Summerhouse 2011 Harvest

Heather Davies is one half of a husband and wife team that own, nurture and produce the highly accoladed Summerhouse wines from Marlborough, New Zealand. Here she shares here insights into the 2011 vintage.



This is the season where all of the decisions made over the last 16 years have shone through and with continued commitment to every step of the annual cycle within the vineyard we have achieved exceptional results.


16 years ago, we choose the Summerhouse vineyard site because of its unique combination of soil, aspect and climate. We chose the grape varieties, clones and rootstock's to complement those natural features. We have engaged cultural practices in the vineyard that ensure healthy vines that in turn give us physiological ripeness of the fruit. By achieving this we have the best quality raw product (the grapes) to make wines with a distinct sense of place.


The 2011 season has been an exceptionally busy one. The La Nina weather patterns that have developed over the Pacific Ocean have given us a cool spring, hot summer with good rainfall, and a cool autumn. This has meant all of the growth phases that the vines go though during the season have occurred over a shorter period.


The cool spring resulted in the canopy being poorly developed by mid November at flowering time. The weather changed to give a dry, warm flowering that resulted in good fruit sets. Throughout summer the heat continued and so did the growth. This gave us ample leaves in the autumn to ripen the crop. It also gave us good berry growth.


Each year we carry out crop sampling in early January and from this we make decisions on whether or not we need to thin off some of the fruit. A combination of a warm dry flowering period, warm rain in December, and strong healthy vines meant our decision this year was to carry out a crop load thin in January, followed by a tail end thin in March.


The decisions paid off when we came into autumn and the cool weather returned. The healthy open canopy, the reduced crop and the warm summer days had put us on track for an early harvest. We harvested the various blocks about 5 days earlier than in an average season.


We picked fruit starting with the Gewurztraminer on the 21st March and finished with the Riesling on the 3rd April. The first ferments are dry (the sugar has turned to alcohol), the later ones are currently mid way through. There is still a lot to do in the winery – I am looking forward in particular to seeing the aromatic varieties Sauvignon Blanc, Gewurztraminer and Riesling develop over the next few months.

Heather Davies
Summerhouse Wines



The Vineyards at Summerhouse



Heather & Meric Davies



Be Careful Where You Buy Your Red.

A few days ago I dropped into a local food and wine store to grab a bottle of South Australian Cabernet Sauvignon that I had been looking forward to all day. As I made my way to the back of the store where the red wines were stored I noticed that the room temperature suddenly rose. This immediately set alarm bells rattling through my brain and as I picked up the bottle they became deafening!

Unfortunately this happens quite a lot in Hong Kong and I suspect in most countries that enjoy elevated temperatures and humidity. The problem is that most people don't realise how badly and easily wine can be effected by heat.

Prolonged exposure to raised temperatures effectively cooks the wine and results in sweet stewy fruits, jaminess and often discolouration. This is known as Maderisation.

This most commonly happens in transport through being left in non-insulated shipping containers in the summer sun or in non-temperature controlled warehouses. The other place this can occur is in the retail outlet or when it gets placed in the trendy wine rack in your non temperature controlled home.

The ideal storage temperature for red wine is between 10-16C (50-55F) which is actually quite cool. A simple test is to pick up the bottle. If it feels cool then it is probably OK if not then chances are you may have some issues with it, if not today, in the near future.

Of course my need for an Aussie Cab over powered my common sense and I purchased the bottle. Luckily it was only slightly maderised and I championed on through it. This is about the third time this has happened to me when purchasing from small or non-specialist wine shops.

My recommendation: if the wine is not stored in a temperature controlled environment, don't buy it. 

Dean Aslin.

Dean is the Marketing Manager for Saveurs International (Asia) and he welcomes all comments on his posts.