2012 harvest at Felton Road

Tags

Central Otago, Felton Road, Harvest, Pinot Noir, Wine

Grapes arriving at the sorting trays by Calvert Vineyard’s House Block

The 2012 harvest at Felton Road has proven to be a whirlwind of a harvest.  On the whole, crisp mornings and warm sunny afternoons set the backdrop for what I can only describe as sheer pleasure.  Bar the pain of running nets!

Michael Merz picking one crisp morning

Unusually, almost all of the Chardonnay was picked before any Pinot Noir this vintage.  It was a wonderful sight to re-enter the vineyards after our pre-harvest holiday to find that pest and disease pressure was minimal – a little powdery mildew, botrytis, and bird peck here and there – at the kind of levels that remind us that in a bio-diverse ecosystem we possess the undesirable in addition to the desirable.

As good as it gets

As with all grape harvests in all of the world’s wines regions, getting the fruits of our labour to where it will be turned into some of New Zealand’s finest is quite a feat.  Each morning a group of pickers assembled at one of the three vineyard sites that Felton Road grows wine.  Anticipation filled the air.  On colder mornings so did the comments referring to the fact!  Off into the vineyard the team would march, lining a row of vines in the particular block where the fruit had reached optimum ripeness.  Picking is great fun.  There becomes a real camaraderie within the team, consisting of people from different backgrounds and different life stories.  These stories get exchanged over the course of the harvest and friendships are formed.  Chatter and laughter often fill the air, along with the chug of the quad bikes making their way up and down the rows to lay down grape bins and pick them up once full.

The best way to travel

Picking at the Elms Vineyard

The traditional working day in New Zealand is divided by a morning break and afternoon break in addition to lunch.  A nod to the past these breaks are referred to as smoko, and are fifteen minutes worth of tea, coffee, fruit, cake or whatever each vineyard worker so happens to prefer.  Throughout my year at Felton Road I have grown to enjoy them, not only as a welcome rest, but also as they allow time for conversation amongst the team, with each smoko offering a different view of the surrounding countryside.  It is no different at harvest, but now Karen King, wife of Felton Road’s Viticulturist Gareth, is the daily smoko co-ordinator.  At each smoko pickers flocked to where Karen had set up the spread of either savouries in the morning, or cakes in the afternoon.  The smell of fresh coffee filling the air, a life line to the energy sapped!  To thank for the coffee we have Alastair McLaren, a Felton Road harvest veteran for eleven vintages now.  He buys and roasts fresh coffee beans himself, resulting in the tastiest coffee for miles.  Alastair’s coffee has become a cornerstone of harvest smoko, and Alastair’s work a cornerstone of harvest.

Following the gastronomic theme, and in addition to the delights that smoko bring, harvest at Felton Road means that proprietor and pinotphile Nigel Greening takes to the kitchen to bring a handful of harvest lunches to the picking team.  Easter Sunday brought with it an early finish to picking and a wild boar roasted over a fire pit nestled in beside Block 3.  There was plenty of succulent pork, killer guacamole and freshly baked ciabatta bread rolls to go round, not to mention great wine of course.

Harvest lunch

On one day off Gareth and his family, along with chief coffee aficionado Alastair, descended on our garden.  Cricket, barbequed wild duck and great wine ensued.  Wine from one of Marlborough’s biodynamic leaders, Seresin, was a highlight.  The 2009 Chiaroscuro is a blend of Chardonnay, Riesling and Pinot Gris; an untraditional flavour profile owing to this untraditional blend, the wine is delicious, with pleasant floral notes and an exciting mouth feel.  One of the most memorable whites that I have enjoyed in New Zealand.

The last day of harvest was momentous.  For the vineyard team it was the culmination of one whole years work.  Pruning, cow pat pit, 501, wire lifting, hand weeding, shoot thinning, bud rubbing, compost, leaf plucking, green harvesting, 502, nets, and picking!  For me it represented the first time that I was able to experience fully the cycle that a vineyard goes through over a year.  To finally pick the fruit that I had helped grow before it goes off to be made into beautiful wine was especially satisfying.

The end of harvest was in the middle of Block 3, an area of the vineyard that grows Pinot Noir with particularly favourable characteristics.  That momentousness that I mentioned resonated as the last bin loads of fruit were tipped onto the sorting tray – there were cheers, hugs and handshakes all round.  We had cracked the vintage!

There was no time to wait around though.  After washing the bins for one last time celebrations were to be had!  The last harvest lunch of more delicious wild boar, crackling to die for and quince grown at the Calvert Vineyard was the perfect end to a successful harvest.

As autumn sweeps through the vineyards of Bannockburn, leaves that were brilliant green when our hands worked amongst them over the summer are now a golden yellow and beginning to carpet the ground where we walked again and again.  It is now time for the land to rest, the vines to enter their dormancy, and nature to continue with its ebbs and flows.

Harvest has arrived!

Tags

Chardonnay, Felton Road, Harvest, vineyard workers

Removing the nets that have protected the grapes from birds for the past month represents the final task that the vineyard workers at Felton Road need to do before the fruit is picked.  After caring for the land and its vines for the previous twelve months, this comes as a welcome triumph.  Harvest has arrived!

Don’t stop now!

Danny turns the tractor whilst Bruce and Mark handle the net

For harvest to arrive the grapes of course need to reach the correct ripeness, both in terms of sugar and phenols.  Sugar ripeness allows for the desired amount of sugar to be present for alcoholic fermentation to occur, and can be measured in Brix (the density of solution of sucrose).  Phenolic ripeness comes about when the grape matures so that the main contributors to flavour are present in correct amounts.

What a line-up!

Michelle measures the Brix of some Chardonnay juice

Block 2 Chardonnay arrives at the press

Henry carries the sorting tray off to be cleaned

The bin washing begins

Pickers return to the winery at the end of the first day of harvest

It was a great start to harvest today with just under eight tonnes of Chardonnay picked in 5½ hours.  It was a warm 26 degrees centigrade, with the sun shining down in true ‘Central’ style.

Heading for harvest

Tags

BD501, Biodynamic, Cornish Point, Elms Chardonnay, Felton Road, food, Pinot Noir

The pouring of the 2011 Bannockburn Pinot Noir lees onto the compost heap marked both the beginning and the end of one of the many cycles that take place in the vineyard.  Having heaved the drum full of lees off the tractor and up onto the compost heap, we allowed it to fall on to its side, the bright purple lees flowing across the compost’s straw cap.  Rather than pouring the lees down the drain, it makes perfect sense to further enrich the biodynamic compost that has been carefully nurtured over the past year.

A river of lees on the compost heap

The lees were all that were left after the Bannockburn Pinot had been racked (separated from lees when drawn from barrel) and bottled.  The bottling of the first Pinot Noir for a vintage is a clear sign that harvest is almost here – room needs to be made for new wine!  Having picked the grapes that went into the wine, and spent a year working in the vineyards that they were grown in, it was brilliant to get to see the wine going into bottle.  This time round, bottling was somewhat eventful.  Havoc ensued for a morning when a gung ho lorry driver managed to get his lorry stuck next to Block 1.  No one could drive past and pallet loads of wine seemed to multiply at the bottling line whilst the fork lift was being used!

Todd and Georgia look after the multiplying pallets

Further goings on in the vineyard include the final pass of Blocks 3 and 5, ensuring that each bunch of fruit is in great condition.  We’ve been clipping the last of the nets together to keep the birds away, and the final application of biodynamic preparation 501 went on one morning – another coffee and cake powered early start!

Bruce spraying 501 onto Block 5

Today for lunch we enjoyed young pork served with a butternut squash pasta bake.  Open at the table was the 2011 Elms Chardonnay.  More crisp and steely than the other Felton Road Chardonnays, the Elms Chardonnay is fermented in steel and gains complexity through lees contact.  A perfect lunch, and coming at just the right time as we vineyard workers are about to have a week or two off before harvest, safe in the knowledge that the grapes have coloured up beautifully.

2011 Elms Chardonnay

Pinot Noir looking great at Cornish Point

On with the nets

Tags

Central Otago, Felton Road, Pinot Noir

The last line of defense

Thibaut loads up another net

The Pinot Noir grapes are now a dark purple, and are fast becoming as dark as they will get thanks to the build up of anthocyanins in the skins.  With this change in colour they have become beacons of juicy deliciousness for the local birdlife!  Although the sound of birdsong in the vineyard is a welcome expression of a vibrant ecosystem, losing half of the crop to bird lunches would be disastrous! Whilst Reva is doing her part, it is paramount that we do all that we can to protect the grapes from the feathered foe.  Alongside Reva, and also on the aggressive front, is Burt.  Each year Burt joins the Felton Road family at veraison, staying in his motor home at the Calvert Vineyard.  He rides all over the vineyards on his quad bike, beeping the horn as he goes, firing off shots with his shotgun, and generally harassing the birds into flying away!

Defensive action is taken with the use of netting.  As a last line of defence each row of Pinot Noir is protected with tremendously long nets, kept on reels and unwound from a quad bike.  The lucky ‘runner’ follows behind and fixes them on.  We’ve just come to the end of putting up the nets; here’s a short video of Brett and Thibaut in action…

The spacemen of Cornish Point

Tags

Central Otago, Cornish Point, Felton Road, Honey, Vineyard, Wine

One day over winter, whilst pruning away at Cornish Point, I looked up from the vines and spotted two figures shining white in the sun.  Not looking too dissimilar from spacemen, they were collecting the honey laden combs from the vineyard’s bee hives.  The spot is perfect for bee keeping as there is an abundance of thyme growing in the area, a herb that bees make particularly good honey from.

Over the summer there has been a farmers market each Sunday morning in Cromwell.  The best produce Central Otago has to offer is available, and this includes locally produced honey, a speciality from Central Otago.

I was lucky enough to meet Dick and Jenny Coker, owners of Nekta Klektaz, and bee keepers for the hives located at Cornish Point.  Jenny was good enough to show me the honey extraction process, which consists of cutting away the wax covering the honeycombs, placing the combs in a large centrifuge, and collecting the pure honey as it flows out under gravity.

Bungy!

Tags

Bungy jump, Chard Farm, Gibbston Valley, Gibbston Valley Winery, Peregrine Wines, Travel, Waitiri Creek

Another of Central Otago’s sub-regions for premium wine production, the Gibbston Valley lies just 35 km from Cromwell, on the way to Queenstown.  It tends to be the first stop for those who fly into Queenstown and are in search of beautiful vineyards and wonderful wines.

Gibbston Valley boasts wineries such as Chard Farm, Gibbston Valley Wines, and Peregrine Wines.  On my first ever journey from Queenstown to Cromwell I was overjoyed to pass Waitiri Creek, one of the first ever Central Otago Pinot Noirs that I got my hands on.  There was perfumed fruit on the nose, followed by rich fruit flavours on the palate.  The flavours lit up my senses and began to make made me wonder about the wines that of Zealand, and in particular, its Pinot Noir.

As well as wine, Central Otago is known for dramatic landscape.  Gibbston Valley is surrounded by imposing mountains and contains a rocky gorge incised by the beautifully turquoise Kawarau River.  In 1988 AJ Hackett and Henry van Asch set up the world’s first commercial bungy jump in the Gibbston Valley, highlighting Central Otago as one of the world’s foremost destinations for adventure sport.  Thousands of thrill seekers now launch themselves off the Kawarau Bridge each year and hurtle towards the river, and sometimes into it, before being flung upwards again as the bungy cord recoils.  As you can see, I couldn’t help myself from giving it a go, and it’s definitely to be recommended!

Veraison

Tags

Bannockburn, Calvert, Felton Road, Fruit Dropping, Green Harvest, Pinot Noir, Veraison, Wine

Veraison!

Veraison is now well underway in the vineyards of Bannockburn.  Representing the beginning of maturity in the life of a grape, veraison is the change of their colour due to the build up of anthocyanins.  The grapes become softer with the breakdown of cellulose and pectin in the grape’s pulp; sugars increase, and acids decrease.

Veraison well underway in Block 5

Pinot Noir berries at varying stages of veraison

The green harvest has been dominating work in the vineyard at the moment.  To the inexperienced vineyard worker, it can in many senses seem like madness to spend the day snipping perfectly forming bunches of fruit from vine to ground.  This though allows for the quality of the remaining fruit on the vine to be high enough to make world class wines.  This adjustment allows ensures that there is a suitable amount of fruit on the vines for ripening to fully occur.  Leave too much fruit on the vine and the wines will be dilute, but leave too little and the wines will be jammy.  It was only yesterday that Gareth, the Viticulturist at Felton Road, launched into rhyme to this effect!

Look closely and you will see the green harvest on the ground!

Dropped Fruit at Calvert Vineyard

Calvert Vineyard's Lodge Block sitting beneath the Gibbston Valley

There is no better reminder of where our work in the vineyard is leading, than the wines that have already been made.  The 2010 Bannockburn Pinot Noir is drinking wonderfully right now.  Not to be seen as an ‘entry level’ Pinot Noir, the quality is high.  A beautiful nose of sweet fruit leads to delicious plum and blackberry on the palate, followed by layers of depth.  A must try wine…

2010 Bannockburn Pinot Noir

Quartz, light and energy

Tags

BD501, Biodynamic, Felton Road, Quartz, Silica, Vineyard Work, Wine

The vineyard team at Felton Road has just had another 6 a.m. start, in order to apply preparation 501 to the vines.  Meant for the leaf canopy, 501 consists of crushed quartz that has been buried in cow horns in spring, just as preparation 500 is being dug up.  501 works to aid photosynthesis and encourage the development of strong vines with good fruit.

As with preparation 500, 501 needs to be prepared by stirring the crushed quartz into solution.  To do this a wine barrel is filled with the correct amount of warm water, and a tripod with stirrer set up above it so that stirring can commence.  For one hour the preparation was stirred, creating a vortex and then breaking the vortex repeatedly so that the preparation is energised.

Once this is complete the preparation is sprayed onto the vineyard by use of knapsack and quad bike mounted sprayers.  Early morning is the time of choice to spray 501, and for good reason.  Though it is intended that the crushed quartz, or silica dioxide, intensifies the action of the sun’s rays, too much can lead to the leaves getting burnt from the sun.  Spraying preparations on the vineyard is a wonderful way to start the day.  Not only do we get to share breakfast as a team (Brett’s cheese and jalapeño scones, served with really good home roasted coffee), but we also get to see the vineyard at its most peaceful.

The team prepares BD501

Crushed quartz enters the vortex

Knapsack sprayers, old and new

Michelle, Olivia and Kyoko load the knapsack sprayers

501 carefully poured into the knapsack sprayer

Classic Central Otago clouds above Block 6

Time to get going!

Annie in Block 6

Brett in Block 6

Which way now?

Michel's introduction to biodynamics

Christmas and New Year in Central Otago

Tags

Camping, Hiking, Jet boat, Makarora, Mount Aspiring National Park, Tramping, Wilkin Valley

I woke up on Christmas morning in Queenstown, adrenaline capital of New Zealand, and most probably the Southern Hemisphere.  Having enjoyed a quiet meal on Christmas Eve, we were now sitting on the balcony looking out to Lake Wakatipu.  A beautifully clear, still day, we watched as boaters and jet skiers moved across the lake’s mirrored surface.

For the first time ever, BBQ was the Christmas Day cuisine for me, as opposed to the regular roast turkey and trimmings.  Tender venison steaks from the local butcher were delicious, and just the thing to go with some great wines:

2006 Neudorf Moutere Pinot Noir.  Crisp acidity, fresh fruit and earthy complexity.

2007 Valli Bannockburn Pinot Noir.  Bold, with dark fruit and savoury depth.

New Zealand has the most magnificent landscape, be it in the form of rugged mountain regions, lush native forest, or pristine beaches.  Spoilt for choice, on Boxing Day some of us headed for Lake Manapouri in the Fiordland National Park.  Considered one of the great wilderness areas of the Southern Hemisphere, Fiordland encompasses a range of ecosystems and boasts a wide array of awe inspiring features.  Our trip comprised of a hike through developed forest, a night camping near to the lake front, and then a climb up to a great view point looking out over Lake Manapouri’s Hope Arm.

Alongside Lake Manapouri

River crossing

Choppy waters

On New Year’s Eve a group of us headed to Mount Aspiring National Park, for a three day hike this time.  Intrepidly, we travelled from Makarora by jet boat into the Wilkin Valley.

Boarding the jet boat at Makarora

What an amazing journey!  For twenty minutes we hurtled along, at times only through water a few inches deep.  At break neck speeds our driver was able to navigate the braided river system with pin point accuracy, dodging rocks and skimming round bends sideways.  At one point a helicopter shot overhead, engine whirring and blue paint glistening in the sun.  I am sure the pilot knowingly added to the excitement of our jet boat experience!

Making our way up the Wilkin

Some birds almost flew into the jet boat!

Eventually we arrived at our destination, 25 km into the Wilkin Valley.  For the rest of the day we walked up the valley, through woodland, fields of tussocks, and the flowing river.  Never have I drunk such beautiful water as that drawn from the crystal clear streams that we crossed repeatedly.  On choosing our camp site, we built a fire, had dinner and welcomed 2012 with a wee dram!

The view looking up the Wilkin Valley

For the next two days we climbed as far as we could up the Wilkin Valley, and ended our trip with the full 25 km hike back out.  Beer and burgers in Wanaka were thoroughly appreciated!

Brett, Mike, Olivia, Clementine, Len and Tanya celebrate making it to the end of a tough three days

Valerian tea

Tags

BD507, Biodynamic, Block 1, Felton Road, Riesling, Valerian

There is a lot going on in the vineyard at the moment.  Vine growth has been steady with the shoots now topping the trellis posts.  Nothing out of the ordinary, given the brilliant warmth and sunshine of Central Otago.  Each morning we start off with weeding, necessary to combat competition and to keep the soil beneath the vines in the best condition possible; open to air and moisture.  After morning tea, and yes, I am laughed at for being the tea drinking Englishman, we get into shoot thinning, lifting the canopy support wires, and checking that the irrigation is working properly.

Flowering and fruit set have occurred, and just in the nip of time as a pretty large rain event is passing through the Cromwell Basin as I type.  Adverse weather can wreak havoc in the vineyard during this stage, with wet and cold damaging the flowers and preventing the fruit from setting properly.

New fruit set in Block 1 Riesling

On my way into the barn this afternoon I came across Michelle finishing off the BD507 preparation, Valerian.  The flowers are simply soaked in water for one week and then strained with muslin to make a tea, ready to be used in the vineyard.  The scent remained in the air as I scribbled down my hours for the day.

BD507 Valerian being prepared

Last night I had a couple of glasses of Felton Road’s 2011 Dry Riesling.  Nicely chilled, the wine is a little floral on the nose, has fresh lime fruit on the palate and brilliantly refreshing acidity.  Quality is high and it screams out for freshly shucked oysters!