The Hunt for Red October

The Fine Wine Delivery Company are about to hold their annual NZ Pinot Noir roadshow around the country. This year all the wines will be from the 2007 vintage. This event has been running for the past 5 years and is now one of the major Pinot Noir tasting events in NZ.

The good news for Sandihurst is that both our Waipara and Central Otago wines have been accepted into the event. Just being selected is confirmation that our wines are up there with the best in NZ, especially since they havent even been released yet (October 1st). I like to give the wine 6 months bottle maturation before release so this also tells me weve got it right.

The day-long event is to be held in Christchurch on October 11, Wellington October 4 and Auckland October 18, and for the Pinot Noir lover the format of the day is a real treat.

12.30 – 2.30pm International Seminar
Opportunity to taste and discuss 12 different Pinot Noir from around the world: France, America, South Africa, Australia, Chile, NZ. Selected winemakers guided by NZ wine personality & FWDC Propietor Jeff Poole. Where does NZ sit in the context of these wines from around the world?

3.30pm-6pm The Grand NZ Pinot Noir Tasting
Taste your way around 80-100 Pinot Noir from some of NZ’s most exciting producers.

7.30pm – Pinot Noir Dinner
Award winning restaurant pairs Pinot Noir from four of NZ’s exciting wine producing regions. Representative winemakers will discuss their particular wine alongside the dish it is paired with. The perfect environment to unwind, relax and reminisce on Pinot Noir and the day’s events – what more could fellow Pinot aficionado’s ask for…

There is also a consumers choice award and official judging panel to be announced at the Auckland dinner on October 18th. See the FWDC website for more details. The Christchurch dinner will be held at Saggio di Vino which deserves a mention - great food and a superb cellar too.

Bis Spater Gewurztraminer

Apologies for the spelling but I couldnt seem to put any umlauts in the title.

Im currently working through one of the last vineyard jobs before the new season gets underway. A section of our Gewurztraminer vines need to be replaced and so we are removing them from the vineyard. Although not ancient in terms of vine age these vines have not been cropping very well for the last few years. This is partly to do with age but also because they are planted on own roots, are possibly virused and, crucially, are in a section of the vineyard that is prone to frost. Not a good combination really ! Which is a shame because when you get Gewurz right in the vineyard it makes a wonderful wine.

With good budwood and a frost protection system we will replant this vineyard in time. But should we plant Gewurz ?? I mentioned in a previous post we are experimenting this year with Gruner Veltliner (no umlaut again, sorry) so maybe we should try something else - Albarino perhaps?

Still, the trunks in the phot above are not completely wasted yet. They make fantastic Barbeque wood !

Until later Gewurztraminer...

A new season is almost here...

The vines have been cut, the old wood pulled out and mulched, this seasons canes have been trimmed and tied down to the fruiting wire. The undervine area has been weedsprayed. The winter has been and gone and temperatures across the region are on the rise. With it comes a rise in soil temperature too. The cut canes 'bleed' water from the ends as the sap starts to flow. The vines are now active again.

It all adds up to movement in the buds as they begin to swell. The outer scale cracks open first and then the bud gets 'fluffy' as it begins to burst. We are practically 7-10 days away from the first buds to emerge.

At that point we will then start fretting over the possiblity of spring frosts destroying the new growth. More on that later.

The 2009 season is about to begin. Keep an eye on the blog as I will endeavour to monitor each stage of the vines growth throughout the season.

Changes in the winery...

Just a closer view of the barrel fermentation lock that we use while the Malolactic ferment is going on. Nothing too exciting to see save for the occasional bubble as some gas escapes. Inside the barrel is where all the action is as the acidity is lowered and the wine begins to soften and round out.

Perhaps in football terms it would be like Manchester United selling Wayne Rooney but getting TWO Ronaldinho's back.

Bubbling Barrels

Springtime has arrived (sort of) in Canterbury and that means the cellar is starting to warm up a little. All our Pinot Noir will now start its secondary fermentation, the Malolactic fermentation. As the wine warms up the natural bacteria in the wine start eating up all the Malic acid and converting it into Lactic acid. Malic acid is the green apple tasting type that isnt really welcome in Pinot Noir (or, in any great amount, in my whites either for that matter).

Just going back a step, the malic acid in each berry is respired out of the berry during the season with the higher the temperature meaning the more Malic is respired. So in cooler climate winegrowing regions the berry tends to retain more malic acidity, which comes across as green and tart. Unlike the other major acid in grapes, tartaric acid, which is more citric and ripe tasting.

Anyway, so in Pinot Noir (and most reds) we try to lose that Malic by having the bugs turn it into the softer, rounder Lactic acid. For every 1g/L of Malic that is consumed, 0.5g/L of Lactic are produced. This can occur naturally or you can add freeze-dried bacteria to the wine to do the job. Neither of them can handle cold wine or too much sulphur so care is needed.

Should take a few weeks and then I can finally add some SO2 to the wine for the remainder of its life in barrel.

Killing the Goose...

Sauvignon Blanc is NZs most planted grape variety by a country mile. It’s the grape we made our name internationally on. Its cheap to make and one of the earliest wines into the marketplace. Its our cash cow.

BUT, all may not be well in the land of cat pee. Heres the numbers...

In 2008 the total harvest in NZ was 282319 tonnes.

SB nationally accounted for 169613 tonnes ( 60%) of which 90.6% came from Marlborough, so 153669 tonnes.

The producing area for Sauvignon in Marlborough is around 11000ha.

This makes the average tones harvested per hectare to be around 14. Or on normal 3m x 1.5m plantings that’s well over 6kgs per vine. Surely outrageous.

The average across the whole of NZ for 2008 was 10.5t/ha. This means the average crop levels for everything else other than SB was about 5.5t/ha. At around 2500-3000 vines per hectare this represents good quality conscious viticulture.

But whats going on with Sauvignon Blanc, and why isn’t anyone worried about it?

The Marlborough Research Centre tells us ‘there are a number of reasons for the increase in Marlaborough – none of them to do with overcropping.’ They point to lower than average bunch numbers but a huge increase in berry weights and to the amount of new plantings coming on stream.

So they are saying 14 tonnes per hectare ISNT overcropping ??

This huge increase in berry weights caught most growers and wineries by surprise to the point where processing capacity was full and fruit had to be left on the vine. So, in fact the total tonnage could well have been higher.

Philip Gregan, our NZ Wine chief, quoted in the UK press, (and by Jancis Robinson here), was tactful to say the least.
“The increased harvest is a real opportunity to grow sales in new and existing export markets in the year ahead towards our target of $1 billion of exports by 2010. At the same time, the larger harvest will present a challenge to winery sales and marketing efforts to ensure that New Zealand’s premium image continues to go from strength to strength,”

One of those ‘challenges’ he referred to was illustrated recently when a certain large NZ wine company ‘dumped’ a million litres on the Australian market at $3.50/L. That might be generously inflating the total value of NZ wine exports but what is it doing to our image?

It still doesn’t add up to me. Maintaining our image for quality and above average price points in export markets should be paramount. The last thing we need to do is, as the saying goes, kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Four Seasons In One Day...

New Zealand weather is often described as like having four seasons in one day. We can blame our maritime climate. September now so its officially spring. Yesterday, here in Canterbury the temperature got as high as 21C which is as hot as its been in almost 6 months. Today it is raining heavily and is about 8C.

No point in having another rainy photo so heres a weather related video from Crowded House, an iconic Kiwi band if ever there was one. Looking back at it now it looks quite dated (1991!) but anyway...

Blind Faith...

Entering wine shows seems to be a necessary evil in the battle to sell wine. Statistics seem to show that stickers sell wine and that the perception of that wine as a quality product is also enhanced. As we know, that is often not the case.

As a winemaker, I cant see that there is any basis in comparing wines from different terroirs, from different winemakers or across different judges who all have differing tasting preferences and palates. A wine should stand or fall on its own merit. But then Im not the one trying to sell the wine.

So I read with interest a comment from the Central Otago Winemakers Association president arising from the recent Bragato awards.

Despite the success of many vineyards, he also said wine judges could favour particular styles at different times, and for those vineyard entries which were not recognised with medals, it could be simply because the style of wine was not preferable, as opposed to poor quality. It's a bit of a lottery. While it's good to see so many Central Otago wines featuring so well, there are a number of others of equal quality which don't feature, because of style and trends," he said.

That gives us confidence. Not !

Look out NZ...

The Decanter World Wine Awards results for 2008 are out and theres more than a surprise or two amongst the winners.

The trophy for International Pinot Noir went to a German wine from the Ahr, the Dernauer Pfarrwingert Spätburgunder Grosses Gewächs 2005 from Weingut Meyer-Näkel. It beat out competition from NZ, Chile and a Burgundian Grand Cru to win.

And to rub salt in the NZ wound, South Africa were not only the most successful country overall but they also took out the International Sauvignon Blanc Under £10 Trophy Best Sauvignon Blanc award.

Its a tough world out there.

Diamonds are forever...

The formation of crystals (aka wine diamonds) in bottled wine can confuse your ordinary customer. Is this glass, is this a problem, they might say. No it is not ! Far from it. There has been much written on the subject of wine crystal formation for the time surely to have come where the wine buying public can accept these as a positive rather than negative sign.

Cold stabilising a wine (and therefore preventing crystal formation) is nothing more than a very expensive way to enhance the cosmetic appeal of a bottle of wine for the uninformed wine buyer. That money would be better off spent on consumer education.

Not to mention that wineries like ourselves who are trying to produce a high quality, hand crafted and natural product would like nothing better than to dispense with such an intervention.

Terry Thiese, in his annual catalogue has written a good piece, called The Question of Tartrates, on this.

Now and again we get a pick-up request due to tartrates in the bottle. When I was starting out some 30 years ago, every grower’s pricelist had a disclaimer to the effect that tartrates are a naturally occurring substance and no cause for refund or return. I wish we all could do the same.

After all, haven’t we been taught to prize Vin non filtré? Don’t we feel great looking at all that muddy goop in the base of a red-wine bottle? Yet two threads of potassium bitartrate in a bottle of white wine and people start returning bottles. It defies reason.

A retailer I know had a case of wine, seven bottles of which were throwing tartrates. He put these alongside the “clean” ones and charged a Dollar more for them! “Special unfiltered cuvee!” I believe he wrote. All seven of those bottles sold before the first clean one was bought.

At worst tartrates are entirely benign. At best they’re an active sign of superior quality, because potassium bitartrate won’t precipitate without a lot of ripe tartaric acid in the wine, the acid from mature fruit. Yes, you can eliminate tartrates before bottling by cold-stabilizing, but some growers dislike what they feel (with justification) is an unnecessary handling that can sap a wine’s vitality.

Don’t get me wrong; we’re not urging growers to encourage tartrate formation in bottle. In fact we’re not discussing it AT ALL. Nor should we! Nor should you. If you buy a wine with tartrates from me (or anyone else) you have my blessing to hang a sign… WINE DIAMONDS: A SIGN OF SUPERIOR QUALITY!

All things Riesling...

Not only is Riesling the finest grape variety around, making the best wines, its now got its own book. Covers the history of the grape, its place in the world, winemaking, viticulture, food matching and numerous perspectives from top Riesling producers from around the globe. You can see a few excerpts from it on the very good website MyRiesling.com . This essential reading for any Riesling afficianado, probably alongside Freddy Prices book Riesling Renaissance.

I originally discovered this book in Germany. The German Wine Institute in Mainz kindly sent me a copy when the first English edition was published. Im still not sure you can get it in NZ but Amazon in the UK and US do sell it. Hard to track down a review, in English, of the book too so see how you go on this one from Germany !

Das Buch stellt eine Liebeserklärung für die Rieslingtraube dar. Es ist gut aufgebaut und gegliedert, reich und schön bebildert, informativ, sachlich und leidenschaftlich geschrieben und gehört einfach von jedem Rieslingfan gekauft!!! Besonders hat mir die Auflistung der unterschiedlichen Aromen im Riesling, abhängig vom Alter und Boden, gefallen.

Superb !

Rain Rain Go Away...

Heres a photo of the Camshorn (Pernod Ricard) vineyard a couple of days ago. Not a worker in sight but at least the pruning looks done. Better news for the Sandihurst vineyards in the same region, on higher ground and with lighter more free draining soils.

Weather for ducks...

Its winter time here of course in New Zealand, or at least the tail end of it, but without question this has been one of the wettest winters in recent times. In the last last two days we have had approximately 140mm of rain which, at this time of year, is about what we normally expect in two months. In fact as we approach the end of August we have already had the amountof rainfall that we normally receive in an entire year ! - about 600mm.

This is a photo of a 'river' just north of Christchurch. Most of the year it is dry and during winter is usually only a small trickle at best.


But what is all of this doing to the grapes. Not much we hope. Replenishing local aquifers at best. The soils are quite saturated and I suspect when the decides to shine, the heat will push weed growth through the roof. Some vineyards in low lying areas on heavier soils have certainly been submerged but all in all it seems to be draining away quickly.

Perhaps more crucial could be the fact that local skifields still have a 3m base at present. Too much snow on the hills at this time of year could very well signal the prospect of damaging spring frosts. Bud burst is approximately 3-4 weeks away so unless we get some warm nor-west winds soon there could be trouble. Fingers crossed.

World Sauvignon Congress

Today sees the start of the first ever World Congress on Sauvignon Blanc in Graz, Austria. Sauvignon is grown all over the world from its traditional home in the Loire, to Chile and of course New Zealand, whose distinctive style of wine arguably resurected the grapes current popularity worldwide. It is the second most planted white grape variety behind Chardonnay but doesnt seem to have anywhere near the acclaim. This conference aims to give the grape some of the credit it deserves.

Looking through the Congress programme there is a real range of topics and it would be amazing to be there. Not to mention the city of Graz itself which looks like a classic European city. As always though conferences usually throw up many more questions than there are answers. There is such a wide range of presentations some of which are only 20-30 minutes in length, not including time for questions. Surely not long enough to really cover any one topic in depth.

Good news for the blog reading world though, Jamie Goode of Wine Anorak fame, is attending the Congress and should be reporting on the goings-on and all the tastings in his blog here.

And just in case I havent mentioned it to date, Sandihurst will be releasing its first Marlborough Sauvignon on October 1. More on the winemaking aspect to that later.

From the toy cupboard...

Heres our Labelling machine, an Enos Euro Mach 1. Often at bottling time you will be unsure of the quantities of wine each market will require. Each country has its own labelling requirements with regard to what needs to be declared or stated and so you usually have to do a separate run of labels for each different market. The last thing you want to be doing unlabelling bottles by hand, believe me.

Therefore after bottling our wine is stored flat on Cella-Stac sheets, unlabelled, until we need to send it out. Then we pass it through the machine above which first puts a tin sleeve over the neck then rolls it tightly onto the bottle. The bottle then passes through the labelling section and is ready for packing.

Its works well with 2 or 3 people operating it but is equally easily done by a single person if there isnt any major time pressure. The capacity is around 1200 bottle per hour and the machinery runs on compressed air.

Bottle Shock

Heres the trailer for 'Bottle Shock', the next big wine film to come out of the States after Sideways. Based on the now infamous 'Judgement of Paris' tasting in 1976 where US Chardonnays and Cabernet Sauvignons beat their French counterparts in a blind tasting.

Hard to see it having the charm of Sideways but should easily eclipse A Good Year. In other semi wine related film news, Decanter recently reported that a film is to be made of the book French Women dont get Fat (based on the French Paradox)

Kiwis and Wine

Heres a message for New Zealanders who, I see from recent per-capita consumption figures, drink about 16 litres of wine each year. Thats 300mls per week, maybe 1 or 2 glasses max. Compare this to the French or Italians who are putting away 55-60 litres annually. Thats what you get when wine & food are a large part of your culture I suppose.

But who drinks the most ? Interestingly, its The Vatican City on nearly 70 litres. Hmmmm....must be all that communion.

Gibbston Valley - Central Otago

Heres a photo of where our Central Otago Pinot Noir comes from. Its the Gibbston Valley area. The climate is often described as the only area of New Zealand with a Continental type climate as opposed to the NZ norm which is a Maritime climate. Nowhere in NZ is too far from the sea but this is about as far as it get and the area is surrounded by mountains.

The typical seasonal weather pattern here is for a long season with hot summer temperatures and frost risks at the start and finish of the season. Gibbston its traditionally the coolest of the Central Otago sub-regions where harvesting can be as much as 3 or even 4 weeks after hotter areas like Bannockburn. As a result of the long season the grapes easily attain high levels of sugar ripeness together with well structured tannins and reasonable levels of acidity.

The resultant wines are often darkly coloured with highly perfumed aromas and intense fruit flavours married with a good tannin and acid structure. It is undoubtedly one of the more beautiful wine regions in the world and has attracted a large amount of foreign investment on the back of the growth of NZ Pinot Noir internationally.

In this photo our vineyards are on the gentle slopes here which flow down to the main Queenstown-Cromwell highway. On the other side of the road you can make out the Peregrine Winery on the left of the photo.

Another piece of the seasonal jigsaw...

A few posts earlier there was a photo of Daryl Ashby, the Crossroads vineyard manager, pulling out the cut wood from the vine. Well heres the result - he dumps it in the middle of the row. At this point we have two choices in how we deal with it. Clearly it cant stay where it is, the row middles will need to be mowed during the season and the vine cuttings may carry the spores of disease such as Powdery Mildew or Botrytis which could then infect next years fruit.

If we have time, and often we dont, we would like to remove all these cuttings from the vineyard and then burn them. But more often than not we will use our Mulcher (attached to the tractor) and drive down each rows and turn these sticks into a thousand pieces of mulch which then acts as a kind of nutritional compost for the vine.

Just another piece of the seasonal jigsaw to complete. Every task takes time, its usually done manually and theres a particular order to adhere to. Its all working towards the wonderful conclusion next harvest.

Cutting remarks...

Pruning, as I may have mentioned previously, is one of the tougher jobs in the vineyard. Faced with pruning as many as 20000 vines over a 2-3 month period in winter can be a real challenge. Sore backs, arms and wrists are all common ailments.

So despite the somewhat hefty pricetag, electric pruners such as the one above, can be a real lifesaver. The battery pack lasts at least a full day, they are light to hold and easy to use. In addition, a person pruning is generally able to prune more vines and be less physically affected by the end of it all.

The numbers game

Although there is, of course, no substitute for actually being in the vineyard to know whats going on its good to keep a handle on the seasonal statistics. We use information as shown by the graphs above to help us make better viticultural decisions.

These graphs are derived from an onsite weather station and can be viewed in realtime via the internet (harvest.com). They show a number of valuable stats - temperature, rainfall, windspeed and direction, humidity, soil moisture and leaf wetness. Knowing these figures can assist with spraying timing and frequencies, irrigation scheduling, seasonal GDD, and disease pressure for example.

The information can be graphed daily,weekly or monthly and is really useful to build up a picture of how the current season is progressing. In addition you can then build up a library of historical data which can also help with current decision making.

It might be a bit too small to see but from the graphs above it appears to be cold and wet. No pruning today then.

August in the Winery...

Vintage 2008 saw approximately 50 tonnes of Pinot Noir harvested from our vineyards in Waipara and Central Otago. This has translated into 140 barrels of wine. At this stage of the year the wine is in maturation mode and is awaiting warmer temperatures in the winery so that the secondary fermentation, the Malolactic ferment, can begin. Ideally the temperature for Malo needs to be in the 18-22C range but below this barrels do tend to kick off on their own. MLF can be innoculated with commercial bacteria but traditionally was left to start under its own steam in the spring following vintage. This is the approach we are using.

In the middle of the above photo you just might be able to make out my temp/humidity gauge sitting on top of a barrel. One reason I need to monitor these levels is to make sure the evaporation from the barrels doesnt get too high. Over the course of a year you might expect to lose around 2-5% to the 'angels share'.

As a result of this loss I need to top-up all the barrels on a regular basis. At this stage of its like each barrel of wine, whilst waiting for MLF to complete, is not protected from oxidation and bacteria by sulphur dioxide so they need to be kept as full as possible to elimate any ullage.

Vineyard Weeding

This great piece of equipment has been a revelation in our Crossroads vineyard. It is our mechanical weeder. Using it has meant the elimination of spraying for weeds chemically. It is mounted on the side of the tractor and basically works by cutting through the soil at a shallow depth to remove all weeds. The side blade turns the soil over.

This is great news for reduction in the use of chemicals on the land, especially in light if the NZ wine industries goal of 100% sustainable viticulture for all vineyards. Its also a great aid to the vine which doesnt have to compete with weeds for nutirents.

Great wine can only come from great fruit. Great fruit requires a high level of attention to detail in the vineyard. Tools like this go along way to acheiving that.

As scarce as hens teeth...

As I mentioned before its not easy getting vineyard staff. Heres a few freeloaders who turned up after the mechanical undervine weeder had been through the vineyard. If we keep feeding them like this they should be about ready by Christmas !

Meanwhile, out in the vineyard...

From the end of harvest (around early May) until the start of budburst (early April) the major job required in the vineyard is pruning. It is one of the most time consuming and therefore most expensive tasks in the vineyard calender. And theres no getting away from it - its just hard physical labour.

Most of our vineyards are pruned to 2 canes, each cane having 8-10 buds. The first task is to use the loppers to make the heavy cuts which eliminates most of the previous years wood. In the photo above Daryl Ashby, the vineyard manager for our Crossroads vineyard, is pulling out the cut wood.

From here the next pass through the vineyard will be to select the 2 spurs and the 2 canes which will tied down for the new season. Pruners will trim up each cane, tie it down to the wire and cut off any excess canes not required. Its time consuming and if the vineyard rows are longer than about 200 metres then it can be quite soul destroying for the pruners if they cant finish too many rows in a day.

And into the mix it is winter so it can be cold and miserable. No wonder the industry has labour shortage problems.