2013 Vintage Looking Good

Pinot Gris, 26 Nov. 2012.

I went out today to take the attached photos of Pinot Gris and could not help feeling we may be in for one of the really good vintages in 2013.

I know it is not a good thing to celebrate too early but the current vintage is looking great for us at Blue Rock. Our elevated and sloping vineyards meant no frost damage at all, compared to horror stories from  Central Otago where Spring frosts did huge damage in some regions. There were also reports of frost damage in parts of the Hawkes Bay and the Wairarapa.

We are looking at a harvest with the promise of both quality and quantity. There is a good bunch count per cane so what we need now is a good flowering through end November and the crop should be an excellent one. In fact, if the flowering is too good, we may be faced with having to fruit thin so we don't over-crop the vines.That is not a bad problem to have!

I did smile to myself when I took the photos as I was thinking I have been very lax in keeping my blog up to date. At one stage I had thought it would be interesting to take a single vine and post a picture of it each week through the season, but travel and other commitments got in the way. It was so lovely out there today that I am motivated to pick the idea up and follow it through from now on; let's see how I go!

Pinot Gris before flowering

I felt it would be good for those interested to see just how quickly vines grow through the season  and how much they change over time. For those not familiar with grapes, what you see here are very much potential grapes; these wee guys still have to flower and be pollinated before they develop into full sized berries. So, what we need over the next few weeks are warm days and gentle breezes for that to happen successfully. Rain and/or strong winds are not what we want - that just washes or blows the pollen away. I'll post photos of the same bunch over time so you can follow the development of the grapes.

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.

A Split Personality! Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and My Social Media Journey

I am developing a split personality. I am not quite sure where this blog is heading. It started out as a way to track our wines through the year after harvest, but it seems more of a Social Media commentary each time I post to it!

Each day I am amazed how much there is to learn about social media and story-telling, and the communication vehicles that are available. Today I just watched the launch video for Google Wave, and the technological advances were mind-boggling. How I put that together with my small steps in Twitter and Facebook I'm not sure yet. What I do know is that all this stuff is converging , and it will get easier day-by-day for the user to communicate with people interested in their products (in our case, wines obviously). I am also learning that there are good and bad ways to use these tools. I guess the single most important learning is that one cannot use these media to 'push' your product at people. There is no better way to turn them off. But, if you can share valuable and credible information with the internet community, the folk who like what they see will contact you. People often say that social media takes too much time. My view is that the the 'time' bit is correct, but not the 'too' bit! Who would not want to talk directly with their customers? There is no doubt we are getting tour booking and winery sales from these initiatives. Not a lot, but growing slowly. Just as important are the on-line relationships I now have with wine lovers all around the world. We share information about our wines, other wines, images, experiences and our locations. It brings us closer together in a relationship that certainly has a commercial element to it, but in which the commercial side follows on from a meaningful and more comprehensive relationship based on information exchanges.

On the wine side, we had a bit of a bad week last week when we had a blend of Pinot Noir all ready for bottling and the labels were a 'no-show'. Luckily we found out about that before we had pumped the wine (13,000 litres!) into the tanker for transport down to the bottling plant. So, just put a layer of protective argon on top of the wine in tank until the labels turn up. Argon is a gas that sits on top of the wine, and does not dissolve in it. The gas forms a protective layer between the wine and the air. Still a bummer to lose the bottling date. Now we need to wait until another one is available; hopefully not too long as we have export customers waiting for the wine
Went for a stroll in the vineyard to get over the stress (mine was not as bad as Winemaker Carl's though!), and cheered myself up when I saw how good the 2010 Pinot Gris, is looking -  as the image above shows. I often get asked about the differences between Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir, and the answer is not a lot. The name comes from the fact the berries are not as dark as Pinot Noir. They are grey in colour, not black and Gris is simply the French word for grey; as is Grigio in Italian. That said, the berries are quite dark this year, but we will separate the skins from the juice quite quickly so the wine will still be white.

You have all read my earlier grumbles about the cool weather slowing ripening in older posts. Well the last week has been great with a warm, dry start to autumn, which just as well as we are seeing colour changes in the poplars now. The grapes won't be far behind. Every warm day is a big plus. In the winery we are setting up the equipment ready to handle the harvest; destemmer, ferments, tanks, etc, so the excitement for crush 2010 is building!

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

Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir

Tuesday 28th April

Well a few days have gone by and we are almost through harvest. Only the Cabernet Franc and the Syrah left to bring in now. We are still enjoying a marvellous run of fine weather, and the quality of fruit coming in remains high. All the Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris ferments are under way and looking good, and I’ll talk in future posts about how we manage the ferments for optimum quality. But today I thought I’d talk a little about these two varieties.

Pinot Noir is a red wine grape variety of the species Vitis vinifera. The name may also refer to wines produced predominantly from Pinot noir grapes. The name is derived from the French words for "pine" and "black" alluding to the varietals' tightly clustered dark purple pine cone-shaped bunches of fruit. Pinot Noir grapes are grown around the world, mostly in the cooler regions, but the grape is chiefly associated with the Burgundy region of France and, increasingly, New Zealand, where wines that match their Northern Hemisphere cousins are making their mark. Pinot Noir is widely considered to produce some of the finest wines in the world, but is a difficult variety to cultivate and transform into wine.

Pinot Gris is a white wine grape variety of the same species, Vitis vinifera. Thought to be a mutant clone of the Pinot Noir grape, it normally has a grayish-blue fruit, accounting for its name ("gris" meaning "grey" in French) but the grape can have a brownish pink to black and even white appearance. The wines produced from this grape also vary in color from a deep golden yellow to copper and even a light shade of pink. The clone of Pinot Gris grown in Italy is known as Pinot Grigio.


Interestingly, the DNA profiles of both Pinot Gris and Blanc are identical to Pinot Noir. Pinot Gris is a bud sport of Pinot noir, presumably representing a somatic mutation in either the VvMYBA1 or VvMYBA2 genes that control grape colour. Pinot Blanc may represent a further mutation of Pinot Gris. (Source: Wikipaedia)

The fruit is looking great and the weather perfect!

Tuesday 14th April


Well underway now. We have had a dream run! All of Sunday through to today have been dry and mild - one of the reasons Martinborough is regarded as one of the best, if not the very best, of New Zealand's vineyard areas. The grapes have been coming in in great condition and we are thrilled at the prospect of being able to work with such a high level of quality. A great deal of credit must go to the vineyard team of Steve, Cliff and Nerissa for seeing everything through to a great position. I was going to say conclusion, but while maybe it is for the vineyard, it just the beginning for the winery! So far the winemaking days are getting longer and longer. Yesterday was from 7.00am through to 1.00am the next day, as we processed two large pressings of Pinot Gris, while starting 5 Pinot Noir ferments. We ferment each clone of Pinot Noir separately, so there are lots of small ferments happening all over the winery floor area. Today I have posted some images of the fruit coming in and the start of processing. Tomorrow I'll have a look at the team in the vineyard more closely and explain all the steps they take to ensure we only harvest absolutely top quality wine

Birth of a Wine

7th April 2009

I used to dream of owning my own vineyard while I sat in my Melbourne office surrounded by paperwork. I loved my job but always yearned for the chance to be involved in the magic process called winemaking. This yearning first started when I was at Auckland University and met Bruce Collard of Collard Wines, one of the first New Zealand wineries to focus on classic varietal wines. On occasions I would visit the winery with Bruce and developed a love for good wine; first as a consumer, but then I got thinking about actually making the this magic thing called wine!
Luckily I did not think about the hard work and costs to come! So, over the years while I was living in Australia I thought more and more about it until, with the encouragement of my wife Jill, we purchased our first vineyard in 1986. This was just a small 2 hectare block in the heart of Martinborough which has come to be regarded as the home of premium New Zealand Pinot Noir. From that humble beginning, we now have over 25 hectares of our own and several fantastic growers who supply us with great fruit. Our winery is located at our Blue Rock vineyard, which we purchased in September 1998. The winery is located in a stunning setting on the banks of the Dry River where we also have a café and our cellar door.
We are just about to start our 10th vintage and I started thinking about all the highs and lows of the last 10 years and felt it was a pity that we had not shared that with those who love our wines.
Hence this page on our website! We are going to start a diary of events at Murdoch James (www.murdochjames.co.nz) starting with the first pick of grapes for the 2009 Vintage. Log on from time to time and follow with us the joy (and sometimes the frustration) of owning a vineyard. We will post candid comments about events and our experiences as we wrestle with the challenges of making ever better wines year after year, in partnership with Mother Nature.
We are a small family owned that prides itself in making boutique wines that will appeal to wine lovers who have discerning tastes and a passion for the highest quality. In other words, these are not every-day high volume wine labels that would typically cater to the mass market.
Share Vintage 2009 and the rest of the year with us, and feel free to make contact and send encouragement or ask questions! We love to be in contact with folk who enjoy fine wine.
In vino veritas! Roger Fraser, co-owner, Murdoch James Estate