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.”
