things are going. Webcams and Vineyard Weather stations are an ideal way to do this from afar.

Regional Webcams

Central Otago - Lake Wanaka, Clyde, Alexandra, Queenstown

Weather Stations

These are from the excellent site harvest.com and have the added advantage of calaculating GDD as well as temperature, rainfall, wind and humidity.

Central Otago - Brennan location of our PinotNoir

Marlborough - St Lukes our Sauvignon Blanc vineyard.

Waipara - Huxley, Camshorn on the valley floor, Omihi to the north, or Muddy Water on the hillside.

Rain Radars

Elders and MetService have very good hourly radars that we can use to track bad weather.

Marlborough and Sauvignon Blanc

The secret ingredient for great world beating Sauvignon Blanc, according to the video above, is Marlborough. In other words its all about TERROIR. It always is.

Mon Dieu ! Quel Horreur !

Chaos in the French wine industry with what looks like some mad ideas being debated about the advertising and sale of wine in France. Quite naturally the local winemakers and growers have taken to the streets in protest.

The demonstrators were drawing attention to the censorship of wine in the press, the proposed tax raises on wine, the ban on wine advertising on the internet, and the possible banning of free wine tastings to the public. Decanter has more on it here and here.

All quiet here in NZ where tastings are most often free or if charged for, are refundable upon purchase of any wine. And advertising on the internet or newspaper is not restricted at all.

Growth Industry

We can see the fruit ! Uniform growth and practically 2 bunches on every shoot. Next job in the vineyard will be to think about shoot thinning where things look a little crowded. Thinning helps limit the crop and open up the canopy to light and wind flow which helps ripening and to reduce disease pressure.

In a few weeks we will begin to see flowering and fruit-set take place. NZ's national weather bureau have just issued a prediction of a warmer and drier than average summer. Which would be great news but can they be trusted ?

Grape Expectations...

Its that time of year when we as a winery are out visiting our growers, taking a look at the vineyards to see how the current season has begun, and also reviewing the previous season - how the grapes were, things that could be improved from both sides and a look at the pricing structure.

With regards to pricing generally, it is amazing how random it all seems to be. Most people seem to plump for a figure somewhere near last years prices with a small increase factored in, with perhaps a premium added in cases where vineyards are perceived to have a high quality terroir or for grape varietals that are in high current demand. There seems to be very little knowledge of how those prices were first arrived at and little or no discussion about how they relate to the operating costs of a vineyard.

Most growers are paid by the tonne. Some also have an incremental scale based on ripeness or other such quality parameters. Another system not used often in NZ but which seems to approximate the current grape prices well is the 100 x bottle price formula. A few growers are involved in profit-sharing schemes with the wineries. Some wineries opt to lease the vineyard outright.

No doubt the Economists would tell us its all simple demand and supply - Pinot Noir often sells for twice the price of Riesling so growers shouldnt expect the same prices for their fruit despite the fact that all the good ones will spend exactly the same amount of time in the vineyard on both varietals.

Life isnt fair sometimes (if you grow/love Riesling!)

Waipara - late October

Back to work. Here's a photograph looking across the Waipara Valley. Waipara is New Zealands fastest growing premium wine region and is home to some of the country's best Pinot Noirs and Rieslings. It offers a wide array of terroirs with soil types ranging from the clay and limestone hills to the loess/gravel valley floor. Although only 50 kilometres north of Christchurch it is generally 2C warmer, largely due to the protective influence of the hills in the photograph above which shelter the valley from the cool Easterly wind coming off the Pacific ocean directly on the other side. There are around 80 vineyards and a dozen wineries in the region and the number grows every year. Large scale recent investment from the big wine companies in New Zealand is a real vote of confidence and has raised the profile greatly both here and abroad. The infrastructure in the local town of Amberley is steadily growing but it still remains a quintessential NZ farming town.

At Sandihurst we grow our fruit at 3 vineyards in Waipara. Williams Hill, Bellbird Spring and Georges Road. Pinot Noir, Riesling and Pinot Gris are the varietals. And while we don't want to put the Commentators Curse on it, with the frost and flowering periods not yet over - the 2008-09 season has started so well people are beginning to say they cant remember a start like it. Long may it continue.

Labour Day...anything but

A public holiday in New Zealand today, its Labour Day and so its all about NOT working. We headed for the beach. Roll on Summer...

In the Vineyard again...

Following on from bud burst around the end of September/start of October depending on where your vineyard is, the vine has dodged a couple of frost scares and the new shoots now seem to be happily growing bigger each day. Looking across the vineyard there is a picturesque sea of green. At this stage of the season each shoot has between 3-5 leaves unfolded and you can now see the inflorescence's on each shoot (mostly 2 per shoot). All going to plan, these inflorescence's will swell, flower, and set fruit before the year is out.

Even now we can get a rough guide to the potential crop by looking at the average number of inflorescence's on each vine and applying a bunch weight guesstimate based on the historical data of the vineyard. The major variable in the equation is the weather over the flowering period which plays a big part in the number of berries that set on each bunch , and therefore the potential crop size.

When the Merde hits the fan...

Following in the footsteps of wines like Cats Pee on a Gooseberry Bush or Fat Bastard comes this Rose wine from the Languedoc region of France. Apparently not 'merde' at all and 7 Euros to boot, it seems to be another marketing/labelling stunt that has met with success. You can watch some BBC footage of it here.

Its not the first time the use of 'Merde' has appeared in relation to French wine. British writer Anthony Hanson once famously wrote that 'Great Burgundy smells of shit'. And in another classic incident a Lyon magazine was ordered to pay £200,000 in damages to a group of 56 co-operatives in the Beaujolais region when they quoted the opinion of François Mauss, president of the Grand Jury of European Wine Tasters who said of Beaujolais 'C'est un vin de merde.'

A bientot

Thats my boy !

Heres my son Thomas doing his bit during our recent party for the launch of our 2008 Sauvignon Blanc. He loved it...but hes more of a Riesling man, just like his father.

The Bud Brush...

Its about now that one of the more tedious and strenuous vineyard jobs takes place. Its bud rubbing - the removal of unwanted buds/shoots that grow on the trunk from the head of the vine to the base. Normally this is a job that is the very definition of 'back-breaking'. Its a job that is almost always done manually and bending over every 1.5 metres 3 or 4000 times in every hectare can mean long tiring days and exhausted nights.

People mostly use some sort of glove with a rough surface, secateurs or just bare hands but now it seems some bright spark has invented a tool that looks like a cross between a toilet brush and an oversized toothbrush but which might actually be quite useful. At only NZD$26.50 we would be mad not to try it. Apparently they are selling like hotcakes in the USA. It seems too easy, its a wonder it hasnt been produced before.

Results to follow...

Glass half full....

At Sandihurst we are trialling, in conjunction with Lincoln University and MetaNZ, the use of recycled crushed glass as a reflective undervine mulch. The trial is being conducted in our Pinot Noir vineyard and is now in its second year. The trial is comparing Green glass, White glass, Mussel Shells and a Control area of vines without any mulch. Mussel shells have been used to good effect in previous trials at Neudorf vineyard in Nelson. You can get a little more detail about that here.

The benefits of using a reflective undervine surface are many and may especially help vineyards or varietals that are in marginal areas. The glass/shells act to reflect light and heat back into the canopy of the vine. The raises the temperature around the fruiting zone and may have an effect on photosynthetic rates and vine phenology. More light evenly spread around the cluster may also help even ripening and promote a more mature level of phenolic (tannin) development in the berry without pushing the sugar levels too high. Berry colour is also improved. Below the vine surface the mulches may also help to raise soil temperature and have positive effects on vine root development and as an added bonus helps limits weed growth too.

Initial tasting of wines made from the trial blocks were sensational to say the least. Where the control block came over as quite thin and with higher levels of green tannin, the glass/shell vines had an obvious depth of mid palate weight to them as well as excellent tannin structure and darker colour. The difference was chalk and cheese, from vines only metres apart of each other.

The Sandihurst trial has great potential as it combines all the known benefits of undervine mulch with the use of recycled glass, in itself a major issue for recycling companies in New Zealand. Its very exciting. The glass has been colour separated and arrives to us in 1 tonne lots. Amazingly there are no sharp edges in the crushed glass.

Stay tuned for more results as the trial continues...

Our day in the sun...

Last Sunday saw the inaugural Sandihurst Sauvignon Blanc Launch Party take place. It was a great success and close to 250 people attended the event which was held at the winery. The weather was brilliant and everyone seemed to have a great time sprawled out on the lawn in the sun, drinking our wines and listening to the live Jazz band. A local restaurant, Langdale, were also on hand with some great food.

People received a complementary glass of our 2008 Sauvignon Blanc upon arrival together with a food match by Langdale (a delicious Prawn Croquette) and could then sample through the range of our other wines, which included another new release - our 2007 Central Otago Pinot Noir.

All in all it was such a success it looks like we will have to make it an annual event.

Nipped in the bud...

This is moderate frost damage. The spurs either side of the middle one seem to be OK and healthy but you can see in the middle spur the shoot tips and leaves have been hit. This shoot probably wont make it. No leaves remain to photosynthesize and the tip is ruined so wont grow any longer. A secondary bud may emerge but it is already well behind the remaining healthy shoots so will probably have to be removed or will end up as an unripe bunch in the harvest.