BLOG — Wine making

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  The favourite is now the screwcap and this will probably be superseded down the track, but for the moment it is a better seal than cork.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 newsletter The Tin Shed of 2014, the beginning of our “Mr Natural” range of wines…

For some time now we’ve been fermenting our reds using “natural ferments” – no added yeast.  We wanted to see if we’d left anything behind taking this step so we divided our first pick of Shiraz into three batches.  The first batch dubbed ‘Mr Natural’ was allowed to start fermenting naturally and although it took longer to get going, it completed fermentation close to the other two. The second had some nutrient added – still a natural ferment.  The third had nutrient and yeast added.  All the ferments progressed well, though at times the aromas and activity did vary.  The batches were pressed separately and put into separate barrels.  All have excellent colour  (very important for tannin development) but have quite different flavour profiles.  The natural ferments tend to be more savoury while the added yeast tends to create more fruity notes.  The wines are still very young and not complete so it’s a bit too early to have a firm opinion on what might be best, but we will continue to explore and contemplate more natural, low input winemaking.

For the first time this year we also made a sparkling Rosé.  It was inspired by a wine dinner we attend in January, hosted by wine judge and writer Mike Bennie.  The wine dinner was titled “Wines you need to know about.” and started with sparkling wines made using the technique “methode ancestrale”.  The wine is bottled before fermentation is complete, so bubbles are created in the bottle.  These wines are often a Rosé made with no added yeast, no sulphur dioxide, unfined and drunk fresh, either during the vintage or in the following spring. 

Our sparkling Rosé was made from a small batch of Tumbarumba Pinot Noir.  Fermentation started like clockwork, but then at what point do you bottle the wine?  It turns out we bottled a little too early – it’s rather (very) fizzy but it tastes very pleasant, fresh, fruity and refreshing. It is a little cloudy as the yeast lees have not been removed (as you would with “méthode champenoise” ) but I think this adds to its charm and character – as Neil points out its very much like a Coopers Sparkling Ale.  It was available for tasting at the recent Wine Harvest Festival and

was very well received.  So the challenge for next year is to tone down the bubbles and make it just as pleasant to drink.

FW

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From the Archives

2014

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From our Newsletter The Tin Shed of 2015.  It was, indeed, a very good year: 

This does look like being the best vintage for some time.  All the hard work in the vineyard and rain at the right time set the vines up to do their best and they delivered.  The quality was outstanding with the added bonus of higher than expected yields for most varieties.  This caused some juggling in the winery – working out where to put the extra fruit and has spawned a project to review the number of tanks and their configuration. 

The Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc are both looking great in the bottle and, even though the cooler weather has set in, are already selling well at Cellar Door. The Riesling is a little lower in alcohol this year as the flavours came through a little faster than the rising sugar. I think this is a bonus with whites, as the alcohol can dominate the finer flavours. The Riesling is rather full flavoured as a result of a little bit more skin contact making it more versatile for food matching.  Don’t just think seafood, but white meats like chicken and pork.  The healthy canopy on the Sauvignon Blanc provided ideal shade for the fruit to maintain their delicate grassy flavours. A little residual sugar enhances these fine flavours. 

The fruit quality was so good the red grapes were worked a little harder in the winery to get more extract from the skins. This will give more character and depth to the wine. Usually the ferments are only pumped over and/or hand plunged.  This year during the peak of fermentation I removed all of the fermenting juice, allowed the grapes to press down on themselves extracting more flavour and colour, then returned the juice.  The Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon are looking particularly well balanced at this early stage while the Pinot Noir and Sangiovese are a little awkward but a little patience and time in oak will help them to blossom. There is going to be a great selection of wines to choose from the 2015 vintage!

FW

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From the Archives

2015

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Wines

If you think about wine as just another form of sustenance (albeit a pretty special one) it’s interesting to consider that the skills of the fine food maker (chef) and the fine winemaker (vigneron) are remarkably similar.

In the winery and kitchen, a similar use of senses, skill and creativity comes into play.  Crushing the fruit is like chopping, slicing, dicing, deboning – beginning the transformation of form and shape.  Fermentation is like a cooking process, where questions of marination, extraction, temperature, duration, mixing/turning, settling/resting are all vital to achieving the desired outcome.  The maturation, fining and filtering (or not) carried out by the winemaker are like the final adjustments, seasoning and plating up of the chef, balancing visual and taste impact to maximise enjoyment.  Some of this is following the recipe and being disciplined, but a lot of this, with really exceptional wine and food, comes down to the creativity and imagination of the chef/vigneron.

And really good kitchens care about what happens BEFORE the raw ingredients enter the kitchen and the provenance of their food, a concept intrinsic to winemaking and encapsulated in the term “terroir”.  Traditionally, great chefs have always been close to their suppliers, often going past distributors and wholesalers straight to the grower.  Neil Perry and Kylie Kwong have strong and enduring relationships with their suppliers of meat/seafood/vegetables.   A recent (very enjoyable) trip to Biota in Bowral confirmed their own extensive kitchen garden.  It seems that this trend continues to grow – maybe it’s the “River Cottage Effect”!

With wine making, you can’t always tell the quality of a wine grape just by assessing it as it rolls (forgive the pun) into the winery.  You really need to have seen it grow up – the state of the vines, the season, the canopy, the fruit load, the way the fruit ripened and developed, are all markers of the potential of the fruit.  This very close relationship between the vineyard and the winery, the grower and the maker, the season and the wine, are fundamental hallmarks of a great wine label.  Even if you don’t grow your own fruit, really good winemakers spend a lot of time in the vineyards of their growers.

In fact the term vigneron describes both a fine winemaker and someone who grows grapes for high quality wine production, emphasising the critical role of the vineyard.  Maybe there should be a similar term for a chef who really gets involved in the production of their raw ingredients?

Regardless, the parallels between great winemaking and great cooking are there, from farm to table.

NM

My goodness, our 20^th anniversary!  Starting out as “Yass River Vineyard”, we planted our first vines, Cabernet Sauvignon, on 22 November 1997, in an old sheep paddock off a dirt road.  Three more plantings over the next three years saw the vineyard completed.  Six hectares were duly trained, watered, weeded and fed, giving us our first small crop in 2001.

Our first vintage was a small batch of Cabernet Sauvignon made with borrowed equipment in the garage.  Not bad for a first try, either.  Not sure that we have any left, which is always a good sign.

Next was the winery.  We wanted long term sustainability and a building that blended into the landscape, finally settling on a passive solar design featuring straw bale, rammed earth, and classic aussie corro.   It works well, not only as a place to make wine and serve our guests, but also as a magnificent bush retreat for friends and family.  How’s the serenity!  

We opened our doors in December 2004.  Friends, family, neighbours and colleagues gathered to witness our welcome to the land by Eric Bell (now deceased), one of our local aboriginal elders.  It was a moving ceremony, reminding us that we are just temporary custodians of this land within a timespan of profound immensity.

Some highlights over the years:

• Grafting in two new clones of Sangiovese, now some Fiano
• Exporting to China, Norway and Vietnam (although we now concentrate exclusively on the domestic market)
• Introducing a new label
• Transitioned to a hybrid conventional/organic farming regime
• Discovering the world of “natural” wines (or “natchies”)
• Being rated a 4 ½ star winery by James Halliday
• Helping Hartley Lifecare and our local bush fire brigade with their fundraising

And here’s a few rough numbers from the last 20 years:

• 13,000 vines planted, trained and managed
• 400 tonnes of grapes crushed
• 200,000 litres of wine bottled
• 500 tonnes of compost made
• A couple of thousand Wine Club packs delivered
• 30-40 medals awarded
• 33 wine festivals celebrated
• 90 monthly food and wine matching lunches served
• 13 winter solstice bonfires lit
• Thousands of happy (well, mostly!) customers, many now long term (thank you, you know who you are)

“Why do you do it?” people sometimes ask.  It’s not for fame and fortune, that’s for others.  It’s certainly tremendously satisfying to make award winning wines from our own vineyard, and see these wines bring so much joy to our customers. 

Maybe a better question is - does the world need Yarrh Wines?  We think so.  Delicious, food friendly, Canberra District wines, estate grown and bottled (paddock to plate, vineyard to bottle) made and presented without pretention, for a fair price – that’s a combination Australian wine lovers need.

Finally, a potted history of Yarrh wouldn’t be complete without an acknowledgement of our past partners – Peter McGregor (now deceased) as an early partner in our vineyard venture, and Peta and Chris MacKenzie Davey (now trying to retire!), who took the leap of faith from their cosy cottage in Leeds, UK, to set off on their own adventure in the wilds of Murrumbateman, Australia.  Then of course there is our beautiful daughter Julia, who’s grown up at Yarrh, and in her gap year is now pruning vineyards across the district.  Thanks to all!

 NM and FW

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