Viognier 2010, Pinot Gris 2010, Pinot Noir 2009, 2010

Am I just getting older, or are the winters getting bleaker? We’ve been plagued with black frosts, bitter days, and days of rain. My toes are covered in chilblains. Ki remains in her kennel, reluctantly following me around the vines. Kete sleeps all day in her bed, the chooks’ pen is a mudbath, and I won’t buy more weaner pigs until spring.

But just when I thought I’d never welcome the wind back again, last week the nor-westerly arrived and with it came warmer weather. It’s too windy for clothes on the line, but joy of joys, I don’t have to wear about six layers of clothes and there was a rainbow out the front.

On Monday we went up to Matahiwi to see Jane Cooper, and try out 2010 Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir, and 2009 Pinot Noir. The latter is just delicious. Truely James  Pinot Noir with that barnyard, complex, full of berries and licorice, leathery almost chocolate flavour and it’s still got a long way to go until we release it of course – 2011 at least.

The 2010 we tasted as separate clones, unblended, which is always an interesting exercise. Sometimes I feel like just smelling the wine, not tasting it, because once I’ve had the wine in my mouth I never get that power of the nose fully back again, and as Colin says, I have such a “sensitive little nose”. One of our clones, the 667, is very tannin strong, but Jane says if left it softens out.

But the most exciting development is our Pinot Gris which just gets better every year. Nice and dry, but still with good fruit – pineappley - Jane’s going to leave it on the lees for a bit longer and this will develop into a lovely Pinot Gris. We are very pleased.

When we got home, we did a bit more of our own winemaking, pumping the Viognier 2010 out of the barrel into the stainless steel tank, adding a sulphur tablet.

It will sit on the lees for a while too, and like the Pinot Gris, it’s shaping up to be much better than the previous two vintages. Drier, but still with that good fruit. We’re aiming to make our Viognier in the Condrieu style. Who says there’s a law against aiming high?

 

Midwinter Aesthetics

After such a lovely autumn, winter’s arrival was cruel. It hasn’t stopped raining. The chooks sulk in their house, dismally picking over the scraps I throw them and sneering at their wheat and pellets when they get damp. Kete mewls pitifully at the door. Only the ducks and the bantams are hardy enough to keep busy in these bleak times, bustling about the garden making peacharines (don’t ask!).

So I thought it was time for some beauty. Mike White, senior writer and a photographer for North & South magazine, and his partner Nikki MacDonald, senior journalist for The Dominion Post, look after Redbank when we are away. At Easter, Mike took these photographs. It’s astonishing how you can look at something every day, then someone else comes along with a photographic eye and sees beauty in it, for instance, a raggedy piece of grape net caught on a fence. He gave us a disc of more than 70 photos, but I’ve just chosen some of my favourites to put on view here. Enjoy.

 

 

Last Harvest 2010

Last weekend, 22 and 23 May, we picked the Viognier. In 2009 we harvested the Viognier on May 2, so it shows how much later the vintage is this year. It was a smaller crop, and the brix was down a bit, but not too bad. CCQC’s sister Robyn, and her partner Pete, came down from Auckland to help with the harvest and that made a huge difference. Their mad dog  Brewster, a designer hunting dog (I can’t remember the name of the breed) came too. If ever there was a dog candidate for ADHD this is it – he never stopped racing around like a bluebottle in a jar. The weather was kind, which was fortunate because it hasn’t stopped raining since Monday. We picked Saturday morning, from 9am to 11.30, then pressed in our brand new  basket press Saturday afternoon. Simon Groves provided the winemaker’s guiding hand (you can see him in the photos, doing the retrousse – turning over the once-pressed grapes with the white shovel so they can be re-pressed to get more juice out). Now the Viognier is innoculated, and fermenting nicely in a barrel. Here are some images from the weekend. I particularly like the deep enamel blue of the press against the blue night sky, and the pipes of the pump on the wet winery floor.

 

Mike & Nikki

One of the problems with having so many animals is they bind you to the property. It would be so much easier if when we go away I could just prepare their meals, leave them on a shelf for them to pop in the microwave and feed themselves. But no such luck. Kete mewls at the window. The ducks clacker around the taps where their bowl of food is kept (a white Wedgewood bowl, no less), the chooks are too stupid to let themselves in and out of their Hilton House and would take up residence on the verandas, and Ki would run back to Farmer John’s woolshed never to be seen at Redbank again.

The pigs, you ask? The pigs, Eddie and Pats, are now in the freezers. They grew to such an enormous size that it was with great difficulty I lifted even one ham into the car, let alone the bags of diced pork, chops, slices, bags and bags of bacon, numerous salami, two heads, trotters (for delicious hot and spicey Caribbean stew), and other ham. So now they feed us.

So the point I am arriving at is, when we go away for more than one day, we have to get house sitters, or animal sitters, and that is where our Wellington friends, Mike & Nikki, come into play. Both senior journalists, Mike writes for North & South magazine, and Nikki for the Dominion Post. Mike is also an amazing photographer and when they stayed here at Easter, he took some beautiful photographs, some of which I will put on here in a future post, although it won’t do the photos justice.

But this post is to announce that the latest two arrivals to our menagerie hatched while Mike & Nikki were here at Easter. I had allowed Pip to sit on two of her own eggs (remember she hatched a duck, Star) and she’s so happy to have two of her own babies – purebred Silkie bantams, which we have named Mike & Nikki. They are so cute, peeping and flitting around the place now. She parades them all over the property, under the grapevines, through the gardens, protecting them from the hawks. It was almost impossible to get photos of them because she won’t let me get close, but here they are:

 

Runaway dog and Washpool

They say you don’t find dogs, dogs find you. I didn’t think I could have another dog after Taja, but Farmer Pete, who works with Farmer John next door, has a fine bunch of huntaways which I’ve often admired. One of these huntaways, a beardy bitch named Ki, has been close to retiring. Not long after Taja left our life, Pete called in with all his dogs on the back of the ute and asked if I’d like to have Ki. She’d been showing signs of slowing down – she’s 11 years old – and when the cattle know a dog’s too slow to keep up with the rest, they go for her, and Farmer Pete was worried Ki would get hurt.

How could I resist these eyes:

I said I’d think about it. CCQC said yes, take her. So now Ki has come to live with us, but she’s not exactly thrilled about it. She doesn’t want to retire from farm work. On work days, she can hear her mates out on the hills, mustering sheep and cattle, and she wants to be out with them. Whenever my back is turned, she skulks off in the direction of Farmer John’s woolshed. Last Friday when I was loading the pigs into the trailer to take them to Parkvale Home Kill for a holiday, Ki took advantage of the commotion and bolted for Farmer John’s woolshed, so I had to collect her on the way and take her with me. Every night after I’ve fed her she howls in the direction of Farmer John’s woolshed. The rest of the time she’s okay, follows me around the vineyard, happy to be by my side, looking to me for directions. We’ll see how this works out.

Meanwhile, last week I went for a walk which once again reminded me how steeped in history is this place called Wairarapa. We went out to the South Wairarapa Coast to a friend’s sheep station – Washpool. After a cup of tea, we walked inland, up the Washpool stream, and after walking about 45 minutes we came to the site of an ancient Maori pa, where the rock walls were still intact, and the food pits. Also there were the cleft burial sites, where they placed the bodies then covered them with stones. Further on up the hill a little way was the site of the tohunga’s house, and the tohunga’s food pit. Sally (the owner of the property) said they always treat the area with respect, but once when they were up there with friends one of the guys was joshing around about this superstitious nonsense and when they got back to the whare his car had two flat tyres. I’m always respectful of these sort of places, if nothing else just for the fact that this is our history and we are privileged to be able to get so close to it. I took these photos, but they don’t show much, except you can see the little rock wall, and in the second photo, in the distance the cleft burial site which I was not going to get close to under any circumstances.

This last shot is looking back from the valley towards Palliser Bay. It’s a beautiful spot, and you can rent Sally’s cottage there – go to the website, www.washpool.co.nz.

 

Martinborough Stars

The latest copy of New Zealand Wine Grower (official journal of the New Zealand Grape and Wine Industry), edited by Terry Dunleavy, features snippets on the outstanding careers of four Martinborough wine people – Richard Riddiford from Palliser Estate, Larry McKenna of Escarpment, and Clive Paton and Phyll Pattie from Ata Rangi.

At the Royal Easter Show in Auckland, Richard Riddiford was inducted into the New Zealand Wine Hall of Fame. He joins New Zealand wine luminaries such as Assid Corban, Mate Brajkovich, Bryan Mogridge, Peter Hubscher, to name but a few. This award is given only to those “exceptional few who have made a lasting, nationwide impact” both on a local and national scale. Richard is a fifth generation Martinborough lad, and worked in the meat industry in London for eight years before returning here to invest in what was the Om Santi vineyard in the early 1980s. Over the years this expanded to become Palliser. Richard became chairman of Toast Martinborough, then kick-started the now enormously successful Pinot Noir conferences. He’s a grumpy old bugger who takes no prisoners, and enormously loved in the village. His award is well deserved.

Meanwhile, two more of Martinborough’s most popular wine identities were keeping quiet about a prestigious award they received at Pinot Noir 2010 in Wellington. It came as a complete surprise to Clive Paton and his wife, Phyll Pattie when their names were read out as recipients of the inaugural Tipuranga Teitei o Aotearoa award – Maori for great growth – loosely interpreted as grand cru. Although, puzzlingly, this does not relate to a vintage and will not be used on the label. It’s more of an accolade; an affirmation from one’s peers. And why not? It’s one thing to win wine awards from judges who have spent a day tasting thousands of wines – that’s a pretty controversial process. Isn’t it more heartening to have the resounding and unanimous confirmation from others in the business, that what you are doing is correct? The Ata Rangi pair, who’ve worked so hard to get where they are, received a standing ovation, and Phyll told Winegrower magazine, “The crowd went wild..and throngs of people came forward to give us hugs.”

When we held our hugely successful Home and Garden tour (and I’ll blog on that later), we asked several winemakers for wine to sell. It’s always hard doing this, because they get approached all the time for wine. Larry McKenna from Escarpment is no exception – he said he gets calls from all over the country from Rotary, Lions, etc, and he just has to turn some of them down otherwise he’d end up with no wine to take to the market. But he unhesitatingly said yes to us. So it was good to see a two page spread on Larry – the Prince of Pinot Noir – rather cliched but true. He is the leading winemaker of Pinot Noir (and Syrah, I’d add), and as local correspondent Barbara Gillham says, “He has successfully built a reputation for understanding and getting the best out of what is a typically a stubborn [sic - bad editing there] and capricious grape.”

Martinborough – a small town, but perfectly formed.

 

The award is given only to those “exceptional few who have made a lasting, nationwide impact” both on a local and national scale.

 

James Pinot Gris 2008

It wasn’t such a good idea to write about Taja. Each time I visited the blog to write another post and saw her photo, I just couldn’t face doing an update. But here I am again. There is much news in Martinborough. Vintage is almost upon us – in fact, many vineyards have already picked. But before I move on to the accolades visited on some of our colleagues in the area, I shall boast about our Pinot Gris because the Australian magazine, Gourmet Traveller Wine, which is on sale now, has our 2008 listed as one of the best 100 new releases, according to Master of Wine Bob Campbelland Huon Hooke. James received four stars (out of five) and this: “Bright, focused varietal flavours assisted by fresh acidity. Slightly green stone-fruit flavours – pear, nectarine and white peach. A tight, dry and attractive pinot gris with a smooth texture.” It was recommended for drinking now, or cellaring for up to three years.

Here’s the extract from ACP’s Gourmet Traveller Wine:

gourmet traveller wine – feb march 2010

Next blog – awards dished out to Martinborough wine people at the Auckland Easter show, and at Pinot Noir 2010.

 

Saying Goodbye to Taja

Last week I had to make the hardest decision for the sweetest natured dog I’ve ever known, and I’ve had quite a few. Taja was 17 years old, a marathon effort for a chocolate Labrador. When she arrived as a puppy we weren’t emotionally prepared; still grieving over Khan, who’d been hit by a train down near Remuera station. But rural relatives couldn’t keep this skinny, timid little bitch, so how could we turn her away?

Dogs do that. They take over your heart. The kids begged to let the puppy stay. They promised to take her for walks, clean up her house-training mistakes, feed her every night, and wash her when she’d rolled in muck.

Somehow it was always me who ended up the sucker, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. When you have a dog for 17 years, the family memories go back a while.

A stand-out was the time, about 14 years ago, when Imogen had pet day at Remuera Primary, and decided to enter Taja as best-dressed. So we popped Taja in a pink ballet tutu, tied a big pink bow around her neck and took her off to school. Her initial doggy gloominess rapidly gave way to pure, unadulterated love when she spotted Mark Leishman’s Golden Labrador, Dexter the Wonderdog. Taja danced around, up on her hand legs, twisting and turning, like a true ballerina. Boy, was she glad she was in a pink tutu, standing out from the rest of the crowd, trying to get Dexter’s attention.

 Sad to say it was unrequited love. Dexter totally ignored this silly teenage wannabe sleb in her pink tutu, raised his muzzle disdainfully, and looked the other way. Not that Taja got the hint, shameful slapper that she was. She rolled on her back, waved her legs in the air, exposed her private parts in absolute desperation until she was dragged away, upside down, in disgrace.

But she did win the prize for the best dressed dog.

When I lived in Remuera, each morning she walked with me over Mt Hobson, and made friends with every dog she met. Her favourite times were riding with the kids – through vineyards in Kumeu, and latterly, with me across the Martinborough hills. In the last few months, however, as her arthritis got worse, I guiltily sneaked out riding without her. Taja’s famous stoicism, and stubborn streak, would have driven her to clamber across the Southern Alps if it meant being with me.

She never complained, never hurt anyone or anything, and was the best behaved dog. The kids taught her to look away when anyone was eating, and never to take food from little children’s hands. The only disapproval she ever voiced was the classic Labrador sigh, always expressed with head resting between paws, eyes trained firmly on you with that long-suffering look.

 The ducks stepped across her while she slept. The hedgehogs ate her dinner while she watched them help themselves. Occasionally, just because she could, she chased the cat all of two metres.

 But on Tuesday she couldn’t get up and her eyes told me she’d had enough. Just one more day, I wanted to ask of her. Give me one more day. But owners have to make that terrible decision for our pets. We cuddle them, and end their suffering.  

There were many people to tell – London, Sydney, all over New Zealand -  Taja touched hundreds of lives, and messages flowed in from dog lovers. Everyone who knew her, who looked after her for me, truly loved her. What person, in honesty, could ever have that said about them?

 

 

Hello Ducky

Squeak the bantam rooster (not his real name), was getting pretty aggressive towards Star the duck, his adopted daughter. Furthermore, I think I’d detected a bit of unnatural animal husbandry being attempted. One day Star, possibly in an attempt to dodge Squeak’s incestuous advances, was sporting a bleeding eye. So I asked my friend Jacquie, who gave me the three fertile duck eggs from which Star hatched, if she had any more spare ducks. As it happened she was about to despatch a few to the freezer. So one was spared, placed in a cardboard box, and brought in to Redbank instead.

What a funny evening that was because Star had never seen a duck before. She thought she was a bantam. When I released this new duck from her cardboard box she rushed over to join Star, who took fright and ran around the house several times, along with Pip and Squeak (not their real names), hotly followed by the new duck. Star, Pip and Squeak (not their real names), thought they were being chased by a monster. It’s the first time I’ve seen Star fly. In fact I don’t think she knew she could fly. Eventually, worn out, they stopped and just looked at each other for ages, with the new duck trying to convince Star that she wasn’t a blimming bantam, she was a duck.

It took them about a week to settle down together. Star’s still not convinced. Pip’s still Mum to her, and they are still the funniest family you’ve ever seen. The new duck’s called Sea, because she came from Whangaimoana, and they all traipse around together.

But then the other evening, as the sun was catching the last light on the vines, I took these lovely photos of Star and Sea nestling down together in the front garden, free from Pip and Squeak (not their real names).

 

Leaf Plucking

Before I start, the tickets are all sold out for the Home and Garden Tour.

Hopefully it will be a weekend like this one – the first time we’ve had two glorious days in a row. At last the grapes are beginning to colour up.

With the ripening, come the flocks of starlings. Tonight we’re exhausted, knocked out by hard physical work and a gin and tonic. In our vineyard, I swear the longest row is the skinny row down which the tractor will not fit. When the trellising was erected, whoever did it (probably two Irishmen, if one is still allowed to say that without being arrested) started from the outside of the vineyard and met in the middle. The result being a middle row which is too skinny for any of the vineyard equipment – the sprayer, the trimmer, the mower, the leaf plucker (say that very carefully) to fit down. So this weekend, CCQC and I had work to do.

First, my mower was put to work.

Then CCQC trimmed the vines with the electric hedgetrimmer. Then we hand-plucked the leaves away from the bunches of grapes so the sunlight can get at them, so you take it from this:

to this:

It’s hard work, but after a while you develop a rhythm. It’s a bit like waxing – underarm waxing, or bikini-line waxing, you have to rip the leaves off cleanly. Still, it’s good thinking time, and since I have a few deadlines to meet this week, I composed in my head, much of what I have to write.