Summerhouse wines 2010 vintage news.

The team at Summerhouse wines in New Zealand have been working hard lately in some pretty cold conditions as well. Here is the latest information they had on the 2010 harvest and other happenings around the vineyard.

     2010 Harvest News

This years harvest was a fairly relaxed time. We were blessed with fantastic weather so all the fruit was picked and in the winery before the late autumn rain set in. The fermentations have now come to an end and the labour intensive process of lees-stirring has started.

This is Heather and Meric's 12th harvest at Summerhouse. "So to the end of another harvest at Summerhouse" comments Meric. "The cool, slow start to the year was followed by perfect summer and autumn weather conditions that enabled us to pick individual parcels of fruit when they were ready. The fruit was clean, bunch sets were perfect and the yields were spot on. So far 2010 is looking like a fantastic vintage for Marlborough and Summerhouse."

Now we are about a quarter of the way through the long but important process of pruning the vines. We carefully prune the Summerhouse vines to ensure quality and even ripening in next years fruit. 

Wine Making News

We have some new additions to the barrel hall this year - French oak Pungeon barrels. These are the largest barrels we use and hold 500 litres. They will add warm sweet oak flavours to the chardonnay.

We will have a more detailed report on the vintage as soon as they get the chance to jot down a few words.