Anyways, the next day I started out by visiting Quartz Reef, a tiny but excellent winery in Cromwell, Central Otago. Central Otago is known for being a prime Pinot Noir area of New Zealand, and being a bit of a Pinot-phile myself, I was quite excited to visit a winery making some of the best Pinot in the region. The winemaker there, Rudi Bauer, has been recognized for his winemaking talent quite a bit of late. He makes some excellent age-worthy, complex Pinot, as well as Pinot Gris and sparkling wine. He's been a seminal figure in the history of Central Otago winemaking, particularly in relation to Pinot Noir. Unfortunately, he was quite busy when I visited, but his assistant winemaker Sam Jary gave me an excellent tour and tasting of their winery. Sam is both the assistant winemaker and biodynamics man, so I quizzed him a bit about biodynamics before moving on to the winemaking stuff.
The pinot in barrel was all excellent, showing a lot of weight and depth. As with seemingly every New Zealand Pinot Noir winemaker, they will leave the wine on skins post-fermentation for as long as it takes for the tannins to soften and taste right. This is in addition to a pre-fermentation maceration and a natural yeast fermentation, such that in the end, there is a lot of skin contact, resulting in very full tannins. Some whole bunch fermentation is also used, adding complexity and further tannins. The Pinot Gris is made in a quite crisp dry style, with good acid and viscosity adding palate rather than residual sugar, as many winemakers will do with Pinot Gris.
My next stop was at Olssens, where the winemaker Jen Parr showed me around. Jen worked with Douglas Wisor during the early years at Craggy Range, twice as a harvest worker. Jen is also from the United States.
We tasted through some tanks of Pinot Gris and Riesling and Gewurztraminer. The key aspect of making these wines seems to be acid/sugar balance, and you could see that Jen liked to work each wine at a different balance point. So much depends on what the vineyard gives you, and Jen would tailor each wine's balance accordingly, and furthermore to her taste. She makes some wine for clients as well, and sometimes has to work with what the client wants, while still ensuring that the wine achieves the best expression of its potential. Her Rieslings were nice and furthered my increasing love for that variety, and I really liked her Gewurztraminer as well.
I then head over to Carrick, where my friend and former coworker Cris Carter had worked the harvest. He'd spoken well of the winemaker, Jane Docherty. Jane had worked as assistant winemaker at Felton Road until a couple of years ago. She gave me a nice view of the region from a vantage point in her vineyard, then tasted me through some stuff from her cellar.
It was an excellent lineup, and we talked about the delicate and complicated balance of a Riesling. Jane pointed out the quandaries facing the winemaker in placing a Riesling stylistically for the market. It is a difficult call to decide whether to balance a Riesling on the sweet side (which is often the better true balance for the highly acidic Rieslings) or more dry, which comes very sharp and generally needs to be paired with food. The issue is further complicated by the fact that consumers claim to prefer dry Rieslings, but tend to actually prefer them off-dry or sweeter. It seems that with many Rieslings there are multiple points of balance, depending on the style desired, and what market you are aiming for.
I finished the day at the winery I was staying at, Felton Road. Todd Stevens showed me around, heading out to the Calvert vineyard, the fruit of which is made into single-vineyard wines by Felton Road, Pyramid Valley, and Craggy Range. It was a beautiful, well-cared for vineyard, producing excellent fruit, and excellent wines, from all three wineries. Todd gave a brief overview of their fledgling biodynamic-ish vineyard management. I later met Gareth King, the viticulturalist, who takes care of such things. Apparently they are utilizing many organic and biodynamic principles, but not swallowing the thing whole; taking the best and mixing it with other techniques to produce the best grapes possible.
In the winery their setup appeared efficient. They had many medium and smaller tanks to do individual lot fermentations, and were setup in a multi-lever manner so that much of the winemaking can be done by use of gravity rather than pumps.
We tasted first through some of the Chardonnay, which was excellent, aging in barrels. It had a crisp acidity that balanced the richness of the fruit and barrel influence. Then we tasted through some Rieslings, discussing the same issues of balance as I've mentioned above. Even in the dry Rieslings, it seems best to leave 5 to 10 grams of sugar to balance out some of the acidity, because even at that rate it will still taste completely dry to the average drinker. The sweeter Riesling, in the 55g/L range, was well balanced in its own, sweeter, way. The Pinot Noir's that we then tasted were excellent as well, deep and rich and balanced. An impressive array across the board.
That night I tasted the Felton Road Calvert wine, and found it excellent.
The next day I visited Amisfield, where the assistant winemaker showed me around and tasted me through some tanks and barrels. It was another excellent range of wines, accentuated by the frost-covered vineyards and snow-capped mountains in the distance. It was a practical winery, which appeared to be set up for efficient winemaking. Someday I'll have to visit their Bistro near Queenstown, which is apparently gorgeous.
From there I visited Rippon, where Nick Mills toured me around. I was required to clean my shoes thoroughly before arrival, the avoid potential contamination of their pristine and clean fully biodynamic vineyards. The first people I met upon arriving were Nick Mills' sister and two friends who were planting the hillside (too steep for vines) to native vegetation. They told me that they also have projects around the property, down by the lakeside, replanting to native trees.
Nick was a very passionate guy, and seems to believe deeply in the central concepts of biodynamics. He spoke intensely about creating flows of energy through his vineyard, using composts composed of organic matter from the winery and vineyards, and redistributing this outwards from the center of the property out to the various parts of the vineyard, from which the energy would return and be redistributed. The winery and compost being developed while I was there will be at the center of the property, important if they are to be the energetic heart of the property. It was a very passionate, exciting organization of wine growing and making.
The wines in barrel were absolutely amazing; I was blown away. I also noticed a little still in the corner, and when I inquired, Nick gave me a sample of some Riesling grappa. It was delicious grappa, and when I said so, he filled up a 375mL bottlle, corked it, and sent me home with it. It was an excellent visit.
So I headed down the road towards the west coast, making it to Fox Glacier by nightfall for a night's sleep and some sightseeing in the morning before heading up the coast toward Moutere and some excellent wineries there.
It was an excellent lineup, and we talked about the delicate and complicated balance of a Riesling. Jane pointed out the quandaries facing the winemaker in placing a Riesling stylistically for the market. It is a difficult call to decide whether to balance a Riesling on the sweet side (which is often the better true balance for the highly acidic Rieslings) or more dry, which comes very sharp and generally needs to be paired with food. The issue is further complicated by the fact that consumers claim to prefer dry Rieslings, but tend to actually prefer them off-dry or sweeter. It seems that with many Rieslings there are multiple points of balance, depending on the style desired, and what market you are aiming for.
I finished the day at the winery I was staying at, Felton Road. Todd Stevens showed me around, heading out to the Calvert vineyard, the fruit of which is made into single-vineyard wines by Felton Road, Pyramid Valley, and Craggy Range. It was a beautiful, well-cared for vineyard, producing excellent fruit, and excellent wines, from all three wineries. Todd gave a brief overview of their fledgling biodynamic-ish vineyard management. I later met Gareth King, the viticulturalist, who takes care of such things. Apparently they are utilizing many organic and biodynamic principles, but not swallowing the thing whole; taking the best and mixing it with other techniques to produce the best grapes possible.
In the winery their setup appeared efficient. They had many medium and smaller tanks to do individual lot fermentations, and were setup in a multi-lever manner so that much of the winemaking can be done by use of gravity rather than pumps.
We tasted first through some of the Chardonnay, which was excellent, aging in barrels. It had a crisp acidity that balanced the richness of the fruit and barrel influence. Then we tasted through some Rieslings, discussing the same issues of balance as I've mentioned above. Even in the dry Rieslings, it seems best to leave 5 to 10 grams of sugar to balance out some of the acidity, because even at that rate it will still taste completely dry to the average drinker. The sweeter Riesling, in the 55g/L range, was well balanced in its own, sweeter, way. The Pinot Noir's that we then tasted were excellent as well, deep and rich and balanced. An impressive array across the board.
That night I tasted the Felton Road Calvert wine, and found it excellent.
The next day I visited Amisfield, where the assistant winemaker showed me around and tasted me through some tanks and barrels. It was another excellent range of wines, accentuated by the frost-covered vineyards and snow-capped mountains in the distance. It was a practical winery, which appeared to be set up for efficient winemaking. Someday I'll have to visit their Bistro near Queenstown, which is apparently gorgeous.
From there I visited Rippon, where Nick Mills toured me around. I was required to clean my shoes thoroughly before arrival, the avoid potential contamination of their pristine and clean fully biodynamic vineyards. The first people I met upon arriving were Nick Mills' sister and two friends who were planting the hillside (too steep for vines) to native vegetation. They told me that they also have projects around the property, down by the lakeside, replanting to native trees.
Nick was a very passionate guy, and seems to believe deeply in the central concepts of biodynamics. He spoke intensely about creating flows of energy through his vineyard, using composts composed of organic matter from the winery and vineyards, and redistributing this outwards from the center of the property out to the various parts of the vineyard, from which the energy would return and be redistributed. The winery and compost being developed while I was there will be at the center of the property, important if they are to be the energetic heart of the property. It was a very passionate, exciting organization of wine growing and making.
The wines in barrel were absolutely amazing; I was blown away. I also noticed a little still in the corner, and when I inquired, Nick gave me a sample of some Riesling grappa. It was delicious grappa, and when I said so, he filled up a 375mL bottlle, corked it, and sent me home with it. It was an excellent visit.
So I headed down the road towards the west coast, making it to Fox Glacier by nightfall for a night's sleep and some sightseeing in the morning before heading up the coast toward Moutere and some excellent wineries there.
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