Vintage Report 2010
Vintage 2010 was remarkably unremarkable. I doubt we’ll see another for a while that just presents us with day after day of perfect picking conditions. I think “Uncharacteristically Benign” would best describe it. Given our tonnages were well reduced on previous years we were spoilt for choice.
The season started out well in arrears in “heat-units”; that is a measure of how warm the season has been in plant friendly terms. The result of that looked like higher acids, lower pHs, lower alcohols and later picking. We were also very light on rainfall so no disease pressure and lots of irrigation required.
With very little pressure on harvesting we were slow to start and expected to have a slow run throughout as high acids appeared to hold up ripening. Not to be though as lighter crops and high sunshine hours brought on higher sugars and flavours faster than expected. We quickly elected to throw the numbers out the window and go solely on flavour, resulting in a week of intense 24 hour processing of Sauvignon Blanc, interspersed with hand harvested Pinot Noir; ideal.
That one week broke the back of the vintage and we finished off taking blocks, as they came ready, at our leisure. With fermentations still running it’s not possible to definitively grade the wines but without doubt we’ve had a very successful vintage.
Sauvignon Blanc is going to be both higher in alcohol and “zingier” than average. This should make for some very exciting wines. The fruit variations across blocks was staggering this year with huge influences from vineyard terroir.
Riesling had yet another great vintage with our Grand Reserve fruit currently smelling and tasting like a tank of ginger syrup, a good thing.
Pinot Gris did well but following on from the great 2009’s lacks a little in comparison. They will still be excellent however and ditto the Gewurztraminer.
Chardonnay may be a real dark horse this year; things looking good so far.
Pinot Noir is yet again excellent. The Winemakers have also agreed that for the first time ever we’ve picked every parcel at exactly the right moment. That may not appear to mean much but with all the clones, hand harvesting, the weather, tank space, other varieties and plain old bad luck it’s sure something to us!
Vintage Report 2009
Vintage 2009 stands out from the pattern set over the previous three years where fruit tumbled into the winery early, fast and without discernable differentiation by variety. The usual pandemonium was replaced by a leisurely, “The gentleman’s armchair vintage”, extended fruit intake. Another winemaker can be quoted as saying: “God it went on!”. I guess that’s the difference between doing the vintage on nights rather than days.
The season was very wet and humid leading up to harvest, very far from ideal and greatly concerning at the time. We had reached the point where we really had had the last rain we needed before dropping into serious problems. I suspect we may as a result have proven the efficacy of group prayer; we never got that next rain. In fact we had an almost never-ending run of brilliant days with plenty of sunshine, plenty of heat and the ability to harvest each block at its potential.
The conditions were particularly good for the Pinot family. We’ve grown Marlborough Pinot Gris for longer than any other winery and this was undoubtedly the best season yet for the variety. Somehow it just tasted better. The Pinot Noirs were also very good and we can only assume that some combination of the wet start followed by a long hot end to the season suited the varieties.
Sauvignon Blanc performed very well also. There are a wide assortment of the typical Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc flavors and all within a lower pH range than normal. The resulting wines should be very bright and powerful. The winery, organic transition block, of Sauvignon is really starting to show the effects of the organics regime with extremely strong character.
Riesling would be my pick of the vintage though. Like the Sauvignons the pH’s were very low and the flavors very bright but I think there was a little more concentration than normal to them. The highlights come again from the winery (organic transition) block and also the 17 Valley vineyard which has produced its first Reserve Riesling this year. Both these and the Grove Mill Riesling should be very age-worthy wines.