Tag: Charleston

The vintage 2018 story continues…

So, last week I suggested that Rob’s most hectic day of vintage was behind him. I’m not going to say that I jinxed him, but perhaps that prediction was a little premature!

Sauvignon Blanc in the vineyard at Summertown in the Adelaide Hills
A beautiful Adelaide Hills morning in the Sauvignon Blanc just before picking

Another big day for Rob…

Our sauvignon blanc grapes were hand-picked last Friday and Rob was very happy with the fruit. Although it was a very warm day, after a few hours in the cold room, they had cooled down and were loaded into the press at about 5.45am Saturday morning – of course, Rob was at the winery to oversee this. Who needs sleep?!

Why do the grapes need to be cool before they go into the press? The fermentation needs to be slow. So, if the grapes start out warm then the ferment goes too quickly, and it won’t develop the flavours Rob is looking for.

Sauvignon Blanc juice from the press The press

 

Freshly pressed sauvignon blanc juiceThe Baumé was lowish (11.2) and that is exactly how Rob wants it. The juice is perfect with lovely aromas and flavours, and such an attractive green tint. All up 3000 litres of juice came out of the grapes. This will be used for both the 2018 Somerled Sauvignon Blanc and the Fumé Blanc (in quantities yet to be determined by the winemaker!).

Since then the juice has been chilling while all of the solids from the grapes are settling to the bottom. This leaves 90% of the juice nice and clear. It will then be “racked” off the lees, yeast will be added, and it will be wine in a couple of weeks. Easy right??!!

The last of the Adelaide Hills fruit makes it to the winery…

Chardonnay grapes

This week sees the last of our fruit from the Adelaide Hills being harvested.  This is happening as I type at Kim Anderson’s vineyard in Charleston. It started this morning (Friday) at around 2:00am.  Chardonnay is first (see picture), followed by Pinot Noir for dry red.

The chardonnay was at 12.2 Baumé a couple of days ago. It should be ideal by the time it gets to the winery (Rob likes it to be around 12.5). The pinot was tested at 13.8 Baumé. This is as high as Rob would like to see it go… the colour and flavour look terrific.

Both these varieties are machine harvested. While machines are definitely faster, they aren’t as gentle as human hands, so some of the berries may be inadvertently crushed during the picking process. This is something you want to avoid with sparkling and sauvignon blanc. However, with Rob’s chardonnay and pinot, a bit of skin contact with the juice is no disadvantage. It was a nice chilly night here in the Hills last night, so perfect conditions for picking.

Also, because it has been machine harvested, the Chardonnay will need to be destemmed and pumped straight into the press.

The Pinot Noir will be put through the crusher/destemmer and pumped to a little open fermenter, where yeast will be added. It will ferment away in contact with the skins for around a week. Don’t forget that all the colour is in the skins, so this gives maximum opportunity to extract all the colour and also tannins into the fermenting juice.

Pressing versus crushing – what’s the difference? When making white wine, the fruit is usually pressed before primary fermentation. This is a gentle process which minimises the amount of skin contact with the juice. For red wines though, the grapes are first crushed to maximise the amount of skin contact (for colour and flavour) and pressed after fermentation to squeeze out the remainder of the juice and remove the skins and seeds, etc. Of course, there are many ways to make red and white wines, so you will see variations on these processes depending on the style.

All of Rob’s hard work has, quite frankly, worn me out… so, I’m off for a week of R&R with the family. But never fear! Your guest blogger, Lucy will be taking the reigns next week. Go easy on her!

Gelati Party!

In the meantime, if you’re looking for something to do on Sunday 25th March you should plan a trip to Hahndorf and our Gelati Party! It’s “Crush Take 2” (with, fingers crossed, much cooler weather this time) where Somerled, Scott & La Prova Wines and Hersey Vineyard will be joining forces on the lawn (behind the Scott cellar door at 102 Main Street, Hahndorf) for a celebration of cool jazz music, delicious dude food, amazing wine and, of course, Gelati!

I mean, why wouldn’t you be there?

 

And so it begins…

Vintage 2018 that is! Even though a few wineries in the region have seen the first fruit picked and into the press this week, we still have at least a couple of weeks to wait. Rob sources the grapes for his wines (except the Shiraz) from some of the highest vineyards in the Hills… it’s for this reason that it takes a little longer for vintage to be well and truly underway for Somerled.

Early veraison in pinot noir grapes at Paul Henschke's vineyardThat said, there is still plenty happening…

At Paul Henschke’s vineyard in Summertown, where Rob will get the Pinot Noir for our Sparkling and Rosé, we’re only just seeing the first signs of veraison in some of the younger vines (see photo). At this stage it won’t be picked until the second week of March.

Things are a little more advanced in Charleston at Kim Anderson’s vineyard. Veraison is close to 100% in the Sauvignon Blanc (this will be used for the Fumé as well), the Chardonnay is at around 50% and Pinot Noir (for our dry red) is somewhere between the two… in short, lots and lots of fully coloured berries, but low in sugar and high in acid. Still a little way to go, although Kim will do the sugar level test on samples of the fruit on Monday next week.

For a recap on what veraison is, visit our post here.

Even though we’ve had some hideously hot weather of late, the nights have been nice and cool (down to 5 degrees some nights!)… this is a bonus for grape flavour and wine quality as it minimises the overall stress on the vine.

Another positive for this vineyard is that it’s looking really healthy. How do we know? Well, there are a couple of telltale sign of a healthy vineyard…

Pest free – There is no sign of Light Brown Apple Moth or scale insects

Insect pests are luckily quite uncommon in Australian vineyards but the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) caterpillar, a native, can feed on the young berries, leaving scars for bunch rot fungi to enter the fruit.

Scale insects are sap suckers which also produce a honey dew which is the favourite food of sooty moulds, damaging the fruit.

Beneficial insects – There are really high populations of beneficial insects such as the Trichogramma wasps, lacewings, ladybirds etc.

Beneficial insects are the species which prey on the pest species eg LBAM and scale, keeping the pest numbers below the damaging levels.

Disease free – The vineyard is free from powdery mildew.

Grapevine powdery mildew, caused by the fungus Erysiphe necator, is a common fungal disease which can render the vine leaves dysfunctional. It slows photosynthesis and it reduces yield and quality of grapes and the resulting wines.

The canes and leaves of the vine (collectively termed the ‘canopy’) also give us an indication of overall health. Ideally the shoots have stopped elongating by this stage. However the youngest leaves must remain green and active so that the energy is directed towards moving sugars and all the lovely flavour precursor compounds towards the fruit which form the basis for what we’ll be tasting in the finished product. The older leaves have done their work by now and it’s ok to see a few of these yellow; after all they did emerge back in September!

We need your help!

We are very close to launching a new initiative for our friends who don’t live in Adelaide or who are unable to visit us at the Cellar Bar when we run special events.

How would you like to be involved in tastings run by Rob and special guests from the comfort of your own home, surrounded by your friends and family (or on your own if you ‘re like me and don’t like sharing!) and some delicious wines?

Sounds too good to be true right? Wrong!

Our first “Virtual tasting” will be available to you very soon, but in the meantime, we’d like you to have a think about what topics you’d like to see pop up throughout the year. Would you like to see a comparative look at Shiraz across different regions? What about a vertical Chardonnay tasting?

We’d love to hear your suggestions… so please leave us a comment below.

And for any suggestion which becomes a tasting, we’ll dedicate it to you! That’s right… It will be forever known as the “John Smith Somerled Shiraz vs Penfolds Grange comparative tasting”! PS. This particular tasting may cost you a little extra…