Another vintage of Pinot Grigio doesn’t cut the mustard but the re-appearance of La Gitana Manzanilla En Rama gets my taste buds working.
La Gitana En Rama was first released in November 2011 and quickly sold out. In a stroke of luck (right time, right place), I managed to get my greasy hands on a single bottle courtesy of a sherry bar. It will, no doubt, be as hot as a stolen car again this time around.
En Rama is pure, unadulterated Manzanilla. It is only possible to bottle this special batch twice a year – in spring and autumn - when the flor is at its thickest. It is unfined and unfiltered unlike most sherries produced commercially and thus is more unstable but, in my experience, more interesting. Javier Hidalgo explains: “It is precisely in those two moments of the year when we bottle en rama, to catch the maximum intensity of flor aromas and taste.”
Historically, transport facilities made it far more complicated to ship wines drawn directly from the cask due to the exposure to extreme temperatures in transit. With improvements in transportation , the bodega has been working to preserve this style of manzanilla in its natural form, as you would taste in the bodegas in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. With no stabilisation, it should be drunk within three months of bottling.
Javier Hidalgo adds: “For me en rama supposes the experience of eating the plum I grab from the tree it the countryside, with the sun shining and the birds singing around me. Straight from the branch (“rama” in Spanish) to the mouth. Certainly different from the conventionally bottled wine.”
It is hoped the new en rama sherries from both La Gitana and Tio Pepe will give the sherry industry a much needed boost.
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Speaking to Michel Drappier this week, the “manager, secretary, and babysitter” of Champagne Drappier, he admitted the region had been “badly hit”.
In terms of volume reduction, he said: “It could be 10, 15, 20 or 25 percent but we don’t know yet because we had a hot period in March and had an early budburst. The frost arrived and since then growth has been very slow because it has been cold.” However, Drappier isn’t worried about supplies running short - there is plenty of reserve wine in the region’s cellars.
But quality is a concern: “When you have frost the second budburst is not of the same quality. Vineyards are weaker against mildews and botrytis. When Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier are badly frosted the shoots are more fragile. They are not as well fed by the sap, so that may affect the quality of the grape to the end.”
Looking back to the 2011 vintage, one of the earliest on record, it raises further questions about the consequences of global warming. “The climate has changed for sure because on average harvest would be September 22, but now the average is September 10,” he notes.
The Champagne house harvested its first crop in on August 21 1821, so early vintages are not totally unknown but at that time, yields were much lower, so the fruit ripened more quickly.
In terms of grape analysis, acids have fallen in recent years, according to Drappier but pH, which is crucial for wine stability, has altered little due to earlier harvest dates. And when it comes to wine’s sweetness level, the extra ripeness of the fruit means the sugar content in the liqueur de dosage is falling. (Consumers also seem to be moving toward Champagnes with a lower dosage.)
What’s more, climate change could alter the mix of varieties in the region. Currently Pinot Noir is the most-planted variety (39% of plantings), followed by Pinot Meunier (33%) and Chardonnay (28%). Yet, a little-planted variety, Arbanne, which along with Petit Meslier, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris make up 0.3% of total plantings in the Champagne region, may have a greater role to play in the future. Arbanne is a late ripening variety with high acidity and plenty of elegance, according to Drappier. I checked Oz Clarke’s Grapes and Wines, and the Oxford Companion to find out more about this little known variety but it didn’t get a mention! We’ll have to take Michel’s word for its characteristics.
Petit Meslier, another marginal variety, which is most commonly found in the Marne valley is also ripening more reliable too so it may have a greater role to play in the future. Both varieties are included in Drappier’s Blanc de Quatre Blancs. Unfortunately, it’s sold out in New Zealand so I’m going to have to wait for my first taste until the next shipment arrives.
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New Zealand has held a Pinot workshop in the spa town of Hanmer for more than 20 years. Following Pinot 2010 in Wellington, Marlborough producers decided to set up their own workshop to get serious about this fickle grape.
While Hanmer has sumptuous hot pools, Marlborough producers hold their get-together at a school campground! Whoever thought it would be a good idea to hold wine tastings at a centre with an adventure playground was asking for trouble. I am reliably informed injuries have been sustained in the name of Marlborough Pinot Noir.
Ben Glover, winemaker at Wither Hills, says: “This is modelled on the Hanmer experience but we really need to encourage our own region to take Pinot seriously.”
Indeed, Marlborough Pinot Noir has an image as simple and juicy. Serious Pinot drinkers have looked to Martinborough or Central Otago for complex, structured Pinot Noir. But Marlborough producers aren’t content with the status quo.
Anna Flowerday, co-owner of Te Whare Ra, says: “Marlborough gets accused of being too fruity and not complex but that’s a vine age thing. Now we have really good clones and really good sites and that’s why I think Marlborough Pinot has improved.”
Certainly older vines and sites, particulary in the southern Wairau Valley such as Benmorvan and Clayvin vineyard, are showing promising results but this year’s campground convention concentrated on stems in Marlborough Pinot Noir.
Flowerday explains: “We have a whole day when people bring trial wines. This year everyone brought stem trials from the 2011 vintage. We did some really great flights with no stems, 20% stems vs 50%. We found some interesting stuff.”
“Some people swore blue murder that they would never used stems and now they are considering it,” she adds. “Stems is more of a finesse thing giving wines an extra layer. You get secondary characteristics. The stems give the palate width and a floral perfumed character.”
Across the road at Wither Hills, Glover has also been experimenting with grape stems. He was cautious at first, worried that stems would bring green flavours and astringency. Today, the winery’s standard Pinot generally has 5-12% stems in the ferment. He has also done barrel trials with up to 100% stems. “It was pretty cool. It really swung the pendulum, giving the wines white pepper, lifted notes…It kept the bright fruit at bay.”
While I personally love stems in my New Zealand Pinot Noir, providing structure and line to the soft fruit, it doesn’t always work. Let’s face it, no-one wants astringency in a Kiwi Pinot. Flowerday adds: “We need to do it very cautiously on younger vines because they don’t have the concentration of fruit.”
In addition to vine age, the weather also appears to play a part. “Lignification is seasonal; a Frenchman would say it’s terroir. Personally, I think longer hang time is conducive to lignification,” says Glover. He also notes that some blocks tend to lignify early while others don’t. Clay soils, in his opinion, inhibit lignification too.
With the 2012 harvest now in full swing, those “serious” Pinot producers will again be doing stem trials to take back to the 2013 edition of Marlborough’s campground convention. Let’s hope someone packs the first aid kit.
This blog has also been published on Pinot NZ 2013
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Sacred Hill’s recently released Virgin Chardonnay is unoaked with no malolactic fermentation, creating a crisp clean wine with pure white stone fruit and citrus flavours. Having been disappointed all too often with expensive, buttery and oaky New Zealand Chardonnays (Villa Maria’s Keltern Chardonnay and Kumeu River excepting), I wondered why aren’t there more unoaked Chardonnays in New Zealand?
Australia is way ahead of its Tasman neighbour, making a host of earlier picked “unwooded” Chardonnays to satiate an ever-growing appetite for refreshing, crisp white wines.
Bish thinks the unoaked Kiwi Chardonnay has an undeserved reputation from the late ‘90s and early 2000s, when unoaked Chardy sales were going well. “I think the whole genre got a bit overplayed. It ended up being a not-very-flash vinous grocery wine selling under $15 and that tainted the category,” he says.
Then there’s the competition circuit, where delicate, understated wines get overwhelmed by the fruit and oak bombs. “Oaky Chardonnay wins awards. It [the Virgin Chardonnay] has not got a shitshow of winning a gold medal in a line up of Chardonnays,” says Bish.
Bish has been pestering his team to do a Chablis-like style for some time. “I have been nagging people to do it for years.” With the winery looking for something new to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Bish got his opening and the Virgin Chardonnay was born.
Unfortunately, the cool summer and all-round crappy weather in New Zealand’s north island means there won’t be any Chardonnay from the block used to produce Rifleman’s and the Virgin this year, so the 250 cases produced last year will have to last us until 2013.
In the meantime, I shall be on the lookout for more Virgins in New Zealand and leave you with a classic bit of Madonna…
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Larry McKenna, of Escarpment Vineyards in Martinborough was a truly early starter, making his first single vineyard Kupe in 2003. “It was the first single vineyard wine and the beginning of the concept from a particular part of the vineyard,” he says. “You have to have vine age to make single vineyard wines.”
And you also have to have decent weather. The following year, there was no Kupe. From the 2006 vintage he then added three more single vineyard wines: Kiwa, Te Rehua and Pahi only to be scuppered by weather again: in 2007, there were no single vineyard wines “because the vintage was not good enough,” he adds.
McKenna is influenced by Burgundy’s Domaine Dujac having spent a couple of vintages there in the 1990s. And Dujac loves to use stems in its winemaking, which is how I find myself on a dark night in central Auckland at an Escarpment tasting.
I am interested in stems/whole bunch fermentation in the production of New Zealand Pinot Noir. As, it seems, are the rest of the country’s serious Pinot winemakers – something I’ll be writing more about in the run up to Pinot 2013 in Wellington.
Stems add, in my opinion, spiciness to the wine, complexity, drive and structure, which generally improves ageability. Whole bunch ferments tend to have floral aromatics and lifted notes. So far so good.
McKenna adds more stems to his ferments than anyone else I know in New Zealand. Up to 40% of McKenna’s tanks are filled with whole bunches – stems ‘n’ all – with the rest of the vat filled with destemmed berries.
Why aren’t more people doing it? Well, you have to make sure your stems aren’t horribly green and thus bitter. Eventually stems turn brown – what’s known as lignification – but this often happens far too late in the day for Pinot Noir. It sometimes happens but no-one’s quite sure why. McKenna says “it’s a combination of warmth, UV light and vine age” amongst other things. In the 2011/12, season warmth and UV light have been in short supply so there will be fewer stems in his wines this year.
Wines using stems need a fair amount of stuffing to support the use of stems without looking green and bitter. This requires good base material so low yielding vines with age that have been planted in the right site in the first place. So, the fruit driven simple styles of many New Zealand producers are unlikely to feature stems but for those who are serious about making serious Kiwi Pinot, it’s a realm that is being explored.
McKenna has released the 2010 vintage of his single vineyard wines, which are currently as tight as a Yorkshireman’s wallet. While the alcohol on the Pahi and Te Rehua Pinot Noirs are a little hot on the finish, they are truly complex. Pahi is my pick of the bunch showing a tight, linear structure, and great core of fruit on the mid palate. It has purity of fruit showing plum with florals and violets (likely from the whole berry fermentation). Oak-derived coffee and cedar tones are still prominent but with time they will mellow. Patience required. An 18/20 in my tasting notes. $61.99 Fine Wine Delivery Co
]]>So, here are some handy hints that might make the wine media look more favourably on your winery…
First off, what was my bugbear, I was asked? “Unsolicited samples,” I replied, ”sent out willy nilly when I don’t have any articles coming up that are vaguely related. “ It’s lovely to get free wine, but at the same time if you called first or sent an email to check if it was relevant you might save yourself a lot of money in postage and wine. Your accountant will also thank you.
And don’t send them in polystyrene. Aren’t wineries meant to be clean and green? I’ve had some people giggle at that request but you can’t recycle it, and it makes me snarl before I’ve even opened it up!
This weekend, God forbid I received an unsolicited sample in a polystyrene box. Not naming names, but initials V M, you know who you are.
If you do send a sample, we certainly don’t need tasting notes with the samples, which arrive in the polystyrene carton nine times out of 10. Surely the whole point of sending a bottle is so we can make our own mind up?
More technical information would be good such as pH, TA, alcohol, plus RRP and stockists - and your contact information! It’s as simple as putting a sticky label on the bottle with all these details rather than sending another piece of paper that is easily lost.
Medal mania
This morning I received two press releases telling me about bronze and silver medal wins. If it’s not a trophy at a major international competition, it will get deleted. Village shows, county fairs and competitions with your friend Jimmy don’t count.
And don’t send an email for every single wine that’s launched. It just makes us scratchy.
Remember, journalists are always looking for new and interesting things. Give us updates how the season is going – we often aren’t in the wine regions so it would be good to receive such information.
Are you running any trials in the vineyard or winery – that’s always interesting too. Is a member of your team doing something out of the ordinary? Wine is about stories and people. We have to go fishing in a large ocean for stories, so make sure you hook on to our bait.
And, if all else fails, spell our names correctly.
Right, that’s it, I’m off watch myself in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
]]>If I can make excuses it’s because I’ve started a new job, working for wine-searcher.com. Currently a search engine to find wine and the best prices, it is launching an online wine magazine in April and I’ve joined the team. It currently has 1.5 million unique visitors a month with 60% of those visitors from the US of A. While we’re based in Auckland, New Zealand it’s going to have a global reach so we’ll be pulling a few strange shifts to make sure we don’t miss anything going on in Europe.
In the past fortnight, I have also been asked to be a panellist at Pinot Noir 2013 in Wellington, which is pretty exciting. I’ll be on a panel with hte likes of Lisa Perotti-Brown MW, Tim Atkin MW and Matt Kramer. Not bad for a girl from the Boro. I’ll have to practise my posh voice or no-one will understand my north-east accent
]]>Initial estimates for the 25 February Finest and Rarest sale in New York were set between $1.3 and $1.9m. A 99% sell through rate was far more encouraging than its London sale three days earlier, where 77 lots - or 13% of items - remained unsold.
The sale was led by a case of Château Pétrus 1982 which fetched $58,188 nearing the high estimate.
There was also more evidence of Asian collectors going beyond Bordeaux and Burgundy with a rare nebuchadnezzar (15 litres - sounds like a good night in) of Italian wine, Masseto, which sold to a private Asian buyer for $49,000, several times the $12/18,000 estimate.
Duncan Sterling, head of Sotheby’s wine auctions, New York said: “We were pleased with the $2.2 million total achieved in our February sale. There was enthusiastic bidding from Asia and Latin America as well as a resurgence in the American market. A packed saleroom and spirited bidding from online buyers confirmed the market’s concentration on Burgundy including selections from DRC, Hubert Lignier and Jean-Marie Fourrier.
“Italian wines continued to be much in demand with stellar results for Masseto, Brunello from Gianfranco Soldera and Solaia,” he added
Sotheby’s claimed the sale was particularly notable for the renewed demand from American collectors alongside Latin America and Asia.
]]>But Peter Dry, a viticulture expert at the AWRI, suggested that these two varieties should be considered by cool climate producers, instead of the usual suspects. Indeed international varieties have gained a rather superior status, and he is championing ‘varietal egalitarianism’. Let’s face it there are thousands of varieties out there and we are rather limiting consumers’ choices.
Dr Richard Smart added, “It’s rather insulting to consumers to limit varieties to half a dozen varieties.”
So, why should we be considering the likes of Erbaluce and other so-called alternative varieties?
“These varieties may be better suited to climatic conditions including drought tolerance,” said Dry. “There are cool climate areas with low growing season rainfall and high aridity.
“During times of drought our cool climate areas have sufered because they rely on water stored in dams and the dams are empty.”
As well as it being more suitable to increasing temperatures and lower rainfall, people might actually prefer to drink something other than Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. “They may provide a greater range of flavours suited to the Asian palate. According to a CSIRO study, alternative varieties including Lagrein and Fiano may be better suited and may offer a competitive advantage.” said Dry
So, what is Erbaluce? An Italian white variety, that reaches maturity relatively early, is tolerant of botrytis, has good acidity and elegance. Manzoni Bianco, another Italian grape provides “good wine quality with structure and floral characters,” he added.
]]>No, it’s ladybird taint.
But ladybirds are so cute. How can they taste so bad?
These cheeky things love a damaged grape to feed upon and with cool climates getting warmer, these pests are moving into regions previously too cool for them. Kevin Ker of Brock University told the International Cool Climate Symposium, “It’s a hitch hiker that we really don’t like but it will find a way to spread.”
It has been found in the US, Argentina, the UK, Czech Republic, Italy and Denmark, and it is thought it is more widespread but no-one’s owning up.
When the ladybirds inadvertently get harvested along with the grapes they emit a methoxypyrazine that smells of rancid peanut butter or bell pepper. Not something you’d want in your glass.
What’s worse, it’s pretty potent – as little as 1200 beetles per tonne can taint the batch. The sensory threshold is just 1 part per trillion.
“One the wine has been made, cleaning up the wine is virtually impossible,” said Ker.
So what to do about these pesky ladybirds?
Brock University researchers have discovered that potassium metabisulphite, which is used as an antioxidant in the winery has been found to be relatively successful.
Ker added, “If used pre-harvest, the wines made from vines treated with potassium metabisulphite seemed to be fairly successful. It can be used pre harvest to reduce the number of lady beetles below the sensory threshhold levels.”
However, anything that’s added to the grapes so close to harvest could be an issue.
]]>It’s unlikely to make a massive impact immediately, as the majority of companies that will have to pay the tax are energy and mining companies, for example. However, electricity prices are likely to rise as the new tax is passed on by those companies affected by the new legislation. Airfare travel will also increase, with Qantas announcing it would impose fare increases.
Karl Forsyth, senior engineer for the Australian Wine and Research Institute told delegates at the International Cool Climate Symposium, “The government has a carbon cap and they will continually lower that bar, and there may come a point when smaller companies are included.”
With increasing scrutiny on carbon emission coming from the top down, grape growers and wine producers are advised to start making changes if they have not already done so.
The first change for wineries is to improve the efficiency of cooling systems or move to electrodialysis, which can cold stabilise the wine without the need for refrigeration. Without cold stabilisation, tartrates will precipitate out and look like crystals in the wine, so it’s an aesthetic measure but necessary for consumer acceptance.
“”If you move toward electrodialysis or different cold stabilisation techniques, 10% of a wineries emissions could be saved potentially,” said Forsyth
In the vineyard, the addition of nitrogen fertiliser is the only direct source of greenhouse gas emissions. The ‘nitrification’ process turns nitrogen fertiliser into nitrous oxide.
Forsyth added: “It’s not clear how much nitrous oxide is produced in the vineyard so we are trying to work on that by trialling inhibitors of nitrification”
For more information, go to the www.awri.com.au website.
]]>My brain hurts after today’s seminars, which have focused on many technical issues relevant to vineyard managers and winemakers. I have to admit ‘applied geometrics’, and ‘spatial and temporal changes in fruit composition and juice in the vineyard’ had me pretty bamboozled.
Dr Richard Smart presented the results of a study into Pinot Noir at Tamar Valley winery, which was at times confusing, particularly when he started recommending a book about Antarctica that he’d just read, but we soon got back on track!
The main tenets of his seminar were that two bunches from the same vine can produce wines that are totally different in composition.
By vinifying each bunch separately the research found a wide range of different colours and tannin levels. It also revealed that exposure of bunches to UV light reduced botrytis infections and also increased colour and tannins.
Going as far as the berry level, shrivelled berries produced wine that was 40% higher in phenolics than its non-shrivelled equivalent and tannin increased 120% despite just a 10% increase in sugar levels. Weirdly, berry size had no impact on wine colour or phenolics, which goes against what I had always believed…
Smart concluded, “Bunch variability is the most important thing for Pinot Noir”.
So, it seems you can have one vineyard, one vine or even one bunch and the resulting wines are different beasts.
What does this mean for our notion of terroir and single vineyard wines when there is such enormous variability within those sites? I’m not sure my head hurts too much but it does raise some questions to contemplate.
In the meantime maybe I’ll go and read that Antarctica book. It might be a bit easier on the brain.
]]>Ok, so you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and your fruit does need to be good for starters - but a tasting at Frogmore Creek in Tasmania’s Coal River Valley today put the influence of the winemaker back in the limelight.
Winemaker Nick Glaetzer, of the renowned Glaetzer family, says, “Terroir is important but the winemaker can also play a role in making a wine more exciting.”
His team have been experimenting in the winery to see what they can do with its Pinot Noir fruit.
And with most vineyards in Tasmania still lacking old vines, winemaking techniques seem to be crucial to create more interesting wines. “I thought that because we were not getting the complexity from old vines we had to be something about it,” adds Glaetzer.
This experimentation breaks the current mould of winemakers telling us that their wines are made in the vineyard with minimal intervention.
Glaetzer showed us nine wines from the 2007 vintage. The Pinot Noir grapes were picked at the same time from the same block but were fermented differently. Kicking off with a ‘control’ wine, the flight included everything from a 100% carboic maceration ferment to a co-ferment with Chardonnay. Interestingly the Chardonnay addition seemed to make the wine more supple and velvety with a pronounced nutty character.
Curiously, there was an Amarone style wine that had been produced from riper grapes. Compared to the control wine it produced a richer style of wine, fuller in body with heaps of black cherry and raisin-like flavours not seen in the control wine. The tannins were more abundant too. It shared the fleshy mid palate of the control wine but little else. If I hadn’t been told it was the same wine, I would never have guessed.
The ninth wine was the final blend, which includes 25% of the Amarone style wine with the other components each representing 5-8%.
This process is followed every year with components of the 2011 Pinot blend including a splash of a Pinot Gris-Pinot Noir blend “which looks a bit baggy,” admits Nick, and a Gewurztraminer-Pinot Noir batch, displaying a weird combination of Pinot red fruit flavours alongside orange and exotic spice.
The tasting messed with my brain, combining some techniques and blends that my palate had never experienced. It is also interesting to see the many expressions of one terroir, and that the winemaker’s decisions from minimalist to interventionist do impact on that expression.
]]>Gibbston Valley wines, in particular, has grand plans for 2013. It already welcomes between 80-100,000 visitors through its doors each year, and now it has applied for 50 apartment style rooms to be built at Gibbston Valley. Just 2km down the road from the winery, its CEO, Greg Hunt, has designs for a spa, 18-hole links style golf course alongside the Kawarau river plus a vintners market.
Greg Hunt, Gibbston’s CEO, says, “We are hoping to start construction at the beginning of 2013.”
He reveals they have already received the consent for a resort but the economic crash put paid to their initial plans but next year is the year to resurrect this grand design.
He would not reveal, however, how much this would cost!
]]>I hadn’t even had a drink when I agreed to get Riesling stamped on my leg on Saturday night by a virtual stranger. His name is Paul Greico. And he’s the bearded force behind the ‘Summer of Riesling’ concept that is now going global.
It all started in his New York wine bar, Terroir, in 2008. “I thought if I’m ever going to get my customers to drink Riesling, I can’t give them a choice so my wine list started out with 30 Rieslings and nothing else. So, you were either going to drink Riesling or walk out the door and we did have people walking out the door.”
As both a Riesling and a Tottenham Hotspurs fan, Greico appears to like the unlikely. “It’s my challenge to fight the good fight for the underdog,” he says.
Greico is clearly passionate about this grape variety, and apologises that his language might get a little colourful as he drinks more Riesling and becomes more animated: “After 7 o’clock I swear a lot,” he warns.
In the US, the Summer of Riesling concept has spread widely with 220 restaurants around the US participating in summer 2011. They each poured three Rieslings during the 94 days of summer.
Now it has moved to New Zealand and Australia but there is no specific aim and is anti-marketing. “This is a sommelier driven gig. It is not professional. This is a groundswell of activity and wherever it goes it fucking goes.”[Time check – 9.30pm]
“We are trying to take it to Canada and the EU.”
The International Riesling Scale has been introduced for producers to indicate how dry or sweet their product is, but sweetness remains one of the stumbling blocks for consumers.
“We have to talk about the S word when we talk about Riesling, and it scares the crap out of people.”
Instead, in the words of Beavis and Butthead, says Greico, we should be talking about whether Riesling is cool or it sucks.
It better be cool or I’ve gone and got a really lame tattoo on my calf. Now that would suck.
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