Allez le Bete Blanc...

A quick look at my wild Riesling fermenting in barrel. Its nearly fermented dry but, as is normal, has slowed right down towards the end and who knows how much longer it will take. Last years Riesling was still going in December. This has taken 10 days to date with temperatures peaking around 20C. Its at 0 Brix right now but still has well in excess of 10g/L residual sugar. Wherever it stops is wherever it stops (if I was French I would now be shrugging my shoulders and saying 'the wine decides'). At this stage it might be a special interest bottling of just this barrel or, at around 2% of the final Riesling blend, might add something special to our final 09 wine. Too early to tell yet.

Closed for the winter...

All the fruit has now been harvested and the vine has done its job for the season. Winters approaching, the leaves have gone and the soil temperature is starting to dip below around 10C which means the vine is beginning to shut down into a start of dormancy for the winter. This lasts through until spring time and is the timeframe we have to complete pruning.

To boldly go...

Two recent articles, in what is probably going to become a growing tide in the near future, caught my eye. Firstly over at Harpers, the call that the wine industry needs to be targeting Gen-Y kids, that group who have yet to starting drinking wine but could account for significant numbers when they do. The use of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are mentioned as prime sources of advertising/marketing to get them interested/hooked.

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Following that today from the Times, the huge growth in wine 'bottled' in ring-pull cans. Again, appealing to youth, single serve drinks they can take anywhere. Lighter, recyclable and cheaper than glass to manufacture. And if the likes of Jane MacQuitty is sampling them, as she is in the photo above, then that suggests these changes are being taken seriously.

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Like it or not (most of you wont!), wine, as an industry and image, is changing and almost certain to look quite different in years to come.

Oz on Oz...

No one likes having the boot put in or enjoys the misery of others....unless that is, it qualifies as part of the traditional trans-Tasman rivalry. Then its all good fun. Heres Oz Clarke on Australian wines at the recent Decanter World Wine awards.

Gold !

Our Sandihurst 2007 Central Otago Pinot Noir has been awarded a prestigious GOLD MEDAL at the London International Wine Challenge, the worlds largest wine competition. This is great news for us and follows on from the gold medal we received (in the Liquorland Top 100)for our 2006 Pinot Noir.

Well done us !

Where?

When we were deciding whether to produce a Sauvignon Blanc last year we were continuingly being told by pospective importers and those-in-the-know that if you do produce a Sauvignon Blanc then best to make it a Marlborough Sauvignon because thats what the public knows and thats what the public wants. Its the Marlborough name that is all important.

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Really? New reasearch from Wine Intelligence in the UK on the concept of regionality has revealed that only 12% of people in the US and 27% in the UK had ever heard of Marlborough. And to top it off, all repondants were asked to write down the first thing they thought of when Marlborough was mentioned. The most popular response - cigarettes. Nice.

Dont take my word for it...

Comment today on Tizwine.com

Waipara Valley 2009 Vintage one of the best on record.

A great flowering coupled with excellent vine management will make Waipara Valley 2009 Vintage one of the best on record.The 2009 Waipara Wine harvest has been an outstanding success for both growers and producers.

With almost ideal flowering in late spring, vineyards in the Waipara Valley were favoured with above average December and January temperatures resulting in a much earlier harvest. Harvesting started in late March and was almost complete except for the later varieties.Ivan Donaldson from Pegasus Bay Wines states “ We can already taste the quality in the wines that have finished fermentation and we feel this will be an exceptional vintage for both red and white wines”.

All varieties will show some outstanding wines. It may be hard to pick the best but Pinot Noir and possibly Chardonnay could head the list. Gwyn Williams of Vinecare remarks that "this harvest demonstrates the quality and variety of fruit that can be produced in the region".

The journey continues...

Tasting the wine determines when to press the skins. Colour extraction from the skins occurs mostly in the pre-ferment stage while the extraction of tannin from skins and seeds happens post fermentation. Determining the optimum point to press off is crucial.

From the fermenter the 'free-run' wine is pumped to a settling tank. Whats left behind in the fermenter are the skins and seeds and wine. Thats when the hired help jump in, bucket in hand.

The skin/seed/wine is bucketed out of the fermenter onto the conveyor which takes it straight into the press.

The press squeezes out the remaining wine in gentle incremental steps. I taste the pressed juice at every step to determine its quality and when to stop the cycle. Although the pressure is programmed to a max of 2bar we never let it get that high, for quality reasons. From a tonne of grapes we end up with around 65% liquid as wine.

Our place in the world...

Geographically we may be at the bottom of the world but thats not the case in the new OECD report 'Society at a glance' which has thrown up some interesting statistics. Here in New Zealand we are second only to the French when it comes to time spent eating and drinking. We spend on average 130 minutes a day at the table. The glance will also tell you that we sleep longer than most, we rate highly for life and work satisfaction, have above average life expectancies and we watch less TV than any other country. Sounds like a great place, despite our low incomes and surprisingly high rates of crime and teen suicide.

Of course you cant read too much into these things. The Japanese, for example, sleep the least, have the least leisure time, watch the most TV, and rate poorly for work and life satisfaction yet they live the longest.

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.