BLOG — 2011

From our Spring 2011 Newsletter The Tin Shed.  The move away from cork closures is now just about complete in the "New World" of wine making:

I have recently decided to stop buying wine that is sealed with a cork.  I’m frustrated with the amount of corked wine I come across. The wine has been tainted by TCA (2,4,6 richloroanisole) and it robs the wine of its fruit, leaving it tasting flat and smelling of musty, mouldy cellars. TCA, which is harmless, gets into the cork through poor storage after it is harvested from the tree.  If it is allowed to get wet, a fungus grows in the cork and produces TCA.  Up until recently it could not be removed and it is difficult to detect unless you test every cork and who is going to do that.

An alternative cork closure - the diam cork - is TCA free, having been ground up and subjected to super critical CO2 which extracts the TCA, and then reconstructed.  However, unless you are a regular buyer of the same wine, you don’t know if a diam cork is being used until you get the bottle home and open it.

I had gotten into the habit of buying two bottles if it had a cork, thinking that if one is corked I’d have another chance with the second bottle, but this has proved fallible as both bottles from my latest purchase were corked.  So no more cork.  Ah, but the romance of popping the cork I hear you say – and I say times change.

We have been drinking wine for thousands of years, but cork has only been widely used for the last four hundred years.  Before that it was a bit of leather or cloth, before that a bit of wood with wax and before that a layer of oil.  Cork is just one step in the progression of closures used to preserve and protect wine.  The favourite is now the screwcap and this will probably be superseded down the track, but for the moment it is a better seal than cork.  It has a lot going for it - there is little or no bottle variation so the wine is more consistent, the seal is more airtight so flavours are better preserved,  the wine still ages,  the risk of taints is virtually nil and there is no need to carry ‘round a corkscrew.

I have to say I don’t come across the problem so much with sparkling wine, I think a bit of TCA might add to the yeasty character of some sparkling wines and so is more acceptable, but I’ll have to consider that one a bit more, no doubt when I next have a glass or two.

 FW

From our Spring 2011 newsletter The Tin Shed:

I was at a second hand book store last week and bought some old lifestyle magazines. Why? Because I like to see how we saw ourselves in the past and how we have changed, or not as the case may be.

These magazines were about 10 to 12 years old, and I have to say food wise we haven’t changed much at all. Baby fennel, goats cheese, chorizo, bags of mixed lettuce are just as fashionable now as they were then.

One tag line on a front cover made me scoff – “Why Pre-mixed Drinks Have Had Their Day” What a bold statement. Pity it hasn’t come to pass.  I’ll put that up there with “Child Poverty will be a Thing of the Past”.

What I did find interesting was the changes in wine. In an article on the top wines under $20 (even better value now) headings included Riesling, Chardonnay and Miscellaneous Whites and Reds. And guess what was under Miscellaneous Whites – Sauvignon Blanc! Not miscellaneous anymore as last year it became the top selling white in Australia, making up 30% of white wine sales. Pinot Noir was a Miscellaneous Red – again a surprise for only 10-12 years ago.

FW

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The Tin Shed

From the Archives

2011

Food and Wine

It’s getting close to 10 years since we adopted a more organic approach to our viticulture.  He’s our thoughts from 8 years ago, from The Tin Shed – Spring 2011:

Constant improvement is the name of the game, always searching for better ways to make distinctive wines that better express our unique terroir.  We believe that healthy soils managed in a more sustainable and natural way is a key part of that, and this has led us down an organic path.  The 2010 season was our first managed organically, and the results to date are better than expected, given that farms often goes through a dip in production during transition.  Perhaps this is because we have been reducing our chemical inputs steadily over the preceding years anyway.

Now we are faced with a few difficult decisions – do we formally certify our operations as organic, and do we label our wines as organic?  Separate but related issues.  There are a number of organic certification bodies in Australia, and if you pay them they will monitor your operations and allow you to use their certification logo.  Certification gives consumers confidence that organic protocols are being followed, but what do consumers think of organic wine?   Does it spell quality, as we want it to, or does it remind them of second grade fruit?  Also, do consumers relate differently to fresh organic products as opposed to products manufactured from organic ingredients (like wine)?

Most likely we will certify, and then decide whether or not to declare it on our label.  I actually think that over time organic protocols will merge with more traditional protocols and a “best practice” will emerge – and that will be a good thing!

Oak barrels have been used since Roman times to store wine. It is only in the last hundred years or so that the use of oak in winemaking has taken on a more significant and considered role. It affects the colour, flavour, tannin profile and texture of the wine making it more complex and interesting.

Maturing wine in small oak barrels does many things, but two main effects are:

• allows the oak to impart its own character to the wine
• allows oxidation to occur in minute amounts.

Wine stored in oak becomes more aromatically complex as compounds are extracted from the wood. Some flavours and aromas descriptions can include cedary, toasty, spicy, sweet, nutty, vanilla and chocolate. The uptake of these aromas must be carefully monitored to ensure that that it becomes a harmonious part of the wine’s overall structure and does not dominate it. This is managed by the amount of new oak that the wine is stored in and the length of time the wine spends in barrel. For lighter bodied wines like Pinot Noir the wine may only stay in oak for 6 months. For more fuller bodied wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon at least 12 months is the norm.  Over time less and less oak character is extracted and the barrel takes on a new role usually as a flower pot.  

It seems counter intuitive to expose wine to oxidation when it is maturing. When we drink a bottle of wine it is exposed to a large amount of air and oxidises very quickly hence the need to consume it within a day or so before it starts tasting like vinegar. A little bit of oxidation during maturation is good as it helps to intensify the colour due to reactions between the pigments and tannins in the wine. The wine has better colour than if it was just store in a vat and is more stable over time. This reaction also helps to soften the tannins making the flavour of the wine more attractive.

Over time water evaporates out of the barrel and as the level of wine goes down the surface area of the wine exposed to air is increased and thus the risk of oxidation. The oxidation is controlled by keeping the barrels full. Topping up of barrels is done every couple of weeks.

Racking the wine every 3 months also exposes the wine to oxidation, but again in a controlled manner. Racking involves removing the wine from barrel, cleaning the barrel, returning the wine and topping it up. (Losses are referred to as the angels share). This promotes the controlled oxidation of tannins, thus softening them. It also allows any sediment to be removed thus helping to clarify the wine.

We may not fully understand all of the interactions between oak and wine but there is a synergy there that enhances the richness, interest and complexity of the wine.

FW

A quote from 2011 – says it all, really:

"If you've never tried wines from Canberra District, Hilltops and/or Tumbarumba, all in the southern part of NSW around the city of Canberra, you are truly missing out on some of the most exciting new wines coming out of Australia today." 

Lisa Perrotti-Brown, MW, Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate