It’s (finally) all happening here.

This week, Rob has been flat-out harvesting and processing fruit destined to become our 2023 wines! 

It’s been a busy time and with the weather, this weekend predicted to be miserable (at best!) we’re grateful to have the majority of our grapes securely off the vine.

I managed to get a quick summary of what’s been happening from Rob between pickings…

 

SAUVIGNON BLANC

The Sauvignon Blanc from Kim Anderson’s vineyard was picked over the weekend. The juice is the most beautiful vibrant green colour! It has a very attractive and grassy nose. It’s currently in a stainless steel tank letting gravity do its thing and is settling really well.

As you may recall, Rob uses half of this juice for his Sauvignon Blanc and the other half for Fumé Blanc. He’ll pop the half destined for the 2023 Fumé into barrel tomorrow to ferment there.

You’ve probably gleaned from my previous posts, that this year has been ideal in terms of how the growing season turned out. But it doesn’t mean we’re not going to see some sensational wines come out of it!

Rob would normally pick his Sauvignon Blanc fruit at around 11.5 Baumé (°Bé). This year, it came in at 10.8/10.9 °Bé.

The last time we were faced with numbers like that was the infamous 2011 vintage. That’s the year we got an incredible amount of rain right through the key parts of the growing season… particularly toward the end of it in January and February. 

It will be really interesting to see how the 2013 wines compare.

 

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CHARDONNAY

We also picked the rest of the Chardonnay (from Kim’s vineyard) last weekend. It’s got a gorgeous golden tinge. Again it has settled well already. The next step is to turn it into wine!

Here’s a photo of Rob enjoying the first glass…

 

ROSE

Currently sold out until this one is ready, we had some good news with our Rosé fruit this week. This vintage, Rob is making his Rosé with a blend of both Pinot Noir and Tempranillo.

We thought we’d only get around 2 tonnes of fruit, but it’s ended up at 2.6 tonnes! So, fingers crossed that this means we won’t sell out so quickly next year! 

In order to create his delicate Rosé, Rob takes only the juice from the first press (a very gentle press). He uses the rest of the juice (that comes from the second stronger press) for the LDR…

 

 

LDR (LIGHT DRY RED)

Tempranillo for LDR (yes, that’s right!) has been picked and is in a flowerpot fermenter.

What’s a flowerpot fermenter, you ask? It’s just a fun name for one of these big plastic open fermenters.

They are *just* the right size (goldilocks-wise) for our LDR, Pinot Reserve Dry Red & PRR!

We only make a smallish amount of these wines, so the stainless steel tanks at the winery are usually way too big for these quantities.

 

 

PINOT NOIR & PICNIC RACES RED

We still need to pick the fruit for our Pinot Noir Dry Red and Tempranillo/Graciano for Picnic Races Red.

We’ll aim to pick these at the end of next week due to the rain forecast over the weekend. Yes, we’ll lose some sugar (as the grapes take up all that extra water and dilute the sugar). But in Rob’s experience, it doesn’t take long for the sugar levels to rise again if vines stay dry.

As long as the fruit stays in sound condition, there’s really no rush. If it looks like botrytis will threaten the quality of the fruit then we may need to hop in and pick earlier. Rob will deal with lower sugar levels after that.

 

Tune in next week for more Vintage 2023 news.

Until then, I hope the Easter Bunny finds you wherever you’re spending this weekend. And for at least some of you, I hope that’s Somerled Cellar Bar! We have some treats in store for you!