The Spoken Grape

Dry Shiraz

It's all starting, around 60 tons of Maclaren Vale Shiraz is coming in today. All machine harvested, placed in large tipping bins, lifted with forklift and dumped into the hopper. It then gets carefully driven through the destemmer and must pump. You’ve got to be careful here as the fruit is so dry that  if you drain all the juice through before the main body of the grapes enter the must pump it’ll jam it up. We saw the repercussion of this last Friday, everything was going fine until the juice ran dry, the must pump slowed down, and then stopped turning leaving pipes full of fruit. Overriding the safely cut out on the pump and restarting it, pushing more  into the pipes, increasing the pressure only resulted in the pipes expanding like balloons. What happened next was the weakest point of the system gave out, splitting the pipes around the outflow of the must pump. In the end the whole thing was a massive mess that kept me and a colleague up till 2 in the morning clearing it up.

So today, it’s easy on the hopper, destemmer must pump and chiller, jus get that must into the tank with no dramas.

I'm working on getting some more photos up, but here's a few of the past week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lets bring in that Fronti

Its been one week now and following getting robbed in San Francisco the rage has subsided some what. It's given me a chance to focus on the winemaking more and get to know those with whome I'l be working over the next couple of months. The weather in the Barossa is hot, it was 45c degrees when  I arrived and since then its been floating somewhere between 30 and 37c. There are vines down here which have really suffered, through poor irrigation they have dropped their leaves which means they have no way in synthesisizing energy. The grapes stop maturing, the phenolic development stops and they start to shrivel to raisins. It's sad to see these vines and you have to feel sorry for the viticulturalist who has put in the  hard work, some vines won't even be harvested because they'l be losing money just by picking them.

Had a “Team building”, pre vintage party this weekend. Loaded up surf boards, beer and sun cream, jumped in the 4WD's and drove south making a small detour to the Maclaren Vale. Rolled up on Middleton, a small beach town, fired up the BBQ, cooked up some kangaroo, steak and sausages. Cracked some beers followed by a very interestuing blind tasting.

Woke up early on the saturday and went surfing with the wine maker here, Matt Wenk. It's always a bit of a risk entering the sea here with the sharks, jellyfish and various other friendly animals. Almost stepped on a ray when walking out that morning.

That evening we all went out and were treated to a fantastic meal, with some equally impresive wines alongside, see the list below. After dinner, the company opened up a bar tab and everyone proceded to knock back all manner of drinks reveling in the knowledge that come monday we'd be working 12hr shifts day and night.

It's lunch time, monday and i'm sitting in the kitchen, I drew night shift, work starts at 3pm and we'l be lucky to finish before 1am. Today we're bringing in the Frontignac, the first of the grapes to come in, destined for the Brilliant Disguise Moscato Bianco 2009.

2009 Pre-Vintage Dinner

Flight One- Aged Australian Chardonnay

1. 1997 Yarra Yering Number One
Touch past it, oxidative charaters coming through  the nose, sherry and nuts. Not bad, though two years too late.

2. 1998 Bindi Quartz
lovely nose, very heavy giving an aroma of honey, honey, honey. Palette a bit flabby, rich full but a touch hot.

3. 2001 leeuwin Art Series
less on the nose, palette fresh, some good acidity, goos depth and use of oak which is nicely intergrated.

Flight Two – NZ and Oz Pinot's2004

1 Bell Hill, NZ
good cherry sandelwood nose, nice acidity. On palette meaty and herbal notes. There was also a green cannibis smell. Lovely and very interesting wine.

2 2005 Aston Hills reserve, South Australia
lovely note of asian spice infused with a sophisticated pefume. Fine tannins retaining their power. Lovely finished, that takes you through a whole gamut of flavours. Wine of the evening.

3 Providence reserve, Tasmania.
Less than impressive nose, smokey with dark fruits. More elegant style pinot.

Flight 3 – Oz Southern Rhonies

1 1997 Noon Eclipse
Corked

2 2002 Clarendon Hills Romas
slightly corkey, red fruit berries. Nothing exciting.

3 2004 Spinifex Tabor
good spice, fruit touch of pepper, great lengh.

Flight Four- 1994 Oz Shiraz

1 1994 Wendouree Shiraz/Malbec, Clare Valley.
Delicious smooth palette, rich and peppery. Lost some of the intense fruit that works to its advantage. Really good drink, much more approachable than following two wines.

2 1994 Kay's Block 6
very fruit focused. Palette drops off way too soon. Pretty but obvious.

3 1994 Peter Lehmann Stonewall
menthol and cappuciono on the nose. Quite firm tannins. On the palette the tastes include meat, BBQ sauce. Obvious sweet new oak.

Flight Six- Overseas Shiraz

1 2001 Alban Seymours, USA
Obvious  and lush, but balenced.

2 2004 Bilancia La Collina, NZ
Spice and lavender, kinda reminds me of granache on the  nose. Loads of tannic grip, some pepper and more restrained fruit.

3 1999 Chapoutier Cote Rotie La Mordoree, France
the biggest disapointment of the night. Dusty, leafy, some nice texture but really lacking. There was nothing interesting to it.

To Finish
1989 Domaine Trimbach Riesling Frederic Emile Vendage Tardive
by this time I was pretty loose and haven't written any notes down. I do remenber this wine though, awesome...unique.....balaced.......full and interesting.

And it was all going so well............

So the past three days have been frustrating to say the least. 36 hours before I was due to leave for Sydney and some son-ova-bitch theiving bastard broke into my car, stealing my passport, laptop, mobile phone, cash and camara. Anyone who's been a victim of a crime like this knows, you go through a series of emotions. Firstly a trembling warmness spreads across your body, you heart rate revs up, the brain becomes detatched as it all feels like some sort of nightmare, you're convinced that you'll wake up and it'l all go away. Then as you look around the rational part of your mind starts to crawl its way back, you start to come out of the dream and into the reality of the situation, what to do, no phone, don't know anyone in this city, Fu*ck!!!!! your mind screams, give me that mutha fu*ker who destroyed my safe set of sensibilities. Right, this is where you must remain calm, breath, think, well at least the cars still there and you don't have to walk to the police station. Fill in the report as best you can, hands shaking slightly as the nerves try and maintain compostion. The police are no use, what I want right now is a swat team to go search every dodgy looking individual, to shake down every drug addled bum and generally spread fear to those individuals who accept this type of behaviour as acceptable. It won't happen, my stuffs gone and I wont see it again, thats what the police want to tell me but they don't. This doesn't become apparent to me until i've driven round and round the scene, each time losing a little more hope. Fu*k it, Fu*k you all, and this is where the rage wells up, hands on the wheel and I want to scream, I want to rip off the streering wheel, I want to find who did this and make them hurt.

Ok, I now have about 29 hours to sort out a replacement passport, report my phone stolen, speak to the British consulate, the American passport office, the Australian consulate, then United Airways and my travel insurance. I have to all that and drive 400miles, return the rental car and hopefully make my flight, I didn't get much sleep.

Where am I now? Well I made my flight, passed out, woke as the plane hit turbulence as thick as porridge, fell asleep again, then woke up in Sydney. Got onto the domestic flight to Adelaide and here I am amid 45c degree heat. I'm calmer, the emotions have receeded somewhat, I still get mad when I think about it, but it's not so raging. I would really like to say thanks to the British consulate in L.A, the lady at the desk of Dollar rental cars and M,D&A.

On to vintage................

less is more............

Today I've been concentrating on Cabernet, concentrated Cabernet which has been  concentrating on my teeth, and as a result blue teeth.  Starting off with a Dry Creek producer Michel-Schlumberger http://www.michelschlumberger.com/, organic grapes focusing on Cabernet, Chardonnay, Syrah and Semillon.

Great wines that really need about ten years to come into their own, the 1999 and 2002 are drinking superbly now, with fine grain tannins, a sweet fruit core of blackberries and spruce, the Chardonnays were probably the most oxidative chards I've tried, showing quite nutty and sherry notes (not sure when the bottle was opened though). Very good wines, check them out. Driving across the Castiloga Rd brought me onto the Napa Valley floor and onto Twomey http://www.twomeycellars.com/main/index.html . These guys specialise in Merlot and Pinot Noir, and despite a short tasting list, of two, the wines were really good especially the Pinot. Following this, an appointment with Chateau Montelena http://www.montelena.com/, one of the wines to appear at the legendary Paris tasting of 1976 were a bunch of American wines were tasted blind against the home guard of French wines. Everybody expected the French wines to be far superior but that wasn't the case check out the link to see how it ended http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine) .

The winery sits on a cave system that doubles as a barrel room, constant, non fluctuating temperature and good humidity. Stylistically the winemaking focuses mainly on the fruit aspect of the wines, retaining a more European style, less new oak (between 15-25%), French barrels, alcohol levels that aren't excessive for Napa. The wines, especially the Montelena Estate Cabernet (95% cab 5% merlot) are very good. Lovely fine grained tannins, crisp acidity, long evolved persistence and a beautiful core of dark blackcurrent, blackberry leaf and touch of savoury spice around the core. If your gonna buy these wines, stick with the Bordeaux blends, especially the Estate Montelena.

Superbowl 43

Chips, dip and beer, oh yeah and 60 minutes of play time that lasts 3 hours. Its Superbowl 43, Pittsburgh Steelers vs Arizona Cardinals. Steelers very much the favorite to win but as with every Superbowl before, if you put the underdogs up against the wall they tend to bite back. Anyway back to the beer, I was thinking about doing the Superbowl with the traditionally piss poor effort of Budweiser, Coors, Millar or some other weak watery big brand commercial US beer. Instead I chanced my arm at something else, a bit more exciting, Double Bastard Ale http://www.arrogantbastard.com/doublebastard/2008/index.html a limited addition brew by Stone brewery. I was ready to slate this beer as an over the top brew pudding, but can't. Ok it is over the top 10.5% ABV, but its meant to be, its made to be “just plain excessive excessiveness”. Bravo, you gotta do these things, and if you're a unique proudly independent brewer then why the hell not. This wasn't easy to make, it took attention, time and effort. Rich, heavy, plenty of hop boldness, rolls onto your palette as a heavy weight, loads of flavor and lots of character. The only thing for me is, the heat, 10.5% alcohol, can be really heavy on the palette, a little numbing with that null heat that can swamp flavor. But, a beer like this is great to see, Like the Steelers 100 yard ball return, to touch down, longest in Superbowl history.