Long time between posts!

Several of you asked what happened to our stuck ferment. Well we got it going again slowly by feeding the yeasts, but were not able to ferment as dry as the 2008. So a wine with a little more residual sugar this year. It is balanced with good acidity, so is going to be a pretty smart wine.

In the vineyard the vines are racing along. It is interesting to see the difference in growth at our Blue Rock vineyard compared to the vines in the village. Blue Rock is warmer, no frosts and different soils. As a consequence the vines are quite a lot more advanced. That is good as it gives us insurance against a cold snap during the year and growth slowing down a bit

Maria, who you all know manages our office, took a day of last week to play in her golf club championships and won it! Need a bigger cup though, for all that work!

Still the sun shines – long may it last! The vines are looking great.
Great sunsets too!

The bottling mentioned in the last post went really well, and even after allowing for bottling shock the wines look very promising. We have sent samples off to export customers so they can decide on future requirements. Their feedback is vital in helping plan for the future, in particular, when allocating the small volume premium wines.



Now the barrels that were emptied for the bottling run need to be cleaned before we put the rest of the 2009 vintage in them. So I thought it would be interesting to show you some shots of them being steam cleaned.

Well, the fine weather continues. Another lovely day and the chardonnay is racing away. The driveway is now finished, and looks great.

It will certainly make the winery a more popular destination for functions and weddings; as well as simplifying road maintenance (no more potholes) and no more dust nuisance.

Carl was loading the wines for bottling today. He started filling the tanker at 4.00am, so he could have the wine at the bottling plant ready to start at 8.00am. It was all over by 6.00pm and the wine now all bottled and cartooned ready for sale. We will be getting the samples off to our export customers asap, so they can finalise their requirement.

Bud Burst 2009

A stunning day here today - warm and dry. And, we have bud burst which is great, but about two weeks earlier than anticipated. With bud burst the cycle starts all over again – it is very exciting, and now we’ll watch over the vines as the grow foliage and then grapes!

Meantime, for the next 3 or 4 weeks, all we have to do is worry about frost! We had two severe ones yesterday and today, both reaching minus 5 degrees C, which had all the Martinborough wineries running their frost machines, flying helicopters, lighting their frost pots and anything else that they can do to avoid risk of frost damage. Fighting frost is an incredible task, and very interesting – if you want to know anything about it, drop us a note at info@murdoch-james.co.nz

We use water sprinklers on our Waiata block, and in the morning the frozen water is a beautiful sight. At our Blue Rock vineyard the sloping ground protects from frost. Why? Because frost behaves water, and so runs off sloping ground. We are very fortunate to have the only large vineyard in Martinborough planted on a hillside. Not having frost risk on our largest block is a very valuable benefit, and saves tens of thousand of $’s each year.

Time to tell you that even busy winery owners need time off!

Leaving Wellington on a cold winter day (about 10 C) we flew to Fiji for 3 weeks holiday. It has been great, as the accompanying images show - warm days (25-30 C) and mild nights (20 C). Very pleasant indeed! Unbelievable as it may appear, it has been hard to leave work totally behind, even though we have a very capable team at the winery. I think when one owns a business, it is almost impossible to totally switch off. It is almost like having a child!!

While we have been away, lots of things have been happening at work; the bottling process mentioned in earlier posts, finalising the 2009 wines and site developments. Most important of these is the sealing of our long gravel drive. No more dust in the café or cellar door, no more mud and potholes in winter and easier access for winery visitors.

To be able to afford to do this after 10 years is a real thrill.

I will include some images of the work in a future post. This improvement will help us sell the winery and cafe for more weddings and functions, an important revenue item for us. We hosted over 20 wedding in each of the last 3 years - all of which were great fun for us and the wedding parties

As mentioned in the last posting, while the final 2009 ferments are finishing in the winery, we are preparing to bottle the 2008 reds. That requires ordering cartons, screw-caps, labels and dividers from all our suppliers, then booking time at the busy local bottling plant. After that we finalise any blends, like our ‘2008 Martinborough Cabernets, and bring the wines up to the correct temperature for bottling. Like all liquids wine expands when warm and contracts when cold, so it is important to be in the right band to ensure the volume of wine put into each bottle is correct.

In 3 weeks we will bottle all the 2008 pinot Noirs (the Fraser barrel selection, the Blue Rock single vineyard wines, and the Martinborough regional blend) as well as the 2008 Cabernets. All require different labels, different bar codes, different size cartons and dividers, different colour closures, and different bottles; all of which is a huge logistical and planning exercise. Sometimes I wish we made just one wine like a lot of the Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc producers – bottling time must be much easier for them!

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!

This week, Carl (our winemaker) is wrestling with something no winemaker likes to talk about; a ‘stuck’ ferment. By ‘stuck’ we mean a ferment that stops before the wine is fully fermented. While not a common problem, it is a serious one to manage. Getting a ferment started again is both time-consuming and difficult. Without going into a lot of technical detail, stuck and sluggish fermentations happen when the uptake of glucose and fructose in the ferment is reduced or stopped as a response of the yeasts to various stresses. What we now have to do is get it sorted out as soon as possible, to protect the quality of the wine. It means a lot of work and worry for Carl.

On the lighter side, I found this lovely image of our Consultant Winemaker (David) getting a potential new consumer interested in wine.

In the vineyard pruning is about 50% complete. We have a new team this year that are very diligent and conscientious; the quality of work is great and gets us in great shape for next year.

It was a very frosty morning today, starting at a crisp -3C, but now a beautiful sunny day. Frosts in winter cause us no concern, but they will in spring, as the grapes are starting to bud. We use all of wind machines, helicopters and frost pots to fight the frosts. Best of all though is using water control. It is very efficient and environmentally friendly, but what I like most is the result in the morning as the sun rises. Have a look at the accompanying image - truly beautiful - this is sunrise on a frosty morning at our Waiata block, in the Dry River region.

I was thinking as I drafted this post that this is really where the story of ‘Birth of a Wine’ should have begun. We have started pruning this week and really what we do now will drive a lot of outcome. More canes tied down and/or longer canes will give more buds meaning more grapes.

But too many bunches and at the other end of the season the question is “Will that all that fruit get ripe?”

Lovely crisp and frosty nights at present means beautiful clear days and sunshine. This is good weather to prune in Tony tells me. Here's a shot of him pruning the Sauvignon Blanc. The next images show what he started with, and what the finished job looks like.

Once all the pruning is finished we’ll much the old canes back into the soil, and wait for bud-burst!

Some prose from Jill

I found these musings from Jill in the winery yesterday. Lovely bit of prose that captures the spirit of vintage! Thought I would share with you.......







The highlight of the winery year - Easter - where
grapes have turned from green to red, the birds are ready
Easter fare for them despite bridal veils of drooping nets
over vines, gas guns booming, humans with guns on quad bikes.

This is the time when the radio hits max volume
in the winery getting the guys in the mood
First pick is preceded by weeks of winery housekeeping
Would their mothers see how these tanks do shine

The first day the grapes come in, the day is fine.
Gleaming press, spotless tanks, pumps all primed.
White bins come in full of Pinot gleaming the team move into action
full of enthusiasm this is the sum total of the years mowing, pruning, weeding.

To the beat of triple four time, a bit of rock and roll
The press whines and thumps and does it's thing, to Carl's time,
the pumps send the juice on it's way, through snaking hoses
The big grey fermenters fill up slowly, huge ingesters, and
yeasts start to glug and bubble away.

Not without a glitch or two, a torch dropped in a tank
settling down through the bubbling brew
it must have thought - ah heaven I see the light!
No help for it, can't have a battery stew
The pumps are manned, the tank is drained,
the torch retrieved, red treasure replaced, it's alright again.

More bins arrive, more grapes to crush, arms haul the bins
grapes, wasps, and purple mush, all grist to the team
who sift and pass the quality stock and toss the rubbish.
There is a bunch of cows down the road who wait for
this, stems and skin, discards in bins, they
recognise the tractor, are at the gate in anticipation.

Down the road, two weeks of toil is starting to show
early starts in the dark, leaving at two am shows the mark
on weary faces, tired arms, stumbling gait, the dogged way
they greet the next pile of bins. One cellar hand remarks
I have a new flat, one week down the track I don't know the colour
of it's outsides, I leave home and arrive back again in the dark.

Seventy five per cent is done, on its way to being wine.
The weather holds, the forecasts followed, rain or shine?
The tardy ones, Syrah working hard on the hill to ripen
basking in all day sun. Cab Franc, Cab Sauv, hang in
there too, among dying leaves, reluctant to go in The Bin.

But the will is still there, the radio still marks the time
Weary limbs respond, wind and sun dried faces shine from
The trailer for the umpteenth time as it comes down the hill.
The winery team look up from endless hosing, cleaning bins
and welcome them all in.


You and I know after years of vintage days,
the winery team live for this time, the whole year points
towards this time, when grapes come in, the quality
surveyed, the tons marked down, the tanks filled up,
barrels in the cellar wait, the vehicle is nature, cruel or kind
and the driver is of course - the wine.