Winemaker's Comment - October 2004

It's with great relief and wonderful satisfaction to be releasing the first of the 2004's. Potentially a difficult and challenging growing season, all the hard work in the vineyard over the summer months and leading up to harvest, has really paid off with some remarkable wines. In Burgundy, and no doubt in many other fine wine regions of the world, there is a saying "C'est l'homme qui fait le difference" — It is the man that makes the difference. 2004 is certainly a year when the inputs in the vineyard can balance and counteract the various weather conditions that were thrown at us.

The Rieslings have an intense expression and beautiful acidity. Given the higher acidities at harvest, we elected (for the first time) to make more of the off-dry "Riesling" than the Dry. The residual sugar is very carefully integrated with the racy and crisp acidity and it's interesting to have fellow winemakers and visiting winewriters attempt to guess the residual sugar - they are usually out by a factor of 3 times! The only problem is that due to the very late spring frosts in November, quantities are down significantly. The 2004 Chardonnay also has a similar vibrant acidity, even after fully completing its softening malolactic fermentation. This contributes to the wine's complexity and gives it great length and drinkability.

The 2003 Pinot Noir and 2003 Chardonnay Barrel Fermented are still available and opening up very nicely indeed. It is very interesting to hear comments and comparisons with the outstanding 2002 vintage. While 2002 was a terrific vintage in Central Otago, the wines of 2003 have a more restrained elegance and perhaps more of what we call "pinosity" about them. It is still early days to make a judgement on the 2004 Pinot Noirs but as mentioned previously, our intensive viticultural programme has really minimised any negative effects from the challenging season. The fruit came in wonderfully ripe, with thick skins that will likely contribute to quite brooding and muscular wines. With the cold winter we have experienced and slow start to spring, the wines are still resting cold in the cellars awaiting the onset of warmer weather to kick start their natural malolactic fermentations.

We've all been doing plenty of travelling lately. Gareth has been in Australia snooping around some of the leading organic and biodynamic vineyards, getting ideas and sharing information, and tasting some terrific wines. Nigel has been looking after our UK sales as usual, with a trip to launch the 2003's in Sweden and another coming up soon to a wine fair in Moscow. Malcolm is currently in Oregon for his third vintage there - this time at the excellent Willakenzie Estate. I've been on an intense tour of tastings and presentations to leading restaurateurs, sommeliers and wine writers in the USA and also in Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands and London.

The 2003 Pinot Noir Block 5, 2004 Riesling Block 1 and 2003 Chardonnay Block 2 were recently released to our 'Block list' which is made up of our longest serving and loyal mail order and cellar door visitors. The "Block List" helps us to allocate out small volumes of wines without having the wines being heavily over subscribed. Please indicate on your order form if you would like your details included on the wait list for the next release. (We sometimes have some unclaimed allocations that we can sneak out with your order.) The Chardonnay Block 2 is only the second time we have bottled this wine separately. It spends 18 months in barrel and bottled with no fining or filtration - a must have for Chardonnay lovers!

Given the smaller quantities of Riesling available and also ever increasing demand, these new releases will sell out quickly and will unfortunately not again be available (like previous years), at the release of the 2004 Pinot Noirs next May. In addition, regretfully we will not have sufficient quantities to justify keeping the cellar door open throughout the summer weekends as in the past. We will however be here during the week for you to come and taste, collect your wines, and who knows what else we sometimes have opened or hidden under the counter!

We hope you enjoy our new releases and we look forward to seeing you next time you are visiting Central Otago.

Cheers,
Blair Walter
Winemaker