I had the chance to try this fantastic old Northern Rhone valley red last night. The label was in terrible condition and the cork came away in two pieces but with great effort it was extracted cleanly. The early aromatics were subdued and possibly a little reductive on opening but soon delicate floral aromas emerged. [...]
Starting a vineyard? Developing a new block? It’s well worth gathering some weather data first. At least a full years data is good although a couple of years would be better. This may seem like a large delay but your vines will hopefully be in place for decades so its important to get it right. [...]
A reader sent me a link to his video showing a way to get around the age old problem of not having a corkscrew (this of course presumes your has a cork). Unfortunately you do need some other equipment, but it’s better than pushing the cork in! Enjoy! Open A Bottle Of Wine Without Corkscrew [...]
A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to try a 1992 Vidal’s reserve Hawkes Bay Cabernet Merlot magnum. The suggested cellaring range was 5-8 years so that had well expired. 1992 was not a great vintage in the Hawkes Bay or else where in New Zealand. However there were some fairly good Bordeaux [...]
Regular feature? Experience would suggest at this point the world’s greatest wines feature is irregular at best. Perhaps it’s fitting that this edition is focused on a wine that is produced irregularly itself. Vintage port! Port is a fantastic wine and with table wines now regularly topping 14% alcohol they don’t even seem massively [...]
Vineyard owners looking for frost monitoring solutions or just wanting to keep an eye on their vineyards from a distance will find the equipment at Harvest Electronics really interesting. They offer a solar powered weather station that incorporates a GPRS cellular link that regularly calls and downloads the data to a remote sever that you [...]
Over the last month I have been conducting a New Zealand Pinot Noir domestic price review as part of a price index I have for GWC. The survey indicates two different standards are being applied to Pinot Noir and Bordeaux style blends produced in the NZ market. In the case of both you normally get [...]
Rain. Lots of rain has affected many of Frances wine growing areas since May with terrible mildew the result. Many growers are saying there will be no harvest for 2007. Links The Indepentant The TelegraphÂ
I just returned home to Auckland from Matakana where the power supply has been off since the last night due to the ferocious storm that has battered the north of New Zealand. Huge amount of damage and a lot of trees down as well as damaged buildings etc. I haven’t seen damage like this since [...]
Got to try the Coopers Creek 1982 Pinot Noir / Pinotage (pictured below) last Saturday. Hopes were certainly not high amongst those present, yet I was very confident mainly due to the Pinotage component. The much-maligned variety seems to have amazing longevity particularly in wines from around the Auckland area within New Zealand. While not [...]
You may or may not have heard of this before. This is where you can take your old wines (produced by the winery running the seminar) and have the old cork removed, the bottle topped up if the ullage is excessive and have the wine resealed with a new cork and all under winemaker supervision. [...]
I managed to bungle yesterdays post. Chopping of almost all the text but leaving the graphic and I didn’t keep a copy. The main point of the post was the size of the surge in production since 2002. The graph makes it quite clear how dramatic it has been.
Data from the New Zealand Wine website.
It appears the EU may be getting serious about the threat of New World wines. One proposal is to divert funds from distillation subsidies to subsidising the “grubbing up†of the vines that produce the wines that inturn get distilled. Possibly a good plan in terms of removing a lot of poor quality wine from [...]
After my appeal for 1970’s New Zealand wines I’ve had a few responses some of them surprised that such wines are drinkable. Well they are but they are a bit different. You need to consider the changes in canopy management, clones and rootstocks. The fruit is now riper in terms of flavour and sugar levels. [...]