I’m giving a tasting on Wednesday at 6:30 at Cableways in Dunedin. The theme is new, small and good. The wines I’m tasting are: Auburn Lowburn and Bannockburn Rieslings, Ellero Gewurztraminer and Pinot Noir 2008, Archangel Pinot Gris and Georgetown Vineyard Rosé and Pinot Noir 2009.

Dave from Cableways is going to have a couple of others there to balance out what I’m bringing.

So if you’re around I’ll see you there.

 

Ian

Dirty Rat: Seems more than a coincidence that where people go, rats are sure to follow. I didn’t know I had a rat living under the seat of my tractor. Not until I sat on it and squashed and smelt it. Horrible things. There’s still one more in the shed to catch. It won’t be long before he/she gets his/her come-uppance. I left it a little “treat” to nibble on and it loved it so much it even took the “plate” I served it on. I hope the appearance of these virmin is not a reflection the place I keep. Hmm. Time for a pre harvest clean up.

Invasion of the Wasp: At this time of the year I get worried about the birds coming in and feasting on the ripening fruit. Mainly those darstedly Aussie invaders - waxeye. Ok they’ve been here for a while, but they’re so heart breaking they couldn’t possibly be indigenous. They’ll jump from one berry to the next pecking holes in each as they go. Which wouldn’t be the worst problem but the wasps and flies then get in spread disease and disaster strikes. This year we’ve splashed out and bought more multi row nets. So the entire vineyard is covered. The waxeyes have met their match – ha ha. But still the wasps manage to bite their way in on the soft, baggy grapes. Sometimes, however they meet their match. Below is a photo of a praying mantis (a little out of focus I’m afraid) eating head of a wasp he’d caught. Tough world out there. Especially if you want to eat my grapes.

I’ve been meaning to write something on our competition we had way back at the end of December.

Anyway Ben Espie from Queenstown was the winner. It was convenient that he won as I could drop the bottle off and get a photo.

Ben Espie with prized 2007 PN

For his custom and luck he won straight from our library a bottle of the award winning Georgetown Vineyard Pinot Noir2007. Thanks to my lovely assistants for the task of drawing the winner. 

Payment for grapes is an odd device. If you’re trying to produce a quality product where the weight yielded is reasonably inversely proportional to that quality then paying per ton doesn’t make sense. Explanation – If it’s a quality product then it should be paid more. That signals to the grower that they should produce more. Producing more drags the quality down. That is unless they keep the same cropping rate and get the grapes from extra land. However with grapes, vineyard sites are considered unique so it’s hard to expand and retain quality and character. Per Ha payments seem the only way to go. However most wineries seem quite reticent on this. To them it seems a risk, particularly with yield fluctuations. However sending a signal that can be interpreted as more quantity and less quality is a reasonable risk too. In the end it’s generally resolved with good communication and inspection. Which is good if there is good communication and inspection

Another wine industry anomaly is grape brokering. This is ok if you’ve got a large amount of grape you’re desperate to sell. However for a producer of small lots of ultra mega giga premium grapes a wine broker will not work for you. It’s a bit like with real estate agents. To make good money all the broker has to do is make a deal. Eg – you want to sell 1t and want to get a few hundred more dollars a t than is being offered. At 4% the broker would get an extra $12. The work for an extra $12 wouldn’t be worth it for the broker. If you had 100t then sure $1200 would be worth it. However I doubt for that quantity, the quality of the grape wouldn’t reflect the extra $300/t and even more doubt that the purchaser would be willing to pay that.

 

We’re coming to the home straight now and just a little bit of tidy up work to do. Normally we don’t have to do berry thinning but the vines were a little water stressed through veraison. This has left some less than desirable green berries. We’re going through now to pick them off so they don’t end up in the ferment and give a green edge to the wine. It’s a bit of a fastidious job but it might just be the thing that gives us the edge.

I just looked at the local stats for growing degree days (GDD’s). This is lower than the 30 year average. The last time I remember this was 2004. In Gibbston it was a bit of a disaster. I think it should be a bonus for us near Cromwell. Everything is looking on target for a good ripening period and harvest by the end of the March.

Ian