WINTER'S WORK

While the lazy, hazy days of autumn advance the vineyard turns a shimmering gold as leaves give up chlorophyll, that magic natural chemical which keeps them green and enables sunlight to be turned into energy that they need to grow and ripen grapes. Everything of value is being sucked from the leaves back into the plant to give it strength to make new leaves and shoots the following spring.

Over the winter the leafless vines shut up shop, looking like an army of skeletons, neither taking up moisture nor expending energy. They are patiently waiting for warmth so they can open for business again the following spring. Then their buds will open and the first leaves appear.

Part of the pruning team at work.

While the vines take winter vacation we have to roll up shirt sleeves, put our heads down and work. In fact, winter is the vineyard’s busiest time as we have only 3 months to tidy up those skeletons so they look smart for their reincarnation. The new shoots which will carry next summer’s grapes only come from canes which have grown the previous summer. First we have to select the best 2 or 3 of these and prune everything else off. Next, a team pull unwanted shoots out of the wire trellis supporting the grapevine. This is physically demanding work, as the unwanted canes have formed a tangled mat around the wires. Then other people take the selected canes, carefully twist them along the lowest trellis wire of the trellis and shortening them to the right length. These would unravel if left so someone follows, attaching them to the wires.

All finished and everything looks sweet? Nope! The prunings, and there are masses of them, have to be removed. In Europe it is traditional to burn these. We collect, mulch, compost and then return them to the vineyard. It’s extra work, but it is good to give something natural back to the vine, completing the cycle of life.

CANTER WITH DECANTER

So you thought a decanter was a type of jug from which you served wine. Well it is, but there is another sort, which is a prestigious British wine publication that modestly advertises itself as the World’s Best Wine Magazine. Once a year it selects 100 top wineries globally for the London Decanter Fine Wine Encounter. During 2 days invited wineries discuss their wines with and give tastings to the British wine trade and wine connoisseurs. The most recent was the 10th Anniversary Encounter and Pegasus Bay was lucky enough to be invited, along with Cloudy Bay, Craggy Range and Framingham from New Zealand.

Lynnette & Michael having a canter.

Pegasus Bay winemaker, Lynnette Hudson, and her brother-in-law, Michael Donaldson, who lives in London, presented our wines to the multitude. Michael is the only one of the 4 Donaldson “boys” to officially escape from Pegasus Bay, so he had to pay penance by helping out. We presented Riesling, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay from both our Pegasus Bay and Main Divide ranges.

How was it? “Fantastic!” said Lynnette. “The exposure was superb, the interest in our wines was overwhelming and what a quality audience!”

CONCERT CHARISMA

Pegasus Bay recently hosted a concert by charismatic Kiwi song idol Bic Runga. Almost 3000 people revelled in her musical delights. Pegasus Bay’s natural amphitheatre was too steep to sit on comfortably and when we heard the expected numbers we were alarmed. Six weeks before the concert we dumped 200 truck-loads of soil onto the amphitheatre and smoothed it to make a gentle slope. We were panicking somewhat as we didn’t think punters would appreciate sitting on dirt. We sowed grass, applied water and prayed. Hot summer days and moisture caused instant germination and hey presto, before the day it was able to be mowed into a stunning green verge. The concert was as enormous success and our tranquillisers are just wearing off.

Part of the crowd captivated by Bic Runga at Pegasus Bay

PINOT 2007 The Mother of them all

In January the 3rd New Zealand Pinot Noir “Event” was held in Wellington. Call it what you will, a conference, a tasting, a celebration, a promotion or a bacchanalian delight! To some measure it was all these things.

Winemakers Lynnette Hudson and Matthew Donaldson with UK winewriter & TV personality Oz Clarke - Photo: Mark Coote

There were 4 days of thinking about, talking about, evaluating and enjoying top New Zealand Pinot Noir in comparison to the best from around the world. Pinot Noir 2007 was definitely the mother of them all. It was a spectacular, sophisticated, splendidly organised event which attracted top wine writers and wine trade, as well as devoted consumers, better known as pinot junkies or pinophiles, from around the world. It was a rip-roaring success. We felt privileged to be selected as one of the 8 Great Pinot Noir Producers of New Zealand to have their wines tasted and evaluated by all delegates and subsequently discussed by a panel of international experts. Their comments? “The vibrant fruit-bombs of Central Otago are real crowd pleasers, while the powerful, long-lived Martinborough Pinots show the benefits of older vine age. Oz Clarke, the celebrated British wine writer and television personality “loved the rock and roll Pinots from Pegasus Bay”, describing them as being like “a young hip shaking Elvis Presley”. Internationally renowned French wine critic Michael Bettane concluded that “This is a great place to grow pinot noir”. They said it, not us! The whole event was a great boost to the international profile of New Zealand Pinot..

RESTAURANT RAVES

The Pegasus Bay Restaurant is open for lunches 7/7. While it’s hard work, when you get thrown unsolicited bouquets it makes it worth while. Here’s what travel writer Anne Else has recently written about us in the New Zealand Herald.

“One look at the winery’s vine-shaded courtyard and the menu is enough to convince us to stay for lunch. The tasting platter to share avoids difficult decisions, and it’s the best I’ve had; their own cold-smoked salmon, marinated artichoke and lemon caper dressing, espresso cups of white bean soup, water cress puree, French goats’ cheese phyllo parcels, pork and chicken terrine with apple and riesling jelly, Italian buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, proscuitto, pickled onions, truffled rare beef and horseradish on crostini, plus generous supplies of ciabatta to mop it all up. No wonder they won Cuisine Magazines Best Casual Dining Award……..”

Yes, this is only one of our menu’s dishes! We would like to give you a warm welcome. It is best to reserve, especially weekends and public holidays, but you can always sample our wines in the tasting room without booking. Telephone 03 3146869 ext 1.

FROM THE PRESCRIPTION PAD

As I write we are just about to start harvesting grapes, vintage or “vendange” as the French call it. In our vineyard the major part of vintage occurs throughout April and the first half of May, but traditionally, if the season allows, we do not bring in the final grapes until after the shortest day on the 21st June when we pick those for our medium sweet and dessert wines, namely, Aria, Finale and Encore. As vintage involves not only harvesting the grapes but turning them into wine it actually extends for even longer than this. It is a satisfying time, but involves long hours and hard work.

Making and maturing wine is actually about lending a guiding hand to one of the most natural of Mother Nature’s development processes and the French liken it to raising children. They use the term élevage, which means rearing or bringing up, for some of this work. As a father, health science teacher and hospital medic, not to mention a self-confessed romantic, it has special appeal and fascination for me.

You start with these sweet little living things. That’s grapes I’m talking about, not children, although the analogy is apt. They have gradually grown and been nurtured over months and unless they are separated from their mother vine at the right stage they will wither and die. Although you are as gentle as possible they are traumatised by the process. Each berry has a tear at its umbilical site and will have to some extent been squeezed and bruised. The tractor ambulances then bring them to the winery hospital. Let’s follow the progress of one such infant. Let’s say a batch of black grapes that is going to be made into red wine.

On arrival the patient is put to rest quietly in a bed. In some cases, such as with Miss Pinot Noir, she is kept cool for several days to help soothe her. She is a pale, little, sensitive soul and needs to pick up more colour, which will occur over this time. On the other hand, Masters Merlot and Cabernet are more ruddy little bruisers and don’t need this type of molly coddling. Eventually, however, an infection sets in, caused by yeasts on the patient’s own skin, and the temperature slowly starts to rise. When the patient stirs little bubbles of carbon dioxide, caused by the fermentation, rise to the surface. Gradually he or she becomes agitated and starts to move about as the gas bloats the grapes. They rise to the surface and the whole mixture starts to froth. During this time the temperature is rapidly going up because the yeasts are eating up the grapes’ sugar and converting it to alcohol while in the process of releasing their gas.

At this stage, the patient becomes delirious, struggling to get out of the bed. The doctors and nurses rush about, restraining the now fiery red patient by pushing the floating cap of grapes back into the vat. This keeps the skin nice and moist, as otherwise it would dry and new infecting micro-organisms would start to grow. The attendants also keep a careful eye on the temperature, as if it gets too high they will have to apply cooling. Slowly, however, the agitation lessens. The temperature starts to fall and he or she begins to tire. The child sinks back exhausted, and is still. Now is the time to rest. All of this activity has resulted in a very dishevelled appearance and there is need of a clean-up. The soggy outer garments and bedding are removed as the skins and pips are taken from the vat to reveal the finely developed and healthy body of the wine, no longer an infant, but a child.

As we all know, children still need lots of rest, guidance and training. They are thus put into wooden beds and continue to rest in these oak barrels. The following spring and early summer the teenage years really kick in. They become rebellious and unless you are careful, they are given to explosions without warning. Around the winery, the winemaker may hear the bungs blowing out of barrels as the kids try to break loose with a hiss and a roar. Like a teenager’s ebullience, this rebellion is quite natural and due to a micro-organism which converts one type of wine’s acid, malic, into another called lactic. This secondary, or malo-lactic fermentation results in reduction in the acid level so that after this bout of exuberance, the wine and the teenager become softer and more mellow. Finally, after the teenage years have been sorted out and things have well and truly settled down, the winemaker, or parent, puts his darling out there for all the world to see in a glass showcase, called a bottle. He or she is hoping some Prince Charming will come along, adore his Sleeping Beauty and put her to his lips. That’s when she will really come to life again. But all that time she has been quietly changing in her bottle, as wine is a living thing. It gradually develops with cellaring, and while apparently sleeping it is quietly undergoing a series of complex, chemical changes, a bit like our bodies. The trick is to leave Sleeping Beauty until she has reached perfection before you arouse her but do not wait too long, otherwise you might find that instead you have unwittingly awakened her mother!

As with developing infants, all that hot air production has exhausted me. I think I had better rest back and open a bottle of red to check how its development is coming along. Without its health giving properties I am also in danger of going over the hill!

Cheers, Ivan Donaldson