February 2004
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Fingers crossed February started as January had finished, scorching. Although our vines were in veraison we were not expecting to harvest until the end of the month, but with the hot weather our selected off site grapes were rushing in upon us. It was amazing what the hot weather had done to the harvest dates. They were much earlier than last year. We harvested our first bought in grapes on Tuesday 10th Feb - 3 tons of Chenin Blanc from Tulbagh. The grapes looked great, and were immediately spread out in whole bunches on the drying racks under the trees in the paddock. These grapes were bought specifically to make dried grape wine or Vin de Paille (Straw Wine). If successful (and there are many areas of potential downfall) wine made from partially raisined grapes achieves a high degree of complexity and ages superbly. It is also the most ancient of winemaking techniques, used to ensure a high sugar concentration and therefore a natural stability and longevity.
The grapes must be carefully hand selected and picked just before full ripeness. They must be healthy and undamaged with thick skins to lower the risk that they will rot and to supply the nuances that add to end product. You also need grapes that are high in acid to balance the sweetness and because acid concentration does not rise as rapidly as sugar concentration as the grape dries. There is a balancing act involved in deciding how long to leave the grapes to dry. Basically the more you dry them the higher the concentration of sugars and the longer fermentation takes. The longer fermentation takes the higher the risk of spoilage due to acetic acid bacteria and you need to achieve a high enough alcohol level for stability. In fact last year's TMV straw wine is still fermenting in the barrels. We probably left it too long and this year will aim for a lower sugar concentration, although one hears about great Tokay wines fermenting for forty years in the barrel before bottling. Unfortunately Mrs. Merriman cannot wait forty years for her favourite tipple so J-C is under pressure. There is actually a long history in the Tulbagh valley of fruit drying so we feel we are adding a different slant on the tradition. The dried pears are absolutely superb and all Tulbagh dried fruit is exported worldwide. The climate is ideal. You do not need heat so much as very dry air constantly circulating round the bunches. To be fair this is a bit of a fun sideline, but it would be great to make something really decent as good sweet wine is very expensive and extremely enjoyable. Later in the same week we harvested some Syrah in Riebeek (10 tons). The grapes looked great. This particular vineyard was remarkable in that the farmer had hardly touched it over the years and it had achieved an amazing natural balance. It was trellised without irrigation on a traditional double row trellis. The vineyard had not been subjected to "farming" in the modern sense i.e. no fertilizers or herbicides or fungicides and the competition between the closely planted rows had restricted the vegetative growth. It was a fluke but a happy one and we were delighted to be able to buy the grapes. We just hope the farmer doesn't mess things up by farming it. On our own vineyard we continued dropping a bit of crop on the Mourvedre and older Syrah, as they were bearing pretty heavily, and the heat was starting to stress the vines a bit. We didn't want to irrigate as we might spoil what was looking to be a nice crop of concentrated berries, but we didn't want to overstress the vines. Again another balancing act. Unfortunately the baboons were also very aware that we were coming up to harvest time. They were very active in and around the vines. As the grapes were not actually ripe they were not doing any major damage but they were doing at least as much sampling as we were. The troop seemed to have split up into two, and they were taking turns attacking from the very top of the vineyard and then from the middle next to the dams. Real guerilla tactics. We were now having to post a permanent guard on foot patrolling the vineyard. Both John and Michael were up there before dawn and in the early afternoon trying to keep them away. If baboons like their sugars a bit lower than we do then, unless we can keep them off the crop, we'll have some major damage on our hands when we approach harvest time. The troop seemed bigger than before, but maybe as we are among the last vineyards in this early harvest season to pick they are moving en masse to our neck of the woods. In the cellar the insulating strip curtains were put up between the fermentation and main barrel cellar. Of course J-C and Pascale quite underestimated the difficulty of getting them up. Fortunately they had help from the guys putting the cooling in the barrel cellar, and they look good and work a treat. The idea is not to have to control the temperature of the whole cellar at once, but rather to have separate areas at different temperatures according to the task at hand. For instance barrel maturation will be cool and humid, but malolactic fermentation will be warmer. With the early harvest we were a bit unprepared on second fill barrels and we were rushing around sourcing reliable barrels. We did in fact find some great sources, mostly from Waterford and Chateau Margaux, but we still need about 20 more. By the end of the month the grapes for the straw wine were drying out nicely and they will probably be pressed in early March. Looks like we'll have another 3 barrels this year. In the second week of Feb the weather turned cooler and that probably saved us. We really needed ten days of coolness to get the ripeness without the high sugar levels and it just came at the right time. We started our own harvest on Friday 27th Feb with some of the Syrah from the older blocks. It really looked like a weird, but very fortunate vintage. The grapes were looking and tasting ripe, but at lower sugars than normal. Most of the Syrah was estimated be mid 13% in terms of alcohol potential. Acids and pH's are similar to last year, so all in all as we harvested our first home grown grapes of 2004 it was looking like a very healthy and good vintage.
In the cellar, the first grapes from Riebeek were almost finished fermenting, and are looking good. We closed the bins for some extended maceration. There was also some very sad news. Jack, our lovely big brown dog who with his sister Lilly has featured in this diary, was attacked and killed by a wild animal. At first we thought it could have been a leopard as there were reports from the neighbours of a few sheep being lost to one. On reflection we think it may have been an otter. Although Jack was a big strong dog standing over knee height at the shoulder otters in these parts are very strong and vicious. If a leopard had got him he would have been at least partially eaten, but when his body was found it looked like he had been lacerated badly all over his torso and shoulders and had died through blood loss trying to get home. He never strays too far until J-C gets up and about but on the day he died J-C and Pascale had set off at about 4.30am to pick grapes with the rest of the team. We think Jack had followed the truck to the farm gate as he usually does and then turning for home had picked up a scent and gone off to investigate. There is a permanent stream running through the farm and in these dry times a wild otter may have been bold enough to come near habitation to feed on the abundant freshwater crabs that live in the stream. Anyway Jack was dead and everyone was very sad, especially his sister who moped about pining for him for about two weeks. The two dogs had been rescued as three month old puppies from the Stellenbosch dog pound and had never had a day apart. All in all we are very hopeful for vintage 2004. March will be busy! Copyright © 2000 Tulbagh Solutions. All rights reserved. |
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