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VINTAGE 2010

Now that the once-green vine leaves have taken their last gasps and the vineyard reflects more muted autumnal colours, it is a beautiful time to dwell on the craziness that has been vintage.

This year marked a turning point in McLaren Vale with our superstitious wine fraternity able to let a smile creep across their collective face as we put to bed some stunning wines. By all accounts the last three vintages have been rewarding yet challenging, but for me, 2010 is a standout.

This vintage saw the ripening period free of damaging heat waves and rainfall, with the vines maturing the berries in a sedate and leisurely pace that delivered intense flavour. It is only after these berries are picked and the wines in barrel that the vintage seems to be spoken about, for fear of counting the proverbial chickens.

I expect that the wines we made this year and especially the Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, will be heralded as one of the best five vintages of the last generation. I tasted some barrel samples which have shown suitable structure to lay down and enjoy at my god children’s 21st birthday many years from now.

In the meantime, relax in the knowledge that some wonderful wines are maturing in our cellars with a group of viticulturists and winemakers looking on with pride.

Cheers, Jock

Jock 06:48 01/07/2010 Comment

2 Replies

Posted on: Jock Harvey's wall

A bit about yeast....

This little fungal work horse of the wine industry is a fascinating micro-organism, so I thought I would shine a light on some of its exploits. Just like a honey bee that fertilizes flowers to produce fruits, yeast are the uncelebrated heroes of the wine industry. The central job yeast is to ferment the wine (turning the sugars into alcohol) but it also leaves its own flavour stamp and character to the finished wine.

Little yeast cells love to reproduce with the grape sugars used as energy to do the funky stuff, with alcohol and carbon dioxide as a by-product. They can turn newly harvested grapes into wine within three days, but like most things wine related, fastest isn’t always the best result.

We are finding that the longer a wine ferment takes to complete, the more delicate aromas and flavours are retained to give a more complex wine. We now try to extend the ferment to around ten days by chilling the yeast down and slowing their reproduction.

Making Moscato is just that little more complex, as we have to stop the fermenting juice about half way through the ferment and retain some sweetness and bubbles of carbon dioxide. So the Moscato juice gets chilled and the yeast filtered before we quickly put it in bottle.

Champagne and other sparkling white wine characters can be attributed to yeast – they are often described as “bready”, “toasty” or even vegemite aromas. This comes from the yeast cells breaking down (autolysis) while bottle ageing to release these flavours.

Winemakers sometimes allow a ‘wild’ ferment of random yeast spores found in the vineyard or winery to ferment the grapes, but most wine is made using an individual yeast strain, where the flavours and performance it will have on the wine is already known

Cheers,
Jock

Jock 01:14 02/06/2010 Comment