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.

Biting the hand...

Making wine is the easy part. Heres a great piece from a website article of UK wine retailer Les Caves de Pyrene about how hard and one-sided it can be for wine merchants (and therefore wineries) out there in the marketplace.

Wine merchants are constantly enjoined to look at the bottom line profits of their customers; those customers, however, are rarely capable of seeing how sustainable margins are just as vital for wine merchants.

Flip the relationship on its head to understand its true dynamic.A wine merchant goes to a restaurant and eats a hearty meal. He is presented with the bill, looks at it, and says, “Thanks, but I’m trade. First you must give me 20% discount. And then I would like a free glass of champagne with every meal. And every Christmas I want to take my entire staff here for a free meal”.

He then says, “I’m not going to pay the bill now but in 30-45 days. By the way I’ll probably forget so you’ll have to remind me. In the mean time I’ll come back and have lunch regularly on the same terms; I won’t pay because it is an honour for you to have me dining at your restaurant”. One day he comes in and sees that the prices have been put up: “I’m not going to pay the new prices; you must keep them the same as before otherwise I will stop honouring you with my business”, to which the restaurateur replies: “You come in here, you carp and criticise, you eat our food and drink our wine, and then you pay when you feel like it.” The wine merchant snorts and expostulates: “Well, if that’s your attitude I will take my business elsewhere.”

To pick or not to pick...

Just been out in Waipara sampling some Pinot Noir to get an idea of when harvest might be.

Fruit looks great, its disease free, not overcropped and tastes superb. Seeds are crunchy to the bite and much browner than they were this time last year, indicating a greater level of phenolic maturity. Tannins will be ripe, not green. Ripeness appears quite uniform across the bunch.

From a simple refractometer test the current brix levels are 22.8 - fermented to dryness this might equate to something just over 13% alcohol (taking into account a half percent or so that may be lost during the open-top fermentation) . Sounds good so far.

Acidity levels range from 6.5 to 7.5 grams per litre. Again, almost exactly what we are looking for. Levels will fall during the secondary Malolactic fermentation as well so if anything these are a little low although tasting my way round a few vineyards and varieties in the region, this does seem to be a year of lower acids. I may have to add some acid to the ferments.

pH levels are between 3.1 to 3.2 - this is great for this time of year. As sugar (brix) levels rise pH can start to rocket. We need to be aware that the drop in acidity from the MLF will see a corresponding rise in the wines pH. If we are aiming for a final pH of around 3.65 then these current figures are ideal.

So whats holding me back. Shouldn't I call in the pickers? Almost - weather forecast is great for the next few days so perhaps sometime next week will be the time. This might allow for another 0.5% alcohol and some riper fruit characters in our Pinot. Stay tuned.

Could I get you a red wine to go with that piece of dark chocolate...

Via Decanter today......."Red wine increases the female libido, research has found. According to a study carried out by the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital in Florence, drinking one to two glasses of red wine a day increases female sexual desire. The study investigated 789 Italian women aged between 18 and 50. Drinking red wine not only helps to release inhibitions, but also has a direct effect on sexual activity. Women who drink one to two glasses of wine a day were found to be more sexually active than those who abstain. Dark chocolate, which is rich in antioxidants, has a similarly positive effect on the female libido."

A appearance from Jack Frost...

An earlier than anticipated frost hit Central Otago yesterday morning. Wind machines kicked into action from about 6am on Sunday morning but there was no real damage reported. Its a sure sign that autumn is on its way. Central usually starts to get frosts from April onwards so this is unusual. Its a tough life growing grapes in Otago with extreme weather hazards at both ends of the season but the quality of the fruit that gets harvested usually makes up for it. Up to this point in the season most growers are extremely upbeat about the quality on the vine. So as long as that continues through until late April/early May then the wineries will be happy too.

Canterbury is also a region which loves a good frost too so with grapes being anything from 1-4 weeks away from harvest, growers up here will be keeping a watchful eye to the skies as well.

Cool climate wine drinking...

Theres a time and place to enjoy a good bottle of Pinot Noir. Is the middle of nowhere, on the high seas, halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica it - probably not, but thats what happened about a month back during the Portimao Global Ocean Race - an around-the-world yacht race for madmen.

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Jeremey Salvesen, a crew member on the British entry Mowgli writes on his blog that he celebrated his birthday with a glass or two of the Sandihurst Pinot Noir 2006. I've yet to hear what qualifies as room temperature down there, they may have had to warm the wine first.

Allez Le Beast ! ...

Theres a massive rise in the Internet and various forms of social media in particular, in relation to wine marketing etc. At Sandihurst Ive been checking it all out to see what works and what doesnt. Alot doesnt. There are a lot of boring, staid wine related videos out there but this is not one of them. Interesting website too. Check it out here.

Jancis Robinsons Wine Course - Episodes 1-4

New to Youtube, the 1995 TV series from the BBC. Essential viewing.

The harvest before the harvest...

A video from crushpad in California detailing the process of crop thinning, something we have been doing here in New Zealand on our vines in order to advance the quality and uniformity of the remaining fruit.

Basically, at veraison, any green fruit, any 'second-set', any green shoulders on any bunch or any bunch with any amount of disease or disorder is dropped to the ground. Often, depending on the varietal, we will also drop the 2nd and 3rd bunches on a shoot as well leaving only the primary bunch. If left on the vine none of these will ripen to the same degree at the primary bunch and this will bring down the overall quality of the crop. Thinning concentrates the flow of photosynthates into the remaining fruit. Up to 50% of the vines crop can be dropped onto the ground, something many growers find hard to watch.

"Contains Milk Products"...

You sometimes see on the back label the phrase "contains milk products" or 'fined using milk products, traces may remain". Its all part of the law surrounding the declaration of potential allergens (although whether any actually remain is in the wine is highly debatable).

While my usual goal is NOT to fine any of our wines (less is more), there are just some wines who are better off with a little fining. The fining agent of choice for me is usually egg white for our reds and milk for the whites.

And that's what I am doing at the minute - adding a little milk (trim milk, no need for the cream component here) as a gentle fining agent to our 2008 Riesling. Technically speaking I am adding casein which is the major protein in milk. Casein is positively charged and it attracts negatively charged particles in the wine which then fall under their own weight to the bottom of the tank and the fined wine is filtered off to another tank. Im using it just to brighten the wine colour and round out the palate as it drop out any bitter phenolic substances that may be in the wine.

Always crucial to do some bench trials first before adding anything to the wine. Im adding around 250mls per hectolitre which is at the lower end of the scale. I will give it a few days to settle out and then filter the wine to another tank as it continues its journey towards our bottling date in early April.

Barrel care...

When they say winemaking is 1% art, 2% science and 97% cleaning they're not wrong.

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Heres a couple of recent photos. Following the racking of our 2008 Pinot Noir to tank, in preparation for bottling in April, all barrels had to be cleaned. This is to get rid of the lees and any tartrate build-up accumulated from the last 10 months. Our barrel washer, as seen in the top photo, gives each barrel a hot wash. The barrel washer is a great piece of equipment which introduces the hot water via a Diesel powered pressure washer, sprays it all around the inside and then sucks it back out via the green hose. So good, so quick.

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Then in the bottom photo each barrel then gets a sulphur ring burnt inside to protect the empty barrel against bugs and bacteria. From the photo you can just make out the flame in the barrel. The barrels are then stored for the next couple of months as they wait for arrival the 2009 Pinot Noir in May/June.

And we're off...

Harvest has officially begun here in the South Island with grapes being picked today for sparkling wine base in Marlborough. Read more about it here in The Marlborough Express.

Its, as always, will be a drawn out affair with the majority of the final grapes to come in usually picked in Central Otago around early May.

As always harvest labour is a major issue at the time of year. While there are a number of picking crews around there are often not enough people to go around. Unlike other countries NZ does not have a ready source of migrant labour and many NZers dont seem to like this kind of work.

Stay tuned for more updates throughout the vintage.

You can tell a lot from a photo...

Here's the winery recently as we were bottling some of our 2008 white wines. As you can see its a decent sized winery but is also quite full. Some of the wine is in cases (we use only 6 bottle cases) - it is labelled and the market destination known. Some of the wine is cleanskin, stacked unlabelled on the Cellastac sheets in the foreground - to which market it will go is unknown so the bottles are unlabelled at this point as information required on the back labels changes depending on where the wine is sold. Either way the wine cannot stay where it is and must be moved to storage as I needed to rack the barrels out into tank shortly after. Most of those tanks have jacketed cooling systems which we need for fermentation control and cold stabilisation.

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There are 139 barrels in the picture, all full of Pinot Noir. On two different types of barrel rack - one good and one less so. In the background there are numerous tanks of varying sizes, from 10000L down to 1250L. So we a small producer, crushing around 100 tonnes of fruit into approximately 6500 cases annually. Our winery is basic in design but extremely functional and as good as you will find in the region. The building is well insulated and all winery operations are done inside, under cover, even fruit receival.

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What you cant see the 5 tonne Diemme press, just to the left of the photo, or our forklift which is one of our essential pieces of equipment. To the right of the photo, our Crusher-Destemmer, Sorting table and Elevator. I will detail all of those as the vintage approaches.

Marlborough update...

Here's a good, honest video update Ive pinched from Fiasco Wines about the current state of play in their Marlborough vineyards as we approach the last few weeks before harvest. It should be representative of the region and, like here in Canterbury, it appears that what they don't want is any more rain. Fingers crossed because after last years super-crop and the ensuing negativity from various export markets New Zealand needs a a good, quality vintage to restore its image.

Bottling time...

The end of the line. Fruit came in nearly a year ago and now its ready to go out the other end as a finished bottle of wine.

We are bottling our 2008 aromatics - Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris and Riesling.

Its great to see the finished product and know all the hard work and decisions that influenced the style of the wine but the final day is always tough and boring - folding 1000+ cases or loading 10000+ bottles on the line does get slightly repetitive !

Time now for the wine to get over the 'bottle shock' period, then for a further little bottle maturation and finally out the door to market.

Wine and Music matching...

New Zealand band Flight of the Conchords and the Sandihurst 2007 Central Otago Pinot Noir - a great match. And at 7.09 about the perfect length for a whole glass.

Friendly Fire...

New guidelines issued by the French Government state 'the consumption of wine, especially wine, is discouraged.
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This is on the back of information from the French National Cancer Institute that drinking alcohol increases your risk of mouth or throat cancer by 168%. Experts around the world have condemned the study as widely flawed and inaccurate but the damage have been done and French winemakers are naturally outraged at what they see as continued persecution of their industry from within. They are already up in arms over, amongst other things, the restrictive ban (the Loi Evin) on alcohol advertising within France.
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Coupled with further comment on the risks of meat, charcuterie, cigarettes and (no doubt) cheese the French people are upset. And when the French get upset they usually take to the streets. Keep watching.

A little sunshine on a rainy day...

The Online Friends of Sandihurst Society - Canterbury Branch

Just what you need in these tough times - a real bargain...or alcohol....or both.

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For those of you here in New Zealand I thought I could offer a blog-only special of a Sandihurst 6 bottle case of wine for only $115 and free delivery too. Taste your way through the different vintages and wine regions of NZ in one handy pack. All well made, quality wine (if I do say so myself).

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2 x Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2008

2 x Canterbury Riesling 2006

2 x Central Otago Pinot Noir 2007

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Great value, you cant go wrong. Email me at kirk@sandihurstwines.co.nz to order or if you would like to know more about the wines.

Cyclone Innis en route...

Tropical Cyclone Innis is heading for New Zealand and is expected to cause bad weather over practically all of our grape growing regions in the next few days. This morning the cyclone was downgraded to 'an intense low pressure system' which I think translates as 'large rain storm'. Its currently travelling at a fast 40km/hour and heavy rain warnings are in force in many parts of the country.

Fingers crossed it isn't too bad or too wet. Most vineyards have now been netted and this weather will begin to test how well their spray programs are working as disease pressure is sure to rise.

Follow it all on weatherwatch or metservice.

Multi row versus Single row netting...

Only one winner here. In our Georges Road vineyard in Waipara we have been busy these last two days putting the bird netting on our Riesling and Pinot Gris.

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The Riesling has multi row netting while the Pinot Gris has single row. Both blocks are the same size - approx 60 rows 2.5m apart and 160m long. The Riesling was netted and pegged down in 4 hours (one tractor and 6 people) whilst the Pinot Gris took most of one day to net (tractor and 3 people) and longer to clip up. And the beauty of the multi row nets is that you can still work on the fruit underneath the net. A no-brainer. If anyone wants to buy the singles then please contact me.

Hello Everybody and Welcome.....

With 80000+ people watching his WineLibraryTV internet show daily, you would be hard pressed to find someone in the wine world who hasnt heard of Gary Vaynerchuk. Love him or hate him (and clearly there are people in both camps) Vaynerchuk has come along way in a short time thanks to his over-the-top entertaining style and enthusiastic embracement of the Internet and its various social media applications like Twitter, Facebook, Cork'd etc. He clearly knows his wine but also is very strong on branding, of both himself and his business. On his Internet show he is a loud, fast, in-your-face talker with a lot to say on everything. Its entertaining stuff.

News today that he is coming to New Zealand as a keynote speaker at the upcoming NZ Wine Exporters Forum to be held in Christchurch in July. Gary Vaynerchuk is a born keynote speaker. I expect the event will be a great success.

"Could be one out of the box"

Thats the early prediction from Marlborough growers this year. With all the negativity surrounding 2008s large volume/average quality vintage the region has gone to great lengths to ensure that this year is a return to form for the region. The NZ Wine Industry has rightly realised that, at 50% of the national crop and such a key component of our wine exports, we cannot afford to have the quality or image of our Sauvignon Blanc tarnished in any way.

The following press release was issued a week or two ago which provides a look at the season to date and highlights the effort and strategies that have been adopted this year.

Wineries and Growers Work Towards Highest Quality Vintage
Ever
Cool conditions during late December in Marlborough have created variable flowering of the region’s flagship variety Sauvignon Blanc. The later ripening areas of the province were most affected when cool southerlies hit just prior to Christmas, resulting in lower than expected fruit set for some. The earlier ripening areas of Marlborough had the opposite scenario, with excellent fruit set, according to Dr Rengasamy Balasubramaniam, (Bala) from Delegat’s Wine Estate.

With quality being the mantra of the 2009 vintage, companies have been working with growers to ensure controlled yields. Some growers have chosen to drop canes to limit the vine’s fruit, while others have been shoot thinning. Wine Marlborough Board Chair, Blair Gibbs says the industry has responded well to the call to limit yields, following a much larger than expected 2008 vintage. “Everyone is working towards making the 2009 vintage one of the best ever, in terms of quality.”

Workshops on yield forecasting have been held by all the major companies, according to Pernod Ricard’s Commercial Manager of South Island Vineyards, Peter McLeod. “We have had a very good response to our requests to control copping levels and from our perspective the vines and fruit are looking very good.”

That sentiment has been echoed by Mr Gibbs, who says the crops and vines are in
balance, as the region heads into the hottest months of the year. “People have only just started irrigating, which is late for Marlborough. It means there won’t be any pressure on resources later on in the growing season.” He says with all the work undertaken on canopies, it’s likely ripening will be earlier than normal. “Things are looking good out in the vineyards and barring some bad weather scenario, we are looking at a high quality vintage.”

Spare a thought for Australia...

From todays paper, a photo of fire damaged vineyards in Australia Yarra valley, just outside Melbourne. The bushfires, Australias worst in history, have tragically killed more than 100 people so far. Smoke from the fires has spread so far that even the air/sunlight quality in NZ has been affected. The state of Victoria has been gripped by a drought and heatwave for weeks and temperatures in Melbourne had been forecast to hit 47C yesterday.

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Ironically, at the same time, the state of Queensland, in the north of the country, is largely under water in the worst series of flooding to hit the area in decades. The Australian airforce has been flying in food and other supplies to cut-off areas.

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The heatwave in the south has all but ruined large numbers of vineyards crops, making 2009 a year to forget. Original predictions of a much needed reduced Australian crop have since taken a more pessimistic turn. You can read more about it in Wine Spectator.

A word from Jancis...

Jancis Robinson, amongst other wine luminaries, is here in NZ for the Pinot Noir Celebration in Central Otago. Heres a short video that appeared on TV3s Campbell Live.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/CampbellLive/tabid/367/articleID/89616/cat/58/Default.aspx#video

Is it an Alsatian or a German Shepherd ?

Well its neither of course. It is without a doubt a New Zealand Gewurztraminer, the 2008 Sandihurst Gewurztraminer in fact . Soon to be bottled. Stylistically is probably sits somewhere between the two. Its a dry wine which combines the very distinct and powerful aromatics of Gewurz together with some serious palate weight brought on from 6 months plus on full lees.

Two parcels of fruit have gone into making this wine. One from Canterbury, picked earlier to retain some acidity (Gewurz has naturally low acid levels as a varietal) and to add a different flavour profile to the blend. And the other parcel from Central Otago picked later to maximise aromatics. Both parcels were crushed into a fermenter and given a 24 hour skin soak to extract more flavour from the skins before being pressed. Following cold settling the clear juice was fermented cool (for aromatic retention) until dryness. The wine then remained on full fermentation lees for 6 months with occasional lees stirring to enrich and broaden the palate weight. I'm starting to filter the wine now in preparation for bottling at the end of Feb.

True to form the Gewurztraminer vine isn't a big cropper and subsequently we only have 1000L this year. So unless you order any of it through the website you will have to visit the cellar door or one of a number of Christchurch restaurants to try it.