December 2004
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The End This is the last entry in this diary. We are at the end of the building process. The Birth of a Vineyard is essentially over and we have a screaming toddler on our hands. We are bottling our first wine in a couple of weeks and then we will be in business, at last. Our concentration has now got to be on selling our wine and investing the proceeds in our workforce and our farm, as well as getting the business in a state where it can stand on its own feet rather than rely on loans from its owners. Over the 60 editions of the diary we have tried to be honest and objective about our developing project. At first the style was light hearted, and looking back at the early entries it seems that we were fairly naïve. As the 5 years have gone on the tone has changed as things have got a bit more serious, but deep down we have retained our sense of humour. There have been some great highs and some worrying times, but our lives are now inextricably entwined in the farm and with the people we have met and are working with us. It has been a great adventure. Now it has to become a successful venture. December was, as it is every year, a great chance to renew friendships and have fun. We were all desperate to see how our 2003 wines were shaping up so close to actually bottling them. In order to make the suspense even greater Mrs. G-W went to our friends at the Vineyard Connection and ordered 12 of the most expensive bottles of South African wine she could buy and had them delivered in a plain cardboard box in the middle of the night, so no one could see what they were. She also chucked in (unknown to us) a couple of the cheapest wines she could get at the local supermarket. The nerves were jangling as we sat down to the first blind tasting of our wines among their local competition. J-C was in a state of nervous exhaustion before the first flight was over and we had to reassure him that whatever the result of the tasting he still had a job. In fact the worse our wine fared the more likely he was to have a job…selling the stuff! The tasters on the panel were John and Mrs. Merriman, Ziggy Merriman the brother of John, Tom G-W, J-C and various passing children from both families aged 6 upwards, adding helpful comments such as "Ugh I hope this isn't ours" and "I hope this isn't what my future rests on" and "What a waste of money". The amazing thing about the tasting was the differences between the wines. J-C has actually done a great job on the blending, considering the small volumes and the fact that we only had 3 different grape varieties (4 if you count the small amount of Merlot we bought in). The Theta is just where we want it to be. It is very distinctive on the nose, being aromatic, and it has a complex mouth feel. We wanted an elegant wine and we have it. It was also very distinct from the other wines in the tasting. To make a comparison with a highly regarded and excellent wine, if Boekenhoutskloof Syrah is a masculine full blooded wine then it would be fair to describe Theta as showing more the feminine side of well made Syrah. Needless to say we are delighted with the outcome and in the blind tasting Theta came out first equal among the top red wines of SA. Our Cabernet Merlot was a lot lighter than the other Bordeaux blends and Cabernets in the selection which threw a few of us, but in a blind tasting you are always bowled over by extraction and power and high alcohol levels which are not part of our style. At our Christmas lunch in the garden we had a magnum of it and it was superb. Our Syrah Mourvedre was also exactly where we thought it should be. More powerful than Theta but with the same elegant style and earthy quality. We are delighted with our vintage 2003. Our first. We have a distinct and recognizable style, which we like and can repeat. It is the style that has been given to our wine by the soil and environment of our vineyard and has been carefully teased into the bottle by our winemaker. Our wine is not blockbuster heavy. It is earthy, minerally and complex but with great elegance and most important is unique to this farm. Before we sign off for good we want to further illustrate our winemaking ethic by comparison with what we consider is the antithesis of it. We are making wine. Consider the current Fosters bid for Southcorp going on in Australia. The following is not what we think of as wine making. The fact is that one company, Southcorp, makes huge volumes of the following wines; Penfolds (main brands include Grange, Bin 707, Koonunga Hill), Lindemans, Seppelt, Wynns, Edwards & Chaffey, Kaiser Stuhl, Seaview, Tollana, Woodley, Rouge Homme, Coldstream Hills, Killawarra, Tulloch, Great Western, Matthew Lang, Queen Adelaide, Leo Buring, Devil's Lair, Hungerford Hill, Rosemount Estate by consolidating the manufacture of most of them at 4 sites : Nuriootpa (South Australia - super premium table wines), Seppeltsfield (South Australia - fortified wines), Great Western (Victoria - sparkling wines), Karadoc (Victoria - commercial wines) and that if Fosters takes over Southcorp then all the above plus huge volumes of the following : Andrew Garrett, Annie's Lane, Baileys of Glenrowan, Black Opal, Greg Norman Estates, Ingoldby, Jamiesons Run, Maglieri of McLaren Vale, Metala, Mildara, Mt Ida, Mt Tanglefoot, Pepperjack, Robertson's Well, Rothbury Estate, Saltram, St Huberts, T'Gallant, Wolf Blass, Yarra Ridge and Yellowglen may well end up being made at one huge factory in South Australia. Foster's in the past four years has moved to a model of making most wine brands at one large winery - the 40,000-tonne Bilyara facility in South Australia's Barossa Valley. It has shut down wine production at several wineries including Saltram in the Barossa, Maglieri in McLaren Vale and Annie's Lane in the Clare Valley, reducing them to cellar-door status. The Yarra Ridge label is also shifting to the Bilyara complex, which by 2006 will make 70 per cent of Foster's local brands. The consolidation of the wine business in Australia may make economic sense or it may not (many analysts doubt this potential merger makes sense), but with the mass consolidation of the wine making process into just a few huge factories surely these firms are forgetting what makes one wine different from another. There is no chance anyway that all these wines will continue to be made if the merger goes ahead. Fosters thinks the poor consumer is already burdened by too much choice. Jamie Odell manages global wine trade for Fosters' Beringer Blass, and says that sort of consolidation will mean some radical changes at the retail end. "I think if you look at the number of brands which are on the shelf in all markets, not just here in Australia, it is absolutely essential that some brands are taken off the shelf. There is too much complexity. It's not helping the consumers to make their choices, it's not helping the retailers to manage their supply chain. I think regardless of consolidation in the industry that's going to happen, but I think this sort of action and being more proactive will help to accelerate that." Maybe one day in Australia there will be a public reaction. Maybe a campaign for real wine will start like there was a campaign for real ale in the UK a few years ago. This campaign was so effective that the big brewers dusted off the names they had acquired over the years and started up the small local breweries again. We believe that not every consumer decision is driven solely by price. Some want real choice and real wine. With that thought we leave you. We have now built our own new website devoted to information about our venture. If you already subscribe to this story we shall continue to send information to you. We hope you have enjoyed our diary and that you will drop in on us at www.tmv.co.za to keep up to date on what we are doing and hopefully to buy our wine. Good luck and CHEERS from the team at Tulbagh Mountain Vineyards. Copyright © 2000 Tulbagh Solutions. All rights reserved. |
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