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From our newsletter of 2015.  Shayne has since married and had two kids, so I suspect his time is now split in a slightly different way:

Wanting more Sangiovese, last year we grafted another 1100 vines over.  Shayne Hackett, our resident (actually he lives in beautiful Eden on the far south coast) grafting expert, is back again now to fill the gaps of those that didn’t take last year or weren’t in a fit state to take a graft for one reason or another.  Shayne grew up among vines in the King Valley, Victoria, where his parents managed a vineyard.  Ex-DPI, and at one stage our regional viticulturalist, Shayne now splits his time between grafting, pruning, gardening, cycling and sailing.  Someone’s got to do it! 

NM

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

From our 2012 Newsletter:

I had the opportunity to be part of the 2012 Canberra International Riesling challenge in October as an associate judge. Just judging one grape and a noble one at that would give great insight into its diversity of style from around the world. Riesling is a grape that, more than any other variety expresses the place where it is grown. As a winemaker my task is to capture that and preserve its purity and intensity of flavour.

I was part of one judging panel of three judges and two associate judges. Knowing only the year of the wines, we individually assessed each wine in silence and then conferred.  Only the judges’ score is counted for the medals, though any wine that was given a gold medal score by a judge or associate was brought back to be discussed and reassessed. Judges came from Germany, Singapore (they are serious about wine there) , New Zealand and Australia.

So how do you judge a wine? In a wine show a wine is assessed on its merits against an ideal wine and not each other. It’s how the wine tastes today, not how it might develop in the future that is important.  The attributes of the ideal wine vary from judge to judge and this is why there is a panel to provide a forum for discussion and consensus. Scores can vary a lot. One judge may give a gold for a wine where another gives it no medal. In the end this wine may get a bronze. At other times the wine gets gold from all the judges.  So what do you look for in a Riesling.

1. No faults – like oxidation or volatile acidity (VA), mouldy characters,
2. Balance between fruit intensity, acidity, phenolics (small amounts add texture and interest to wine) and sweetness (if any) so they combine to give a harmonious, pleasing sensation. with no one attribute dominating the wine.
3. Persistence or length of finish is important. The longer the better.

Some of the judges used descriptors such as  energy, focus, purity, nerve, and line.

And how did my scoring compare to the judges?  There was good agreement, with one or two outliners where on a fresh pour the result was more favourable.

This first foray into wine judging though challenging and at times very intense was not to be missed.

FW

It’s easy to fall into a narrow view of the world of wine, particularly as a producer.  You get so wrapped up in what you do and how you do it on a daily/weekly/monthly horizon that you sometimes miss the broader context.  With this in mind, I recently completed a WSET Level 2 Wine and Spirit course to broaden my wine knowledge.  You could also say I was trying keep up with my wife, who recently excelled at the AWRI’s Advanced Wine Assessment Course in Adelaide (it doesn’t come much more advanced than this in Australia – training for wine judges) and was invited to be an associate judge at the International Riesling Challenge.

The Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) was founded in 1969 to provide high quality education and training in wine and spirits, and is based in the UK.  If you’re in the trade, for example a sommelier or wine merchant, then these are the sought of qualifications that really help you out.  WSET courses are run locally by the Sydney Wine Academy (www.sydneywineacademy.com.au), and I was lucky enough to have the Director of the Academy, Clive Hartley, as our course tutor.  I was also lucky enough to attend the course at the beautifully located Podfood in Pialligo (now closed, but try John's food at The Boathouse).  Thanks to John Leverink and his team for REAL coffees made to order on arrival and catering that was well beyond the usual fare for a training course.

Level 2 is challenging enough for the average wine buff, but not so challenging as to lose sleep over.  There’s three days of workshops over five weeks, and an expectation that you will study for a further maybe 10+ hours, then sit a closed book exam.  No blind tastings in the assessment – that (big) step comes in at Level 3 and just gets more challenging as you head to the Diploma level.  To give you an idea, here’s a Level 2 practice exam question:

“Pale lemon colour, with citrus and tropical fruit aromas; off dry, with high acidity and medium body” best describes…  pick one of four multiple choices [answer = South African Chenin Blanc].

I found the course interesting, educational and fun – what more could you ask for?  Challenging to start the first tasting at around 10 in the morning (with a predictable joke as to whether this was or was not your first drink of the day) but we tasted many wines that I would only occasionally encounter in everyday life.  Some interesting examples:

• 2007 Poderi Colla Barollo “Bussia” – 100% Nebbiolo grapes, grown in the Dardi di Bussia area of Piedmonte, north western Italy.  Still a young wine for this style, my tasting notes (a combination of what I tasted and what was agreed by the class, led by Clive) say “clear, medium garnet colour, nose of medium intensity with earthy, leather, vegetal, cedar notes and a palate displaying mid-high acidity, high tannins, medium bodied with a long finish.  Overall conclusion: rated good to very good.”  My informal conclusion – Nebbiolo is an intriguing variety and hard to understand when you’re accustomed to much fruitier wines, but I’d like to know more.  Very tannic but alluring all the same.  [Note to self - can I grow some in Murrumbateman?]
• 2010 Roland Tissier Sancerre – 100% Sauvignon Blanc grapes, from the upper Loire (formally Central Vineyards of the Loire region) “Light lemon in colour, nose of medium intensity with an apple/citrus nose, palate of high acidity, mineral characters, green apple and some herbaceousness, medium length.  Overall conclusion – acceptable.  Plenty of time left in the bottle, an ideal accompaniment to salad items and plain white fish or oysters.”

There were lots more – Vouvray (Chenin Blanc), Melon/Muscadet from Loire, Soave from Veneto in northern Italy, Spanish Mencia, Barossa Shiraz, Sonoma Zinfandel, Premier Cru Chablis, Chilean Chardonnay from their central valley, Cabernet blends from Medoc (Bordeaux) and Western Australia, sherries, ports, etc, etc.  Overall we tasted 22 wines from 22 regions of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Hungary, South Africa, Chile and of course Australia - does tend to put things into perspective.  Did you know that while there are over 1,500 wine producers in Australia, there are about 22,000 wine producers in Bordeaux, making about 50% of Australia’s total production, and that’s just one region of France?!  This fact alone either intrigues you to learn more, or prompts you to put the genie back in the bottle and quietly walk away.  I think I fall into the former category….

As well as the tastings, you spend plenty of time working through the theory – wine regions (lots of macro and micro geography and geology here), grape varieties, viticulture (I should have nailed that part of the exam!), winemaking, as well as some discussion on spirits and their making.  Oh, did I mention we tasted some whiskey, brandy and tequila too?

All in all, the course has broadened my wine horizons and, importantly for someone in the industry, provided a great opportunity to educate and benchmark my palate beyond the national context, at least at a basic level.  It also gives you a formal framework to assess wines, another important tool to have in your toolbox.  Overall conclusion - highly recommended.

NM

We've found a hidden treasure of stories in our Wine Club Member's Newsletter, the Tin Shed, and many of these have made it into this blog.  Re-reading 10 years of newsletters has reminded me that getting them to print on time has always been a challenge.  Clearly, in 2015, this was all too much for our half Labrador, half Husky Bear, who simply opted out.  The photo was captioned "Dog Helps to Write Newsletter". 

NM

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