Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Marlborough


I arrived at Nautilus Estate in Marlborough after dark and was warmly greeted by two excellent men, Brett Bermingham and Mike Collins, who are the assistant winemaker and viticulturalist, respectively. They had a couple of bottles open, and I sampled some of their excellent four barriques wines, a selection of the best barrels in a given year (and only made in certain years), before Brett showed me to their “vineyard cottage” where I would stay for the night. It was closer to a vineyard mansion, with five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a large kitchen and dining area and common room. Having just stayed in a vineyard cottage about a quarter the size, I was quite impressed by their phrasing. They later told me that the terminology was about “expectation management.“ Most importantly to me, it was well stocked with bacon, eggs, bread and drinks. Needless to say, I was quite happy, cooking up a storm with the radio blasting, as is my wont.

I started the next day by visiting Fromm, a very interesting Marlborough rebel. Until very recently, they did no produce Sauvignon blanc, an incredible oddity in the region most famous in the world for that variety. But Hatsch Kalberer, the winemaker, is a man of vision and principles, and you receive the impression that he would never concede to populist practicality. His style of winemaking makes for some excellent wines, in what he calls an old world style. Hatsch seems to be in the camp that believes that expression of place and terroir is about the most natural, non-interventionalist winemaking possible. This means that his old-world style is utilized to try to express the best of this new-world terroir.

His reds sit in a cold soak at around 12 degrees Celsius for 3-4 days until the fermentation commences. The battle between various yeast and bacteria in such a situation creates interesting aromatics, a bit wild and dark. As the fermentation ramps up and the strong yeast dominate the fermentation, Hatsch will pump the wine over regularly. Oxygen is also fed into the wine. This is done for two reasons. Firstly, oxygen is a nutrient allowing the yeast to ferment healthy and completely (yeast with sufficient oxygen during their growth have cell walls more able to resist high alcohol conditions such as exist late in fermention, i.e. such yeast will ferment a wine to dryness). Secondly, to convert reduced characters developing in the wine by oxidizing reduced sulfur compounds. As fermentation slows to a crawl and the wine reaches dryness, pumpovers will eventually cease. The cap will be compressed down to minimize air flow, and the variable-capacity lid will be lowered down to the cap. The wine will sit with the floating cap of skins for a long extended maceration (aka a long extended contact between skins, seeds, and wine). This works to develop the perfect tannin structure through continued extraction from the seeds; during this extended maceration the bitterness and astringency of the wine will fluctuate from intensely undrinkable to round and full, and it is the latter that is desired. The biggest downside of an extended maceration is that off-aromas can develop such as acetic acid, ethyl acetate, a generally aldehydic aroma. To the non-winemaker, this means that the wine will smell sharp and funky, a bit like nail polish at its worst. Most winemakers who practice extended maceration count on these aromas going away with time (they generally do), but Hatsch is more careful. To minimize this effect, Hatsch will skim off the top layer of grapes, where most of this off aroma has developed. The good, clean grapes and wine on the bottom will be drained and pressed off.

The result of this winemaking approach is wines big on tannin and age-ability, full of interesting aromas. The early wines in barrel are quite rough, but with a year of aging they mellow out considerably and are quite smooth though still full and masculine. I like that Fromm uses only aged barrels, avoiding new barrels; their wines express the viticulture and winemaking more clearly for it. Fromm will actually purchase old barrels from the barrel companies, not liking the strong oak extraction of new barrels, such that the influence of oak is merely as a minor character in the wines, rather than an overt aromatic of its own.

This oak regime works well for the white wines, where the style is more about clarity, with less oak and butter and more of a focus. Barrel fermentations and good fruit results in a well rounded wine.

I enjoy speaking with passionate winemakers, especially when they explain their techniques and tricks of winemaking. But perhaps even more, I enjoy when they reveal their winemaking style and theory. You see, winemaking is as much about artistic philosophy as it is about practical craftsmanship. Hatsch kept coming back to a coaching analogy: you must coach the players you have on your team. Perhaps you are a coach who likes to coach a smooth and finessed style. But one year you get a team of clumsy strong players. You can teach these fellas some finesse, but in the end you must acknowledge their strengths, and coach to them. To quote from their website: "It's the grapes that tell us what to do rather than us forcing them into a preconceived style."

Next I went to a very different winery, the much larger and more modern Wither Hills. The assistant winemaker Sally Williams gave me an excellent tour. They are a larger but well set-up winery, efficiently run to produce excellent wines. Apparently the last few years have seen a considerable increase in size, and it's impressive to see how well they've coped.

The white winemaking at Wither Hills was very interesting. Nearly all of the whites are left in tank on the less for around 8 months, though the lees are not mixed. While the yeast lees sit, the yeast die and undergo autolysis, releases all sorts of interesting compounds. Lees are able to contribute viscosity and mouthfeel to the developing wine, from some of these compounds. There are also aromatic compounds, from both yeast autolysis and the secondary bacterial fermentation of wines called malolactic fermentation, which can be released into the wine during this stage. But Wither Hills keeps the wines quite cold, which inhibits malolactic fermentation, and minimizes the acquisition of any other aromas. The lees contact is to develop proper taste and balance, rather than for aroma. Sally was a firm believer that the wine improves with more time, but noted that the reality of a commercial winery is that sometimes it has to be bottled before it has fully resolved. This theme, of the balance between commercial reality and winemaking artistic perfectionist philosophy, it at the crux of the winemaking industry.

She also showed me an excellent toy they have. Not a plastic race car, no, much better. A Bucher brand Vistaylis sorter! It is a machine that sorts good grapes from bad grapes using sensors! It can sort out grapes by color (taking out anything too green, for example, as well as any green leaves or stems) or by size and shape (anything non-ovoid, such as leaves, stems, and shriveled or diseased grapes). What an amazing technology! Compare such a machine to the 15 sorters of Hiro Kusuda! It's like the Jack Henry's Hammer tale all over again. Technology versus man. The machine is of course imperfect, and Sally said they are still zeroing in on the right settings to make it sort perfectly. While I can appreciate that there will always be a place for the human hand, I welcome any technology that eliminates monotonous mindless work. Such mindless work is the perfect use for technology, especially if you are trying to make wine in some scale.

I ended the day back at Nautilus, where Mike and Brett gave me a tour around the valley to their various vineyards. The newer Clay Hills vineyard, has different slopes facing in different directions for just about every block, and the grapes show the effect of their soil and slope, as I saw when tasting through the wines made from those grapes. The Lannock Lane vineyard has naturally more vigorous and productive vines, more suited to Sauvignon blanc. The Renwick Vineyard, the original site, has an incredibly diverse planting on very strong soil. And so on….each vineyard producing different grapes, which provide the winemakers with plenty of options down the road for blending different characters to create balance and complexity.

We tasted through the barrel room, and it was very interesting to taste through the various vineyards after having seen them and discussed them. It was also interesting to see the effect that barrel choice has on a wine. I won't get too deep into it at the moment, but simply put, the source and producer of a given barrel has a huge effect on the quality of the barrel, and the quality of the wine which is stored in the barrel. For example, Sylvan barrels give a wine palate weight, but does not influence aroma very much. Remond provides a sweet mid-palate, while the Mercier high-end barrel called Francis is a beast of a barrel, boosting a wine heavily in the direction of big fruit, big gaminess, and a big palate. Barrel choice is another of the million variables in winemaking that a winemaker can toggle to create a balanced wine.

The next day I finished Marlborough by visiting Seresin, a biodynamic producer. They were incredibly friendly and warm people, and I liked them immediately. Alexis Goodman, the assistant winemaker, introduced me to the crew and showed me their biodynamic processes and winemaking. Perhaps most interesting was the cow pat pits, where cow manure was aging into biodynamic preparations. The manure is first stirred when fresh, and once sufficiently creamy, it is put into the pits to age. Various mixes can be added to the pit, things such as chamomile or valerian root, which, in seemingly homeopathic amounts, are meant to seed soil life. This is in strong contrast to the common approach to agriculture, in which pesticides and fertilizers are dumped onto vines, producing direct effects of death and growth, whereas biodynamics seems to be about giving the vineyard elements which result in the vineyard being healthy and balanced. The overall process and means of doing it seems mystifying at times, but the basic principle is clear: produce life and health in your vineyard, a living soil and balance ecology, and your vines and wine will be the better for it.

Their biodynamic approach seems all-encompassing. They also have heaps of olive trees which are farmed biodynamically to produce the olive oil they sell on site. Animals, gardens, cover crops, there was life everywhere. The vineyard was cared for by a small team, a family, year round, rather than short-term workers. Everyone seemed inspired and passionate, and their love for the vineyard and winemaking showed.


Saying goodbye to the awesome people of Marlborough, I headed off to see more of New Zealand. My next stop was Kaikoura for the night, then on to Waipara Valley for more excellent wines.

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