It’s time

Picking for 2010 will commence next week.  Our picking isn’t necessarily a long exercise, but although it will occur just ahead of last year in terms of timing, the fantastic season means that ripeness is well ahead.  We have been able to be patient and wait, ignoring the odd shower last night, for example, because the skins are in great condition.  The pips and stalks are there, acids about right (not too high or too low), and flavours as good as I have tasted.

Now the dry weather and cooler nights mean that the vines are convinced it is autumn and sugar production is tailing off.  The outlook for the next week is still fine, but this time next week we should have all but our cabernet fermenting away.  It won’t be far behind.

Still crossing fingers, touching wood, and pretending I am completely relaxed.

Another week, another brix

The last week has been among the most telling of the season for someone wandering through the vineyard sampling grapes.

The first thing to note has been that we have had another 15mm of rain.  Not enough to worry about but given that the nights are cooler now and the daytime temperature peaks a little lower (although the last week off started with some warm days), there has been a little more sustenance for the struggling younger vines.

For a paranoid winegrower looking for signs of ripeness, this has been a big week.  Brix levels have been moving up (Merlot approaching 22 brix, Cabernet and Syrah 21 brix, Sangiovese over 20).  Leaf levels still mostly healthy.

The most exciting thing has been tasting the grapes.  Pips are colouring up well for most varieties – esp Merlot and Sangiovese (such a pity we have so little this year as this variety has never looked so good), with Cabernet and Syrah clearly evolving from a week before and on their way.  And better still skins are thick and much riper, less astringent, although for cabernet this is not going to be a light tannin year.  Unsurprisingly berries are at the small end of the spectrum so that skin to juice ratios will be high – hence the importance of getting those tannins adequately ripe.  There are still plenty of acids, but not jarringly so.

And, just as critically, the taste of pyrazines (think green capsicums) has vanished overnight from the cabernets and petit verdot (the latter incredibly sweet tiny berries that will be blended with the cabernet sauvignon).

Fingers remain clenched in a crossed position and eyes glued to the radar.

Still staying dry (touch wood)

I have checked over the vineyard again in the last few days.  Right now everything is looking optimistic for the vintage, and overall the ripening process looks almost two weeks ahead of normal for early March.

Key observation is low disease pressure and surprisingly low bird damage (they will still, after all, try and find ways into the nets however well I think I have sealed them off – and this year, thanks to the drought, I am told they are hungrier than ever).  The older vines, with established roots, are maintaining good levels of healthy leaf and so the engines are in place to keep the ripening process going.  Younger vines less so, with much smaller crop loads (for those I have left the grapes on).

Overall the ripening process looks uncannily even, with frost affected varieties producing small later crops that are behaving more like the late varieties.  Leading the way in terms of brix levels and skin development is the merlot at just under 21 brix.  The cabernets & syrah are both just coming up to 20 brix, while sangiovese is 19.5 and petit verdot 18.5.  I estimate that they are putting on between 1.5 to 2 brix per week at the moment, but more important for me is to keep an eye on the pips, skins and flavours which are certainly needing more time.  The question is how much time do they need and how long do we have?

Right now the weather is staying kind.  The rain that was forecast for last weekend wouldn’t have been more than 5mm, and everything was dry in no time.  The outlook for the next 10 days is more of the same – mostly fine, dry and sunny.  Warmer this week, then low 20s next week with a big anticyclone parked in the Tasman Sea to the west of the country.  Southerlies usually bring our driest conditions.

Glued to the weather sites for the foreseeable future!

A long year (so far)

Vintage 2010 started on Easter Sunday, 2009.  At least that is when the clean up began from vintage 2009 (with which we are particularly happy!) and the first real planning for the following season began in earnest.

Now, as we count down to vintage, we can reflect on what has been a long and very unusual year in many ways indeed.  While we made good progress during winter pruning (a job that grows as our younger vines start to get their roots more established each year) we thought we were well set when we had a short series of frosts right at the end of July. In fact, in the so-called “winterless north”, we have been known to have chardonnay budburst as early as July, only to experience a rare August frost. Our site is slightly more protected than most in the area, keeping it warmer when the wind is blowing (but reducing the strength of the sea breezes), yet a little cooler at nights. 

In any case, you may therefore imagine how we felt when we were hit by a sharp frost on the 5th of September, when several varieties were already growing shoots vigourously.  Worst affected were our chardonnay, sangiovese, viognier plus pockets of cabernet franc and merlot. These have suffered reduced, late and often uneven fruit sets.

Paradoxically (especially considering the season to come) the late frost seems to have been good for our cabernet sauvignon and syrah, resulting in more even budding and fruit set than can sometimes be the case.

Our winter and early spring of 2009 was also a lot wetter than usual, keeping the water table high to the benefit of early season growth.  As spring progressed, dry but windy and cool from October, the typical spring pattern prevailed: the water table drops fast and, as so often, we are in effective drought by December.

Only this year was even drier than normal.  Very little rain at all after early October meant that by December we had to get the irrigation on the save already stressed younger vines.  Our older vines with well established roots were fine, although canopies have been more restrained as a result of less water.

The pattern of the summer was set.  January was dry as well; and February the same, marked by a procession of warm, sunny days.  Northland is still very much in drought mode!  What few rain events we have had have been limited drops of a few millimetres, with the wind and warmth drying things up rapidly. 

There have been positives: the bunches are small and relatively even, the berries are tiny, spray requirements have been drastically reduced.  Veraison came on us fast in January, and ripening appears surprisingly even across all varieties.

So now we continue to hope, watch the weather forecasts paranoically, and wait for the right time to pick.