I always get asked, "What's news" at Murdoch James?

Well, there is certainly some fantastic news to share today.

In an exciting development that reinforces Martinborough’s prominent position as New Zealand’s premier Pinot Noir producer, and our profile as a leader in the region, we recently announced that we are removing 10 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc vines and replacing them with Pinot Noir. In all, more than 25,000 vines will be replaced at a cost of over $300,000.

Chris Shaw cutting out the old SB vines

This is not a decision for the faint-hearted. Not only is there a significant cost involved; we also had to accept it can take up to 3-5 years for the new vines to return a full crop.

Does not mean we don't like Sauvignon Blanc; it just means we love Pinot Noir more. We will still be keeping around 20% of our Sauvignon Blanc vines, but the Pinot Noir plantings will nearly double.

Roger Fraser contemplating the change

The decision was made as we have not able to meet the export demand we have for Pinot. Every year we have to ration our customer orders. Against that background, using prime Pinot Noir vineyard land for Sauvignon Blanc did not make sense in either economic or strategic terms.

Easy to say that in the office, but when I went out into the vineyard today, it was a very emotional time. To see thousands of vines that have served us well being removed was heart-breaking.

What taking out 25,000 vines looks like

I just had to remind myself, this is the start of an exciting journey, where will capitalise on the strengths of our team and our terroir. 

Over the next three years we will tell the story of these vines, as they are planted and mature. So, watch this space for lots of updates.

Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and all the other Pinots!

Followers will have read in some my old blogs that Pinot Noir is a grape that can mutate quickly to Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc or Pinot Meunier. In each variety there are also lots of different clones. All occur quite naturally - no genetic engineering here! 

I found a good explanation of this recently on the 'pinotnoir.com' website. They explained that "Pinot Noir is a genetically unstable varietal. New clones, and to a lesser extent, new varietals are not uncommon occurrences in a Pinot Noir vineyard. Strolling through a vineyard of Pinot Noir, one may find one or more plants with single shoots that have characteristics unlike the rest of the wine. If you try to propagate these shoots into new vines, and all the buds on the new plant display the same attributes on the original shoot, then a new clone, or in extreme cases, a new varietal is born. Pinot Meunier, Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc are some of the more successful mutations of Pinot Noir and produce distinct and unique wines on their own. Each differs from its parent, Pinot Noir, in the color of their fruit, and in the case of Pinot Meunier, a noticeable number of white "hairs" on the tip of the shoots".

If you think that this all sounds a bit odd, check out the two accompanying photographs. We are in the middle of the 2011 harvest (which I think could be one our best ever, but more about that in future blogs). When we were picking the Blue Rock Pinot Noir this year though, we found a bunch of grapes that was half Pinot Noir and half Pinot Blanc - yes same bunch. That is the top photo. 

BUT then when we looked more closely we also found a berry that was half Pinot Noir colour and half Pinot Blanc colour - yes, a single berry! All pretty amazing eh! Look at the second of the two photos and you'll see the berry I refer to almost dead centre of the image. I assure you no Photo Shop trickery here.


A few nice autumn shots below too, and a real bunch of Pinot Noir!

Is the Martinborough Region now producing the world's best Pinot Noir?

Now you all know from past blogs, that I have always thought Martinborough is the only place in New Zealand to grow classic Pinot Noir. By classic, I mean complex, layered, textured, savoury, lingering and long-lived. Well it looks to me if the world is about to realise that too!

Many newspapers and wine critics, including Huon Hooke, writing in the Melbourne Age, are head-lining the fact that a $200 bottle of New Zealand pinot noir beat off a strong field, including a $7000 bottle of French burgundy in a blind tasting in the US.

"Martinborough Vineyard Reserve Pinot Noir 1998 triumphed over one of the world's most prestigious wines, 1990 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti La Tache, to take No.1 ranking in the World's Top 20 Pinot Noirs competition in Pasadena, USA. Twelve judges blind-tasted 20 wines from New Zealand, the US, France, Germany and Australia. The competition was based on the 1976 Judgment of Paris, which caused a sensation when a Californian wine was chosen over famous French wines. As well as being ranked No.1 overall, the Martinborough Vineyard wine also received the most No.1 rankings - from three of the judges".

From a personal perspective, we at Murdoch James came to Martinborough to grow Pinot Noir because it had the potential to craft wines equal to the best of Burgundy. Now we believe the world is about to find out how much the dedicated winemakers in our region have moved from potential to reality in regards to that criteria.

There is something special about the vines, soils, climate and people here that create a very special terroir. What you now need to look for are the subtle differences in Martinborough's sub-appellations. For example, the wines from the lime rich soils of the Dry River region are noticably different to those grown on the gravels north of the village.

On the road again.......

I'm in Singapore this week for the NZ wine promo. Tonight (Saturday evening) was a consumer tasting at Loof. Loof is a rooftop bar/restaurant in that great city. They describe themselves as: "loof is a bar on a roof, a playfully versatile space which is multidimensional, split-level, and a juxtaposition of raw against refined. loof is designed as a refuge for the bedraggled office worker, a respite for the brilliant mind, a sanctuary for fools, a canvas for the budding artist and the launch pad for a brilliant night." Sounds great eh? That's what I thought too, but try pouring tastings for a big crowd in 30 degrees plus, and near 100% humidity! Anyway, good fun and lots of new converts to Murdoch James Estate wines. And a great location. The bar is on the roof of an office block with spectacular views of Singapore and nearby skyscrapers. Think I'll just come for a glass of Murdoch James Pinot Gris and enjoy the view next time though.


Tomorrow is a free day then Monday is full on with trade and media promotions. 

While I am away working hard to get Murdoch James established in the key Asian markets, back at home wine-maker Carl is preparing to bottle our specialty wines: 'The MacIntyre' (our port style fortified red, named after a much loved old friend who died last year), the 'Rhiannon Rosé (this is our Pinot Meunier rosé named to celebrate the birth of my first grandchild), the 2010 Riesling, the 2009 Blue Rock Pinot Noir and the 'Trafalgar' (our ice-wine style late harvest wine). Lots on, but very exciting. There are some great wines in this grouping! Make sure you are on our contact list if any sound interesting as most of these will just be sold at cellar door or direct to our regular internet customers.

Our Chardonnay vines bite the dust!

A few months ago, we made the hard decision to remove our 26 year old Chardonnay vines.

They were ungrafted plants which, for those that do not know, meant that they were vulnerable to phylloxera which is a sap-sucking bug related to aphids. This bug eventually drains so much goodness from the vines that the plant will die. Martinborough was free of this problem until about two years ago when poor quarantine practices at one of the local wineries saw it established here. Now with phylloxera one thing is certain - if it is in town it will spread to all the local vineyards eventually. So the upshot is that all ungrafted plants here are going to die.

What folk now do to avoid this risk is to graft the vines you want (i.e. Syrah, Reisling or whatever) onto phylloxera resistant Amercian rootstock

But phylloxera was not the main driver for the decision. We are in Pinot Noir territory and if we make a great bottle of Pinot, we can sell it for upwards of $40, while a chardonnay will command a much lower price. So it came down to simple economics. In this difficult financial era we have to optimise our efforts, and so we have decided to replace the chardonnay with Pinot Noir.

Now that is an easy decision to make in the winery office, but as you can see from the photo above, heart-breaking when you look at the consequences for these old vines. Specially when one then looks at where the other vines are up to at this time of year. All are now bursting with new life as the sap starts running and the buds break out; as the accompanying shot of our Pinot Noir vines shows.

As you can see we have cut the charonnay right back and will pull out the roots by tractor, leave the ground fallow for a year, then replant with grafted Pinot Noir. For those wondering why everyone did not just graft from day one, think about this: an ungrafted vine is free (just stick a cutting in the ground and the vine will grow), but a grafted vine comes from a nursery and costs between $4 and $6 each. So you can see why folk were tempted to go with ungrafted plants when they might need thousands of vines!

Our Man in Japan

Yesterday was one of the hardest days I have worked in a long time!  We participated in the New Zealand Winegrowers Toko Wine Fair, and the turnout was exceptional. There was a trade tasting first, from 12.30 to 5.00pm, than a short break, followed by a consumer tasting from 6.30 to 9.00pm. There were over 400 people at each event, tasters were often 2 or 3 deep in front of our stand, there was the excitement of working in a language we had little knowledge of, we were on our feet all that time, and no time for coffee or a snack - so, don't let anyone tell me that travelling and promoting wine is a junket!!

That said, while it was a very long day, it reminded me of the need to be out talking to all our customers worldwide. This event gave us the opportunity to present our wines to customers directly and to start continue building a bond with them. The wines were extremely well received and our importer Pony Group Inc has indicated they will add another 2 wines (Pinot Gris, Martinborough Pinot Noir or Syrah) to the two they already carry (Fraser and Blue Rock Pinot Noirs), so that was a great outcome. We have worked with the Pony company for about a year now and we could not wish for a better partner. A great hard working team, organised and capable of selling premium wines in a challenging market. Mr Wada is the sales manager (here in the photo on the left) and he is very supportive of our wines. We also had assistance from one of the Pony team as at each session and that was invaluable for someone whose Japanes does not go much further than 'konichiwa'. Tomoko (in the photo below) helped us in the morning session and one of her colleagues did the same in the evening session.


We found the Japanese public to be highly knowledgable about wines, and very keen to taste new releases from New Zealand and I am really enthusiastic about the prospects for our wines here. We presented the 'Fraser', 'Blue Rock' and 'Martinborough' Pinot Noirs, the Pinot Gris and the Syrah. What really motivated were the large number of people who came back later in the day and said our wines were among the best they had tasted at the show.

Tonight and tomorrow we have wine and food match dinners at Tokyo restaurants, then a few days break before we move onto Korea, so watch this space for more on our Asian sales adventures.

Our North and South Dinner

Well, we hosted our Martinborough vs Otago wine and food dinner at Ortega last Tuesday with a sell out crowd upstair for the dinner, and the Welsh rugby team downstairs dining as well. We were hoping for some fine Welsh songs later in the evening, but none eventuated. I personally think the guys were very focussed on being in good shape for the All Blacks on Saturday. Best of luck for them in the game too. We will certainly see a much more competitive game than Ireland was able to contribute last week for sure.

The dinner went very well; a lot of great discussion, some good-hearted disagreements, lovely food, good company and new friendships. I have to remind myself that this is actually my job too!

We thought Davey and the kitchen team at Ortega had done a good job of matching wine and food, including some that were quite a challenge to the wines, but all came through OK. The service was excellent and we can recommend the restaurant whole-heartedly. But rather than me writing some notes that may have some suspected bias, why not check out a blog posting from one of the guests?

Click this link: http://roarprawn.blogspot.com/2010/06/wine-onanist.html

The event was so successful we will do it again next week (sold out) and again in August (date to be confirmed). Think we could take the idea national too!

What's best? Martinborough or Otago Pinot Noir?

A few blogs back, I was chatting about how fantastic a Winemakers Dinner we hosted in Hong Kong had gone. If you missed follow this link:  http://birthofawine.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

A few of our followers asked if we ever did anything like in in New Zealand? Well, the answer is yes! Here is your chance to enjoy a similar event in Wellington, and at the same time answer the commonly-asked question, which region makes the best Pinot Noir: Martinborough or Central Otago? We are hosting a dinner at Ortega on Tuesday 15th July at 7.30pm, entitled "THE NORTH & SOUTH DINNER".

This is a wine and food-Matched Dinner  with Murdoch James Estate of Martinborough & Olssens of Bannockburn, Central Otago. Over the last few years there has been an ongoing debate about which of these two regions produces the best Pinot Noir wines, and the theme of this dinner is designed to allow participants to form their own views. The concept is a dinner comparing the wines from Murdoch James Estate in Martinborough and Olssens in Central Otago. Both are small family owned vineyards producing premium quality wines.  In additional to the matched wine and food menu, guests will also get to try a back vintage of each of the wineries flagship wines, including the Fraser and Slapjack Creek Pinot Noirs.  Around 12 wines will be tasted on the night, all matching an inspiring menu.

Places are filling fast, but if you are interested, feel free to e-mail me at info@murdoch-james.co.nz and if you are interested in more detail, here's the menu:

Olssens & Murdoch James Dinner Menu

First Course

Couturier Goats Cheese & King Prawn Canneloni,

tomato chipotle salsa with a lemon infused reduction

matched with

Murdoch James Sauvignon Blanc 2008,    

Olssens Sauvignon Blanc 2009

Second Course 
Spicy Cakes Fish, citrus salad, chilli jam mussel 
with a tamarind lime dressing

matched with

Murdoch James Blue Rock Riesling  2008,

Olssens Riesling Dry 2009 

Third Course

Slow roasted Pork Belly, truffled lentils & cabbage,

sautéed mushrooms & Pinot Noir gravy

matched with

Murdoch James Martinborough Pinot Noir 2008

Olssens Nipple Hill Pinot Noir 2009                                

 

Fourth Course

Rustic Salad of Rabbit, lardoons, walnuts & blue cheese

matched with

Murdoch James Estate Blue Rock Pinot Noir 2008

Olssens Jackson Barry Pinot Noir 2008

 

Cheese Course

Livarot Cheese with brandied prunes             

matched with

Murdoch James Estate Syrah  2008

Olssens Robert the Bruce 2008

Time to learn a new word? Try Veraison!

This is what we have been hanging out for, veraison. Which is what?? Well read on: There are many European words that have been adopted by New World winemakers often because one French or German word can replace a sequence of English ones. Véraison is no exception: it is a wine-making term meaning "the onset of ripening". It is originally French, and the official definition of veraison is "change of color of the grape berries." Veraison represents the transition from berry growth to berry ripening, and many important changes occur in berry development occur at this time.


The accompanying image shows what I mean, so berries are still green, other partially coloured and some quite dark. What we want now is warm weather for a couple of weeks to ripen all the berries fully. It is this phase of development that gives the sugar levels and flavours we need, while the acidity drops and the seeds mature. It is this ripening which makes grapes so attractive to birds, and requires the nets we talked about in the last posting to keep them away!

This year we are very late in reaching veraison and so are keeping everything crossed for fine weather over the next month, leading into harvest. We have a winemaker from France joining us this year for vintage, so I will have even more French lessons for you all soon. 


On the social media front, we now have a Facebook page in place for Murdoch James Estate http://www.facebook.com/pages/Murdoch-James-Estate/306091360747  - now to use it. Meantime have a look and tell me how you'd like it to evolve! I also recently got my first Twitter spam messages, but at the same time am getting lots of encouragement to persevere. Good feedback on the blog too, so if any readers would like a specific topic covered, let me know via the comments section

Maria's Birthday!

In the last week of September, we celebrated Maria’s birthday, as you can see from the accompanying image.

In a small company all members of the team need the skills, and willingness, to turn their hand to anything. Maria is no exception to the rule! She successfully runs our office and is the face of the company to the outside world – there is nothing she cannot do – tours, tasting, accounts, reception, and telephones are just a few. And, at vintage, she was responsible for the transport of grapes from the picking team to the press.

In the winery we are just about to blend the 2008 Fraser and Blue Rock Pinot Noirs, as well as the 2008 Cabernets (50:50 Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon). These wines will be released about 2 months after bottling, so they can recover from bottle shock. Bottle shock is the term given to wines just after they are bottled – the bottling line is hard on wines. Filters, pumps and vibrations all contribute to shaking the wine up and most take about 2 months to come back to their pre-bottling state.

For those following the saga of the stuck ferment, Carl has it working once more so we all are able to relax again, and look forward to bottling the whites on time!