A Quick Trip to Canberra

The co driver wanted to visit an art quilt exhibition in our nation's capital so we got an early morning start to head up over Clyde Mountain for the 2 hour plus drive.
Stirls who had come down to help with some farm work accompanied us.
We dropped the co driver off at the Convention Center and headed for the National Art Gallery.

 Apart from the permanent displays, they had an exhibition of Asian Art as well as photos of mid eighteenth century Indonesia.
The former had caused some controversy. In amongst the exhibits was a statue that had been apparently looted from an Indian temple and had been sold to the galley for over $5 million. The New York agent who organized the sale is apparently in gaol in India awaiting trial for fraud.
I believe the statue has been / will be returned to India.
The most famous painting in the gallery is probably Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles.

I don't get it. Looks like a paint drop sheet to me albeit an expensive one worth $100 million.
We made our way to the Australian art section. Some of my favourite paintings are here particularly those from the Heidelberg School era. Streeton, Roberts, McCubbin and Conder were all part of the Australian impressionist movement around the end of the 19th century.

Charles Conder

Frederick McCubbin

Arthur Streeton

Tom Roberts

Stirls hadn't been to the Australian War Memorial for 40 years so we made a quick dash over there to have lunch and just had time to visit the relatively new ANZAC Hall section.













Then it was time to pick up the co driver and head back home before dusk started to fall and kangaroos on the Canberra to Braidwood part of the road became a driving hazard.
An enjoyable day all round.

A Vintage 2014 Update

The Cabernet Sauvignon has been racked off the fermentation lees and is already showing great varietal nose and flavour as well as excellent grape tannins.
We are still waiting for the French oak influence from the mini staves to kick in.
This can take some months.
 pH was 3.7 so added 0.5 g/L H2TA.
This achieved a satisfactory pH of 3.55
The Pinot Noir is a delicate wine showing some varietal character but is, as expected, very light in colour and tannins. Experience has shown us that the influence of the French oak will change this in time.
It is a another waiting game.
The Tempranillo is a great colour with good varietal character and good tannins mainly due I think to our experiment with the Premium Barrique. The French oak influence is just starting to make its presence felt. We need to be careful it does not become "over wooded".

The Semillon yellowing (oxidated polyphenols) continued to increase although flavour was not affected.
So, after much reading and consultation with a local wine maker, I added 0.4 g/L of PVPP.
The winemaker had used this polymer in his Chardonnay and Rose over the years with little detrimental affect.
Polyvinyl-polypyrrolidone was the first synthetic fining agent used in the wine industry coming to Australia in 1972. A well known trade name is Polyclar AT
It is an insoluble high molecular weight polymer and is used in wine as specific absorbent for phenolic compounds which lead to browning and sometimes astringency/bitterness in white wine. Because it is practically insoluble in wine it considered a processing aid rather than an additive.
The powder is mixed into a few litres of wine to disperse it and this is then added to the bulk wine and mixed in thoroughly to ensure good contact between the polymer and the wine.
After a week the wine was racked off the residue which had settled on the bottom of the tank.
The result?
Much lighter in colour but not as much as I expected. Flavour seems to be unaffected by the PVPP process.
I got myself a new wine making 'toy', a filter (see pic above), to 'polish' the white wine and make it brighter.
The filter system has the option of gross, fine and sterile pads.
We drank the Semillon with dinner the other night.
Excellent drop.
When refrigerated however, tartrate crystals (actually potassium bitartrate) precipitated out of the wine and sat on the bottom of the bottle.
Commercial wineries cold stabilize their white wines to overcome this problem by a number of complex processes eg. contact process, filtration, crystal flow or ion exchange.
The problem is purely visual and does not affect the drinking quality of the wine. We won't be cold stabilizing which would be a logistic nightmare. For us it would involve refrigeration at around 0 deg C and then racking the wine off the precipitate.
Our 'customers' will just be made aware of the situation and asked to keep the bottles upright in the fridge 24 hours before consumption.

ANZAC Day 2014

Photo: Nick Moir (SMH)

Easter Greetings

Hot Cross Buns on Friday

Malteser Easter Bunnies on Sunday

My Winemaking Bible

I have often been asked via this blog site what book(s) I use to get information on my grape growing and wine making hobby.
First off I have a huge amount of material that was issued as part of my wine growing degree at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. Obviously that is not available to everyone.
But there was also a huge compulsory and recommended reading list that came with the course.
From that and from a viticultural viewpoint I suggest:
Viticulture Volume 1 Resources edited by B.G. Coome and P.R. Dry
Viticulture Volume 2 Practices edited by B.G. Coombe and P.R. Dry
Sunlight into Wine by Richard Smart and Mike Robinson
Diseases and Pests edited by P.Nicholas, P. Magarey and M.Wachtel
and for a non Australian but still New World perspective 
General Viticulture by A.J. Winkler, J.A. Cook,W.M. Kliewer, L.A. Lider 
From a wine making point of view there is only one book for me:
Making Good Wine by Bryce Rankine

Dr. Rankine was probably the most prominent wine scientist in Australia but was also well-known internationally.
Sadly, he passed away early in 2013.
A rundown on his distinguished career can be found here.
And of course the internet is a goldmine of information if one has the time to search.
One site that has a great deal of information for the small (or home) winemaker is the Winemaker Magazine.

Was 2014 the Vintage of the Decade?

Our wine region, the Shoalhaven Coast, has a viticultural climate classification of warm maritime.
Without going into a lot of technical detail of how this is established, it generally means warm to hot, humid and wet vintages, with increased rainfall around harvest time.
This raises the problems of diluted juice and fungal diseases.
Along with the Hunter Valley, a few hundred kilometers to the north, we have one of the highest Branas Indices for a wine growing area in Australia.
Grape growers in the region have learned to live with this and most have modified their viticultural practices accordingly.
Grape varieties suitable for the climate are normally grown. Some have even gone as far as planting fungal resistant hybrids (European + American crosses) eg. Chambourcin.

OK, I do have Pinot Noir which is a cool climate variety but only because 'they' said I couldn't grow it. I think the score is about even ie. 5 harvests and 5 'don't bothers' after 10 years. Out of those five harvests we had one outstanding wine, the others, passable.
Trellis design, vine training and pruning for open canopies that allow good air circulation and spray and sunlight penetration are important.
And most employ protective spray rather than curative spray programs.
So the 2013/2014 season (2014 Vintage) started off quite normally. It is fine to have some good rain during the early growing season. But then, from late December through January and into February the rain stayed away. This allowed the 'early' maturing varieties eg, Semillon, Chardonnay, Verdelho, Tempranillo to ripen without the threat of juice dilution and the outbreak of disease eg. botrytis. Sugar levels were high, acid levels were good and flavour components optimal.
March, usually our wettest month, was also dry up until the last week when the heavens opened up and dropped more than 200mm on us over 3 days.

But by then the 'late' maturing varieties eg. Cabernet Sauvignon, were already off the vines and bubbling away in the fermenters.

So? The vintage of the decade?
I think it could well be.

The Co Driver's Birthday

The co driver celebrated her birthday this week.
Instead of going out on the town, she wanted a special home cooked meal.
So I spent part of the the day preparing Beef Wellington and Pavlova.
The former is fillet steak topped with a herb and mushroom mix which is wrapped up in puff pastry and baked in the oven.

Pavlova is a meringue based dessert with crisp crust and a light and soft inside usually topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit. It was named after the Russian Ballet dancer Anna Pavlova.
Both Australia and New Zealand claim to have created this dessert in the 1920s during the dancer's visit to those countries.
While it is always a good source of argument (together with each country's prowess at rugby, cricket, netball as well as the respective populations' IQ), evidence is that the Kiwis are correct.
These days you can buy the bases already prepared (yuk!) or as a pre mix (just add water) but ours were made from scratch.
The fruit topping was fresh passionfruit, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.

Wine selection was a McWilliams 'Anne' Hunter Valley Semillon 2006 and a very special bottle of Katnook Estate 'Odyssey' Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 which we picked up on our trip through South Australia's Coonawarra wine region in 2010.

All in all a great meal......even if I do say so myself!
Recipes for the many variations of Beef Wellington are here.
The recipe for individual Pavlovas can be found here.

Vintage 2014 Comes to an End

We harvested the Cabernet Sauvignon on the 21st March with the help of Stirls.
Picking conditions were hot and humid and got more uncomfortable as the day wore on.
Sugar level was 13.1 deg Baume and pH 3.70
No disease was apparent and the fruit was in top condition.
The grapes were crushed and destemmed and DAP, MLF culture and yeast added together with 0.75g/L H2TA and 10g/L new French oak mini staves.
We celebrated the end of vintage that evening with a nice dinner and two bottles of good wine, Pikes 2012 'The Merle' Clare Valley Riesling and a Tertini 2010 Southern Highlands Pinot Noir which was a gold medal winner at the South Coast Wine Show this year.
Fermentation started in 12 hours.
Cap was punched down every 4-6 hours.

Fermentation finished on the 29th March and the wine was drained and skins pressed a day later.
pH 4.0 so acid adjustment of initially 2g/L was necessary. Subsequent smaller additions will be likely until a pH of 3.6 or a little lower is achieved.
And 50 ppm SO2 was added as antibactericide/antioxidant together with egg white for fining purposes.
The oak chips were retrieved from the marc after pressing and added back into the wine.
So that is that for 2014.
Now just monitoring of the finished wine takes place ie. SO2 levels, level of wood influence, final rackings.
Bottling of the Semillon should be in a few months, the reds towards the end of the year.
So was 2014 the vintage of the decade, weather wise, as everyone in the local wine industry is saying?
Could just be.
Will work on a few figures to confirm that.
Time now for a bit of a rest from vineyard/wine chores for a few months until mid winter when pruning will take place.

Visit to the Buddhist Nan Tien Temple

The co driver's yoga group organized a visit to and a guided tour of the Nan Tien Temple in Wollongong, New South Wales' third largest city which is about 2 hours drive to the north of us.
So I and one other male accompanied 25 ladies on a charter bus.

This is the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere.
Wollongong Council donated 26 acres in the suburb of Berkeley for the project which started in 1992 and took 5 years planning and 2 years construction. 
The Fo Guang Shan Buddhist order is Taiwan based and headed by the Venerable Master Hsing Yun. 

We were given an introductory talk on the architectural layouts of each shrine before the ladies participated in a walking meditation. I spent that time wandering around the beautifully kept gardens.
Then we were taken into the main shrine and given explanations of Buddhist symbols and statues situated there and around temple grounds.
This was followed by a discussion on Buddhist philosophy and how the practice of Buddhism can influence one's daily life. A lively question and answer session followed.

Then it was time for a simple vegetarian lunch followed by a visit to the library, museum and gift shop.

A very enjoyable day resulting in a better understanding of a religion practised by an estimated 350 million people (6% of the world's population), making Buddhism the world's fourth largest religion.

Vintage 2014 Continues / Part 5

On 9th March we racked the Semillon off the bentonite and fermentation lees, added 30ppm SO2 and sealed the tank to allow final clarification to take place.
We were contemplating adding PVPP (polyvinylpolypyrolidone) to remove a very slight oxidative browning that has occurred.
However we will run a small trial with this to assess any problems that may occur before committing the process to the whole batch.
The Pinot Noir was drained and pressed and egg white for fining plus 50ppm SO2 added.
pH was 3.65 (up from 3.45 at harvest) so we are sure MLF has taken place. No facilities for a proper paper chromatographic test here.
On 12th March we tested the Cabernet Sauvignon
Sugar 12.0 deg Baume and 3.48 pH ie. almost ripe. Another week or so to go before harvest.

Our full vineyard test is carried out by walking the rows and selecting two bunches at random on every 4th vine or so on either side of the row. One bunch is exposed ie. on the outside of the vine, the other within.   The outside rows of the block and vines at the end of rows are ignored.
A grape berry is taken from the top, bottom., middle front and middle back of each bunch.
These grapes are then crushed by hand and the juice extracted.
After giving the solids time to settle out, the juice is tested either with a hydrometer or refractometer and a pH meter.

Refractometer

Experience has shown that this method usually produces a result approximately 0.5 deg Baume higher than that measured at the actual harvest.

Book Reviews / March 2014

Netsuke are miniature sculptures that first appeared in 17th-century Japan. The 'hare with the amber eyes' was just one of a collection of 264 purchased by a member of the Ephrussi family in the 1870s.
They are the objects which bind together this story of five generations of the family originally from the Odessa region who became a very wealthy European Jewish banking dynasty, centered there as well as in Paris and Vienna.

The Ephrussis lost almost everything in 1938 when the Nazis 'took over' their Viennese property. Even after the war, the family failed to recover most of its extensive property, including priceless artwork, but an easily hidden collection of 264 Japanese netsuke miniature sculptures was miraculously saved, tucked away inside a mattress by Anna, a loyal maid at Palais Ephrussi in Vienna during the war years. The collection has been passed down through five generations of the Ephrussi family, providing a common thread for the story of its fortunes from 1871 to 2009.
This is a fascinating story of Europe financially, politically and culturally during a very turbulent part of its history.
For me, it was a 'couldn't put it down'.
Why I get sucked into reading the autobiographies of these 'stars' is always a mystery to me. I am always waiting for something new or revealing. Never seems to happen.
Shirley goes into considerable detail about her personal life, particularly her marriage to Jack Cassidy, David Cassidy's father.

But in the end, despite tid bits about her stage and film acting career and some interesting anecdotes about fellow actors it's a fairly pedestrian tale.
I believe a few of her 'stories' have been challenged by those involved and changes have been made to subsequent editions.
Says it all really.
I had previously read and reviewed two books of people making sea changes to Costa Rica.
This one intrigued me as the reviews indicated it was more than just a tourist's view of the country but more warts and all.

Bored with his comfortable existence in the USA, successful businessman Norm Schriever feels there is more to life than he is experiencing. He quits his job, sells and donates all of his possessions, and moves down to Tamarindo, Costa Rica, with a laptop and a surfboard, and vows to become a writer.
However he soon finds that paradise has its dark side and the perfect life in a little seaside town isn’t always as ideal as it seems. It’s a matter of adapting to the local customs and the language barrier, dodging lawless drug traffickers as well as corrupt police.
It's a humorous tale although it did seem to concentrate a little too much on one of the author's friends who through entirely the fault of his own ended up in a Costa Rican gaol.
Still, a good, easy and humorous read.
To most people around the world the 1756 to 1763 conflict between Great Britain and France was known as the Seven Years War.
To Americans it is known as the French and Indian War. To Canadians it's the War of Conquest.
This book is a fascinating story of how the colonists (including a young George Washington) helped the British defeat the French in North America and sow the seeds for the War of Independence not too many years later.

It is also the story of the various native American forces who allied themselves with each side as a way of consolidating their inter tribal power and an attempt to protect themselves from the ever increasing impact of white settlement.
We all know how that went.
This is a scaled down version of the author's more scholarly book Crucible of War and is a companion to the 2006 PBS documentary.
This, in my opinion, does not detract from its impact and is a well researched book that covers a vital part of American history and is a must read for those interested in that period.

Vintage 2014 Continues / Part 4

Time to concentrate on Pinot Noir (Vitis vinifera cv Pinot Noir).
I think most 'wine people' agree it's a finicky grape to grow and a difficult one to make into good wine.
The traditional home of Pinot Noir is Burgundy. The French name translates as black pine cone reflecting the shape of the bunches and the compactness of the berries.

A combination of a cold continental climate, limestone based soils and viticultural practices honed over centuries allows the Grand Cru (and lower classifications ) wines made there to demand some of the highest prices paid for red wine world wide. The 1987 Henri Jayer Richebourg Grand Cru, Cote de Nuits currently has an average price of $A18,000 / bottle!
Pinot Noir has been cultivated in France since AD 100 and is probably only one or two generations removed from the wild Vitis sylvestris ie. a direct domestication.

 However many other places, including the new world, also grow the grape successfully and make excellent wine out of it eg. north western states of the USA, South Island of New Zealand, Victoria and Tasmania in Australia.
Pinot's thin skins and low levels of phenolics produces mostly lightly colored, medium bodied, low tannin wines. When young, the wines tend to have red fruit aromas of cherries, raspberries and strawberries. As the wines age, they have the potential to develop vegetal and farmyard or forest floor aromas that can contribute to the complexity of the wine. It is the tremendously broad range of bouquets, flavours, textures and impressions that make good Pinot Noir so sought after.
As mentioned in other posts our little vineyard has a warm maritime climate with ancient sandy/alluvial based acid soils over clay which is the complete antithesis of Burgundy.
The vines grow extremely well here but most of the time the fruit quality suffers from the heat and the humidity ie. low colour and tannins, high pH, little varietal aroma and flavour, no potential for aging.
But occasionally, if the weather gods are with us, we strike it lucky and get a good crop of reasonable fruit.
This vintage just might be one of those.

Pinot Noir is particularly prone to mutation and thanks to its long history in cultivation there are hundreds of different clones in vineyards and vine collections worldwide. More than 50 are officially recognized in France alone. A clone is a vine which has exactly the same genetic make up of the cultivar but exhibits different properties eg. growth pattern, yield, fruit quality, bunch structure, drought resistance etc. And of course resultant wine quality.
These differences are noted in vineyards and vines with desirable differences are propagated asexually from them eg. cuttings. Following considerable testing, growing and wine production trials, clones with commercial potential are then offered into the market place.
In Australia, Pinot Noir clones include MV6, 114,115 and 777.
We grow MV6 here.
MV6 has an interesting history.
James Busby, considered the father of the Australian wine industry, made a trip through Spain and France in 1831 and kept a meticulous record of the vine cuttings he collected on the way.
363 of these survived the trip to Sydney, packed in moss, sand and soil, and were planted in the Sydney Botanical Gardens where they unfortunately eventually died through neglect. But by that time many cuttings had been taken from the collection and spread around the countryside eg. South Australia, thus initiating the still flourishing wine growing industry.
In the 1920s, Maurice O'Shea, the renowned Hunter Valley (2 hours north of Sydney) winemaker who had had considerable Burgundy experience traced, through the Busby collection, a source of Pinot Noir vines (thought to be from Clos Vougeot in Vosne Romanee) and planted them at his Mount Pleasant vineyard.

McWilliam's Mt. Pleasant Vineyard today

With these vines he produced his famous straight varietal Pinots and blends with other varieties eg. Shiraz.
After O’Shea’s death in the 1960s, the true value of these French Pinot Noir vines was realized.
New South Wales Director-General of Agriculture, Graham Gregory, singled out the vines as having significant genetic importance and worthy of inclusion in a vine propagation scheme setup at the time. Gregory took cuttings off the Mount Pleasant vineyard to setup a special grapevine collection, naming the particular clone as MV6 (or Mother Vine 6).
Now the Hunter Valley climate is basically the same as ours although the soil composition is generally different.
But it was a good enough reason to give MV6 'a go' here.
So with all this preamble, following 3 days of light but persistent rain and relative humidity percentages in the high 90s, we decided to harvest our Pinot Noir on the 3rd March. Fruit was in excellent condition with only a small incidence of botrytis. The affected berries were removed from the bunches by hand during picking.
Sugar level was 13.5 deg Baume and pH 3.45.

We have read extensively on the different ways to make a better wine from this grape but based on this summary from UC Davis decided to go with a reasonably straight forward approach ie. crush and destem, ferment on the skins, press and drain after one week's extended maceration, settle, rack off fermentation lees, egg white fine, rack.
Fermentation started in 12 hours. Cap punched down every 4 hours.
Oak treatment was with some French oak mini staves that I had found secreted away which were added at the fermentation stage.
Meanwhile the Tempranillo was racked on the 1st March and 30ppm SO2 added.

A Cattle Update

So far all three new calves are doing well. It's been a great season with plenty of grass and the mothers have lots of milk.
We have not heard about any bovine anemia out breaks in the region this year. So fingers are still crossed.

The Milton Show 2014

Most major towns in Australia have their annual rural show (fair).
They are 'feeders' of winning entrants for the individual state shows. In New South Wales this is the Sydney Royal run by Royal Agricultural Society of NSW which takes place for 2 weeks over the Easter period. It was established 191 years ago and around 1 million people attend each year. Its home is now in Olympic Park area, location of the Sydney 2000 games.
Ours is a pretty small affair over two days but most people go to see the animals, horse riding events, agricultural equipment, wood chop, arts and crafts, photography, cooked goods and produce, not to mention carnival rides and awful (but really yummy) food. And there is a rodeo finale on the Saturday night.
We always know when it's show time.
It rains!
And this year was no different. But luckily when we went the showers held off.
The co driver had entered some quilts and was a prize winner, a first and a commended.