Lisa gets some more gongs

Right in the midst of one of the busiest times of our year with the restaurant in full swing and the beginning of our harvest for the 2022 Vintage, we had some great news... Lisa got some more gongs!

It’s bad form to be boastful, but hey, not just a single gold, but two more on Lisa’s mantlepiece. And let’s not forget contributions from the stalwart viticulturalist. And maybe the sun?

So, after a year of Covid-caused delay, the NZ International Wine Show, N.Z’s largest competition, finally got done.

And the winners were:

• Coney Piccolo Pinot Gris - DOUBLE GOLD (don’t really know what double gold signifies but it’s better than a double chin).

• Coney Ritz Riesling - GOLD.

Gongs are always welcome news because they validate your own idea of excellence, with stiff competition provided by thousands of entries. 

Of course, one only puts forward wines that are considered by the entrant to be worthy of a silver or gold medal. Often, this is greeted with stony silence.

Then Coney grumps around the vineyard muttering uncharitable thoughts like “what would those pricks know anyway”. Then, light in the tunnel and they dole out a couple of golds. Rather hypocritically you might say, Coney suddenly changes his position with a speed worthy of some politicians to “Well, their palates (the judges) seem to have improved!”. I think it’s called human nature.

The bad news is (and this is not sales speak but factual) we have miniscule stocks of both medal winners. Which is code for - if you want a few bottles to ease the pain, better be in quick!

Who deserves the credit?

In the wine game there is a perpetual tussle for recognition - is it the vineyard/viticulturalist or the winemaker who deserves the pat on the back for a medal. Of course, grownups know that this is a perfectly fruitless conversation and usually boils down to little more than a trivial contest of egos.

First, your mother told you that it’s difficult to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear i.e. the raw material (grapes) need to be in good nick - ripe, clean, no botrytis or other blemish. There is also a saying when such fruit is delivered by mother nature to the winery that if the winemaker can’t concoct a nice wine, murder has been done. The real skill and judgement are needed and tested in those years when the grapes are less ripe than you’d like or have some disease attached.

This could be 2022 because of the 150mls+ of rain delivered recently and the rather tepid ripening conditions so far. However, with a few days to go before harvest starts in earnest the game is far from over.

To give ourselves the best chance of ripe fruit somebody (the owner?) has to shuffle through the vineyard snipping off any bunches that have not gone through veraison (colour change) or have any hint of disease that could cause off flavours. The picture below shows this purgatory.

Mutual cooperation is the name of the game.

When harmony descends between mother nature, viticulturalist and winemaker the wine turns out fine. In the Coney cabal occasionally, there is disagreement and discussion, so if when passing 107 Dry River Road you hear the sound of raised voices and weeping, this is no cause for alarm - a lively (robust is the modern word) argument is unfolding - no blood.

Here, armed only with his snips, an old hermit spends his day peering through the white net to identify and remove any bunches that haven’t coloured up.

Lucinda, our tally clerk, asks “Where does the decimal point go Mum?".

It's in the limerick...

Years ago the dependent relationship between vineyard and winery was captured in the limerick attached to our Pizzicato Pinot Noir.

They say wine is made in the vineyard
Good vintners are apt to agree
That a happy phenolic is as truly bucolic
As the ruby red hue that you see
But the succulent raspberry and cherry
Needs some coaxing from opulent berry
And the only conclusion we reach, is a fusion
Pizzicato is beautiful, very.
 

Eat your heart out Edward Lear. 

all of sudden spring is upon us again....

“And all at once I saw a crowd” A host of bursting pinot buds - with apologies to William Wordsworth.

To farmers the first baa from a newborn lamb, and later, the gambolling youngsters, is the sign that spring has arrived again - a reminder of why they prefer the country life to the concrete jungle. (And maybe the prospect of getting $120 for each animal has something to do with the pleasure!)

For a viticulturist, the equivalent is budburst, where the barren appearance of winter pruned canes yields to a growing sea of green.  Almost enough to make you wax lyrical! Even a hardened wine campaigner like Bob Campbell MW admits it is the prettiest sight he can imagine. Of course, this observation comes from the privileged position of (armchair critic) non-engagement with the vineyard. Au contraire, normal folk like Coney need to prepare for the daily round of head thinning, shoot positioning, bud rubbing, spraying, mowing, wire lifting, backstabbing etc.  

But it is a pretty sight.

Our cherry blossom is another tangible sign of renewal. The flowers though, are delicate, and it needs only one decent northerly to decimate them. So I thought we’d capture them in full bloom.

NEW 2021 WINES RELEASED

We recently released two wines from our latest vintage: Ramblin Rosé 2021 and our 'spritzy' Reisling - The Ritz 2021. These two are infinitely suitable for spring and summertime quaffing.  Now we’re back in full restaurant mode the undimmed enthusiasm for Ritz and Ramblin’ Rosé is evident - one or both are on most tables. Lively, loose talk follows.

Vintage 2021

We celebrate the end of picking and the beginning of winemaking with a glass and sometimes a limerick:

The vintage done and dusted
Our arses barely busted
Pizz Pinot cut the mustard
Never fear
Now that winter has arrived
Pinot Noir must be imbibed
You're wasting time with low alc Sauvignon and beer 

This was our 23rd vintage so we're getting the hang of it. We're still picking by hand - “Yes, cut that bunch, no, not that one!” - while many wineries are switching to machines so can't select the fruit they want. They also get more leaves, spiders and grubs which is not the je ne sais quoi you're after. 

This year, after a wet spring, flowering yields were down - like 50% on some Martinborough vineyards. We got 75% of our norm which was fine. There's supposed to be a trade-off between quantity and quality – after its year in French oak, the Pinot will be worth waiting for. 

The anatomy of a pick is pretty simple - starting at 6.30 am we chuck out the picking bins, one per post. At 7.30 am, with luck, the pickers you engaged turn up! For the rest of the day we pick up full bins and trundle them to Lisa at the press (whites) or crusher/destemmer (reds). There's weighing, handling and some 'dunny plunging' or stomping. There's smoko at 10am and 3pm with scones or caramel wheels from Margaret's stove to assuage the pickers' backs and stomachs. Later they get their wages in the form of chocolate fish. 

TASTING NOTES AND OTHER TRIVIA

The only thing that's more irritating than reading back labels is having to write them. I came across an amusing commentary from WBM, Australia's wine business magazine, which I have to share. It's on zero alcohol beer but you'll get the drift...

“Carlton Zero - smells like a draft horse fart in the bar on the fifth day of the Adelaide Test together with well-sucked-on-musk sticks. Tastes like creek water in a gherkin jar full of tadpoles just before they turn into frogs and hop away. 

Heineken Alcohol Free - is crisp and roundish with the faintest hint of giving you something for your three freaking dollars eighty. Wash it down at the MCG with real good fun-time food like a Four'n Twenty Carrot or Stick of Celery. 

Holsten Alcohol Free - smells like dry dog food soaking in a birdbath full of water wrung from the Explorer sock of a hairy mammoth after a half-marathon. Says “100 percent taste”. Lie. Marketed by Donald Trump. 

Look, Carlton and Heineken are quite pleasant. But it would want to be a hot day and you would want to be lost in the backblocks of Lightning Ridge with nothing left in the picnic basket except a family pack of salted peanuts. Drinking alcohol-free beers is like going to the zoo and finding out it's the elephant's day off and you have to stare at the goat and make out you're having a good time. I drove home during the tasting and relieved the Kelvinator of a Southwark Old Stout. Hasn't changed for a hundred years. A drink after my own heart.” 

The Art and Ardour of Vine Pruning

Winter means pruning. To be precise at Coney Wines 11,000 vines to lop, strip and laydown. It’s a bigger job than digging the garden plot but then again you have plenty of time - July, August and a bit of September.  Pruning is best regarded as a primitive form of therapy. There are other more robust words to describe it but therapeutic is the most charitable.

Once I was silly enough to do the rough arithmetic. At the snail-like pace of the Coney vineyard shuffle it would take 4 months of dawn till dusk daily toil to complete. A task worthy of Sysiphus - the Greek guy condemned to pushing a boulder to the top of the hill and then doing endless repeats.

MITTENED HANDS

Beneath these mittens lie hoary hands which do the pruning and allow us to claim that Coney wines are hand crafted. Nobody will risk shaking Coney’s mitts while they are encased because it looks as if he’s got some rampant skin condition or maybe even leprosy.

ORIGINAL PLANT BEFORE PRUNING

To the layman plants at the end of last year’s vintage look like a tangled mess (which they are). The pruners job is to lop at the strategic points, stripping out the superfluous canes and wrapping the four remaining canes along the fruiting wire ready for budburst in September.

WRAPPING

The last pruning operation is to wrap the canes along the fruiting wire. This needs to be done properly like everything else if you don’t want to be punished later. So, not one or two winds but three or four to make sure the plant’s nicely anchored against a howling nor-wester, secured at the end of the cane with a trusty twisty tie (an example of onomatopoeia I think, if you remember your figures of speech from college).

TRELLIS SYSTEMS/LENGTH OF CANES

There are quite a few trellis systems for training grapes.  Most people in Martinborough use VSP - vertical shoot positioning. Not surprisingly this means the new shoots and eventually canes, go straight up. 

When trimmed in December they turn into a pleasing-looking hedge.  Not so for the plant we’ve been looking at, which is in the Syrah block. They tell you afterwards, and therefore too late, that Syrah should be planted in the most sheltered part of the vineyard. Unlike Sauvignon Blanc whose canes are stiff and erect, Syrah is flaccid and floppy. Any woman will tell you the difference I’m told. So sometimes in a Syrah plant, you will come across a diagonal cane shunted by the wind. Instead of being the standard 1.2 metres long it will have grown into the next bay and could be 3 metres long (like the one I’m holding). 

Just thought you’d like to know.

STARTING OUT

You can’t start pruning before the leaves fall and sap stops running from the cuts. This means waiting for a couple of frosts. Normally it’s late June before enthusiasts break out and sharpen the secateurs. Here’s the shuffling gait of an enthusiastic pruner at 7.30 am heading towards row 78. His sophisticated pruning gear hangs loosely about his neck and loins.

Sometimes there’s a -3 degree frost to stiffen most (but not all) extremities.

As Captain Oats intoned “I’m just going outside and I may be some time”.

There’s a remedy for cold hands. I’ve been reading a book about an Aussie reprobate caught up in Afghanistan during the Russian campaign, with temperatures permanently under zero. He kept his hands warm by peeing on them. It hasn’t come to this at Coneys because we have warm water available at the house.

THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Big loppers for the main cuts. Secateurs for tidying up and slashing your wrists. Saw for major surgery. Sealant for cuts. Like limbs, the fresh wounds can bleed a bit and provide a convenient point for pathogens to enter and infect the plant, so we seal any big cuts.

The humble twisty tie to secure next year’s canes on the wire.  At three or four per plant, we use over 40,000 of these little blighters!

SIZING UP EACH PLANT

Here, Coney sums up the plant balefully, trying to work out where to make his cuts. Experienced pruners seem to do this instinctively, and at speed. This requires an IQ. Coney uses a more cautious approach which mathematicians would call “successive approximations”; on the principle that a cane once cut cannot be glued back in place. And so instead of going straight to the correct answer, he homes in on it. This takes longer, is safer, but also slower.

RIPPING OUT THE CANES

Ripping out the cut canes requires a sharp tug. You need to avert your face because occasionally an adjacent cane will get hooked to the one you’re yanking. The result is a sharp whack across the face or eye. Extremely painful - lash is a better word than whack.  When it happens there is screaming and bad language which can be heard throughout Martinborough “those Coneys are having another domestic.” The resulting welt on the pruners face is certainly more impressive than the mild discolouration on the face of Johnny Depp’s wife after he’d flung the phone at her.  

We used to burn our prunings. In total, they are the size of a small house. When lit on a calm day things are OK. When an unscheduled northerly springs up though, optimism is challenged. Social embarrassment, and the cost of replacing the neighbour’s house and animal stock act as a deterrent to burning. 

We mulch.

PRUNINGS

Cane prunings are carefully placed in the middle of the row so the mulcher can deal to them tidily. The sheep had other ideas and have turned relative order into relative chaos. Offended by this chaos (in 2006 I think) and while I was losing the last of my marbles I raked the entire vineyard to make sure the mulcher got every cane. 

Never again!

SHEEP

These fatties imported from a neighbouring farmer to control the grass can hardly waddle over the irrigation wire in their relentless search for the perfect blade of grass. For them, the grass is always greener (they also add a bit of poop for organic health).

That’s it until next year!

What a year so far!

Spring has sprung, the pruning's done and we've returned from our annual winter break inspecting some wonderful local spots that we’ve neglected for the past 50 years! Margaret and the restaurant team are gearing up for our 18th season with lots of enthusiasm and new dishes to delight.  

Meanwhile, Lisa has been busy holding the fort in the winery and there's some great news for sweet wine lovers - our Spritzy Ritz and limited quantity Sticky Fingers dessert wine (get in quick) have been bottled and are available to purchase.

We've also been busy labelling up our 2016 Que Sera Syrah as we were running very low following a surge of interest in Syrah (Union Square alias The Martinborough Hotel is motoring through a case a week and Medici is going great guns). We're delighted to report that the 2016 vintage is, without doubt, the best Syrah ever to come off our block. It's dense, dark and diabolical - almost comparable to the best refined Aussie equivalent - if that's not a contradiction in terms!

Normally we don’t release a new vintage until the last one’s all gone. However given the tiny volume available and no 2018 and 2019 vintages due to frost, we thought we’d offer the 2016 Que Sera Syrah early. Like a supine adult, it can be left improving on its side for 10 years if your consumption lags behind purchases but fat chance with the tenacious Covid stalking punters’ thirst! So that’s also there to purchase on the now!

Come and give the new wines a try! Make a weekend leisurely lunch of it with delicious food when we reopen on Saturday the 19th of September. We're not far off the Christmas function and summer wedding season with lots of booking enquiries for both - we'd be delighted to host you - Covid willing of course!

Riding this COVID thing out

Margaret told me to keep it short which is extremely difficult for a bloke who specialises in bull and verbosity. I’ll try. With bullet points...

• Coney restaurant is closed but as your spartan bread and water diet bites, the prospect of Margaret’s menu will shine like a beacon. 

• We intend to ride this Covid-19 thing out and reopen the moment Jacinda nods but we need to sell some wine to pay the bills.

• Your wallet and discerning palates must combine forces. As encouragement, we’re knocking 20% OFF ALL ORDERS OVER $100 for Coney Confederate members.

• To get you in the mood for a resumption of play and the restaurant’s terrific food when we reopen - if you purchase a six-bottle case you get free shipping and your name goes into a hat to win a $100 voucher to spend at the Coney vineyard restaurant.*

• MPI had the good sense to classify producing wine as an essential activity. 

• Your task, through modest but regular sipping, is to give this wise decision meaning. Ours is not to Riesling why!

If you want to hear more of my crooning about Covid-19, visit our Facebook page!

*Terms and conditions apply. Open to NZ residents,18 years or over on orders of $100 or more. Full terms and conditions are here.

DOWN ON THE FARM

After unrelenting sun, the 125mls of rain we got made us pull finger and start picking. Ramblin’ Rosé is in tank fermenting nicely as is Piccolo Pinot Gris. The fruit is in perfect nick. There are also three fermenters of Pinot Noir fizzing under Lisa’s watchful eye and nostrils. That leaves 29 rows of Pinot still to be harvested by Italian, Spanish, German and Czech backpackers! There’s plenty of soap, the luxury of running water, boxes of gloves, and I’ve cut a 2-metre length of pipe for distancing and whacking any transgressors. Just so you know, they’re averaging around 80kgs of fruit per hour per person = 2 press loads per day = excellent wine in the future - assuming we have one.

FOLLOW THE FINNS

Years ago while still a callow youth (some say this continues) I was employed by BP and was sent to Scandinavia to help work out the best location for service stations. Sweden was then grappling with the drink/drive conundrum and taking it seriously.

At the end of the business day, someone said: "Let's go and have a drink". Good idea. However, shock horror. Instead of repairing to a bar we hit the café and had a cup of hot chocolate. This looked remarkably like the end of civilisation. However, what happened next was pretty obvious. Drinking wine and spirits didn’t stop. It simply shifted location, with revelry conducted in people’s homes. No driving involved. Small gatherings with a mandatory sleepover, and a glass of Ragtime Riesling.

KEEP THE BALL ROLLING

Assuming the width of your wallet is still intact, we are enlisting your support so that when Covid-19 is vanquished Margaret and her team can roll up their sleeves and resume play.

Imagine your culinary life without her Snapper Kokoda, Kikorangi Mille Feuille and White Chocolate and Bacardi Bavarois - and fall on your sword!

TIME TO UPDATE THE CONEY SAGA AGAIN...

Time to raise the bar again and burst into print (despite being told ad nauseam that the public nowadays has little appetite for reading). The tweet triumphs.
Just a passing aberration according to this dinosaur - we can’t allow Trump et al to determine our habits.  Anyway, it’s pruning time with unwelcome rain, howling gale, frogs, pestilence etc. I’m indoors and just located my quill pen.

Tremble dear reader!

THE JOKE’S ON ME

The other day someone unleashed a joke which Coney found not merely amusing but verging on the hilarious.  It was a variation on the well-worn one which goes, “In the wine game, how do you make a small fortune” with the mocking answer “start with a large one.”  This sounded funny the first time a lapsed city dweller heard it, but less so now that we know it to be true.

Back to the joke.  A long-term farmer, recent winner of lotto, was finally run to earth by a nosy journalist (hoping to tweet?!) who asked,  “And what do you intend to spend your newly acquired fortune on?” After scarcely a moment’s thought, and with a level look, the cocky said, “I think I’ll just continue farming until its all run out”.

Which sort of raises the issue of Lifestyle versus Profitability, something that could be closely connected to Trump’s assertions about fake news, alternative facts etc.  It’s not a new idea!  Hitler and Goebbels knew about the irrelevancy of truth and fact and the triumph of tittle tattle and the demagogue. Repeat a lie often and loud enough and they knew that most of the great unwashed accept it.

This is why the eccentric but brainy Lord Bertrand Russell once reminded people that travelling sceptically is preferable to living in a trance of your own making.  As you’ve worked out, much of the wine game is smoke and mirrors with only your palate and wallet separating the devil and the deep blue sea.

Although it may sound like heresy to disparage aspects of the wine industry a good dose of reality can do no harm, so here goes:

A recent real estate billboard appearing on one of Martinborough’s up-for-sale vineyards, blared the following in capitals: LIFESTYLE INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY!! This is obviously designed to ensnare/entrap the gullible.  Lets take these snake oil words one by one.

Lifestyle: To the easily impressionable, when applied to wine/vineyards, on a nice day with the cicadas out and sun on the shoulders, Lifestyle means Coney sauntering out onto the verandah mid-morning, still in his PJ’s, beret on head, whistling a cheerful ditty, first wine of the day in hand.  Reality is: just before dawn at first light, gumboots on, Coney stumbles into row 73 and resumes, on hands and knees, the budrubbing that will take a further 10 days to complete.  Oh, I forgot – I’m allowed a restorative cuppa with biscuit and cheese for smoko, sandwich at lunch, gruel for dinner - the high life.  Saving grace for the seven day a week vineyard toil is Catherine Ryan’s nine-till-noon followed by The Sound or Magic in the afternoon.Reception is a bit dodgy but if you tilt your head nor nor east you can also get the concert programme.  Nothing wrong with a little Bach or Brahms to keep things in perspective.

Investment: This cheerful, optimistic term implies that the vineyard/winery owner gets a return on his outlay.  Coney understands this positive possibility but hasn’t yet experienced it.  There is not a single 10-20 acre block where a husband (or modern equivalent) enquires rhetorically of his wife (or modern equivalent) every mealtime, “I wonder when we’ll stop having to fund this hairbrained enterprise”.  This is why realistic couples make sure that one of the two retains their city day job, or why the bloke suggests his Sheila should go on the Game. As a bold generalisation, every farmer, horticulturalist, viticulturalist, knows that gazing at the attractive distant hills on a warm clear day is the sole tangible benefit of his chosen profession. Oh, I gorgot, there’s always plenty of wine in the larder.

And so to -

Opportunity: This is a modern word designed to challenge self-worth. It is a word used when parents want to see their child of modest talent triumph boldly over the impossible.  Take a plump young girl who has been cast as the heroine in Swan Lake. She is persuaded this is a once in a lifetime opportunity not be renounced.  And so, at showtime, as the curtain rises, the proud parents get their comeuppance as their darling girl, tutu swirling, thunders across the stage to mad applause.  Opportunity assuaged. Don’t miss it.

Painting the wine game in this (uncharitable?) light has an object.  It serves to remind anyone who is thinking of abandoning their current job and tossing it in for a life of idle ease that they should stay put, recognising the difference between lifestyle and life sentence. This will also produce the useful consequence of not increasing the supply of wine in an already oversupplied market.

Better to concentrate on drinking Coney wine rather than a making it - that’s best left to the idiots.

Try the Ragtime or Pizzicato. 

Not bad - order here!