Testing, testing...

Just checking the 2009 Sandihurst Waipara Riesling for heat stability. Its a standard test that (nearly) all wineries do. Most white wines have Bentonite added to them in order to confer stability on the proteins found in wine. Unstable proteins, once too warm, give the wine an unsightly haze.

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Bentonite is a clay, basically an aluminium silicate, that when dispersed in water exists as minute flat plates. We add the Bentonite, in the order of 1-2g/L or thereabouts and mix the tank thoroughly. The positively charged proteins then attach themselves to the negatively charged and heavier Bentonite plates before falling to the bottom of the tank. We generally filter the now-stable wine to another tank. discarding the lees at the bottom.

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The test for stability used here is simple. A 0.45u filtered sample is kept in a water bath at 80C for 6 hours and then cooled/observed for haze. As seen above this Riesling, after an addition of 1.2g/L, still exhibited a little haze so will need more Bentonite added.

Harnessing the Power of Rats...

A short clip showing how we empty our fermenters into the press once all the 'free run' wine has been pumped out. Its gentle on the fruit, no pumps here, but does involve a bit of muscle and the wine is generally quite cold on bare feet at this point. But of course that is why God invented Cellar Rats.

We love cork...

Good to see the occasional article in support of the mighty cork. Such support is a bit rare down here in New Zealand where something approaching 95% of all wine is under screwcap. But thanks to the beauty of the internet we can read newspapers such as the Miami Herald who's article today Good Cap Bad Cap looks beyond the bottle to the environmental issues of cork.

Tools of the Trade...

The three crucial things you need when you are digging out the skins from a Pinot Noir fermenter - not unlike a day at the beach - bucket spade and clean feet !

Well done us...

Just to mention that two of our wines, the 2007 Central Otago Pinot Noir and the 2007 Nelson Riesling, were both awarded a SILVER medal at the Selections Mondiales Des Vins, North Americas largest wine competition.

More cleaning...

When it comes to pressing this years Pinot Noir part of the job is to prepare the barrels in order to receive the new wine. The wine will be in the barrel for the best part of a year so they need to be in good shape. The barrels previously held last years wine of course but have been empty for the last couple of months. Empty but they had been sulphured in order to protect them against any unwanted bacteria and so now need to be cleaned.

We clean them using the barrel washer shown above. A thin washer arm extends inside the barrel to the very bottom. About halfway down high pressure water is sprayed to all parts of the barrel and is then sucked back out the green hose via a vacuum ball at the end of the arm. All very efficient. I then fill the barrels with water to stand overnight just to reswell any stave's which may have opened as the wood dried when the barrel was empty. Once drained, the barrel is then ready to receive the new wine which will stay there for the best part of a year as it matures and develops.

Things you need in a winery...

A Fittings Board where you can keep all your valves, hose attachments, joiners, lees stirrer, reducers, caps, barrel spear etc. Essential in the ongoing drive for a clean and tidy winery.

The Top 10...

The 10 best architectural wonders of the wine world ? New Zealands Peregrine is in there. Check it out over on Designcrave.

Quaff TV reviews our Riesling...

Cameron Douglas from quaff.co.nz reviews the Sandihurst 2007 Riesling. Give it a try and see if you agree with him.

Lessons to learn...

Dumping Sauvignon Blanc

News today that one of the largest wine companies in the USA is about to launch a $3 Chardonnay. Bad news for the reputation of Australian wine internationally surely. And at $3 its half the price of Yellow Tail, the USA's #1 imported wine brand. With 20 million surplus litres in the tanks following the 2008 vintage it seems that wine companies were only too willing to part cheaply in order to free up tank space for the 09 vintage. Read more about it in The Australian newspaper.

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On a smaller but equally concerning scale is NZ Sauvignon Blanc. Millions of litres of the 2008 vintage have already been sold/dumped to overseas markets at budget prices for similiar reasons to the Australians. A look at current bulk wine offerings reveals there are still more 2008 litres available BUT alarmingly there is in excess of 3 million litres of 2009 Sauvignon Blanc for sale already at under $4/litre. I hope WineNZ are already working towards an industry-wide solution.

To Pumpover or Plunge...

Not quite as riveting as Jamie Goodes Mosel video but an important part in the process from grape to glass never-the-less. During ferment the CO2 produced pushes the skins to the surface of the fermenter. With Pinot Noir we usually hand plunge the cap back into the wine at regular intervals to stop the skins from drying out and attracting bacteria and to enhance the maceration/extraction of phenolic compounds. With Syrah, as above, we choose to pump over the wine onto the cap where we can be a little more gentle on the skins (which have more tannin than Pinot anyway) and provide the fermenting wine with a valuable source of oxygen (Syrah yeasts often misbehave if not supplied with the right conditions for ferment).

Trouble brewing...

One in three men and one in six women in Britain is classed as a ' hazardous drinker', meaning their thirst for alcohol is putting them at risk of physical and psychological damage. How do you fare.......

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.