The Journal

Gladstones

Worth reading the distinctive style of Phillip White here.

22/06/2011 at 9:01 PM

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Terroir

There are two books in my wine library which compete for most shabby, most worn, most obviously used – the first is my Oxford Companion To Wine, no surprise there, the second is Viticulture & Environment or, to give it its full title, Viticulture & Environment: A Study Of The Effects Of Environment On Grapegrowing And Wine Qualities, With Emphasis On Present And Future Areas For Growing Winegrapes In Australia. A mouthful of a name and a mouthful of a book, written by Dr John Gladstones and first published in 1992. I bought my copy in the mid 1990s and it is literally falling to bits, it is dog-eared to an extreme, pages are falling out, it’s been spilt on, written on but, most importantly, it’s been a constant source of knowledge, explanation and inspiration.

So, it was with great excitement that I learned of Gladstones’ new book Wine, Terroir And Climate Change, just published.

I’m going to leave the Climate Change bit alone for a while, we may come back to it! To begin with I am much more interested in how his thinking on terroir has advanced in two decades.

The scope of the book is far too wide to cover in a short blog; instead we will break it down into digestible chunks starting with Gladstones’ definition of terroir...

The vine’s whole natural environment, the combination of climate, topography, geology and soil that bear on its growth and the characteristics of its grapes and wines.

To this he adds a few points...

Local yeasts and other microflora may also play a part.

Part-exceptions...soil modification by, for instance, drainage, terracing, or progressive fertility change related to soil management. But these in turn become semi-permanent features of individual sites, and can broadly be considered to become parts of their terroirs.

All these factors interact with management in the vineyard and winery to shape the wine.

He concludes...

Terroir, then, describes the unique geography of a wine’s origin. It is not a property of the wine itself. Good wine reflects the terroir(s) of its origin.

A wine’s defined origin conveys a meaningful message to buyers and consumers, mostly as to its style though not necessarily to its quality, which depends on other factors as well.

We will keep reading and report back.

In the meantime also have a look at an interesting article by Brian Croser.
 

23/05/2011 at 4:17 AM

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It's Almost Over!

As vintage draws to a close we look back, read our notes for 2011.

La Niña. Rain. Moisture. Humidity. This sums up vintage 2011. Melbourne's wettest summer in 17 years and sixth wettest summer on record (306mm v average 163mm, record is 361mm 1903/04).

The following chart is an example of how we look at our vintages - it compares the current vintage data (the darker lines and bars) against the 12 year averages since our first vintage...

Ignore temperature, in the end it was of little consequence; instead consider the vertical bars showing rainfall. Budburst was 26 September - look at the rainfall for October through to March: 525mm compared to the average of 282mm, an increase of 86%, near double. In our 12 years this was our wettest October, 3rd wettest November and December, wettest January and 2nd wettest February.

So, it was our latest budburst ever, almost 3 weeks later than average, and our latest vintage, 2 weeks later than average.

Disease pressure was enormous – Downy Mildew saw the greatest need for control I have ever experienced, conversely, while Powdery Mildew was apparent it was easily controlled! This was all followed by high Botrytis pressure in the later ripening stage. Disease events came with what became monotonous regularity, spraying continuously.

In the end it came down to triage. Initially it was just dropping fruit that would have been dropped anyway to help balance ripeness within blocks and manage yield to an adequate leaf area ratio for optimal ripening. In the end we continually walked through, removing any bunches carrying Botrytis to ensure the highest quality outcome for the winery.

The resulting fruit quality was very good with high acids which suggest great ageing potential and we are very happy with the flavour profiles and look forward to the wines from this extremely difficult vintage.
 

25/04/2011 at 1:10 AM

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Welcome

Welcome to our new website and our blog.

The world of wine is a fascinating one in so many ways, not least because of the discussion and wide ranging opinions it engenders. From science to philosophy, taste, agriculture, climate, soil, food, music - an endless series of topics to be raised and debated.

We welcome you here and look forward to hearing from you along our journey.

25/04/2011 at 1:02 AM

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