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



Wine Makers for the International Wine & Spirits Fair November 4,5,6

With the HKTDC International Wine & Spirits Fair being held in November comes an opportunity to have some of the wine industry's talented wine makers and owners come to Hong Kong. We are pleased to introduce them to you.

Unfortunately Edouard has found out that he needs to have a minor operation at this time so he can not attend. However we will still have his wines available for tasting during the event.

We will be having many dinners and tastings outside of the fair that will give you a chance to get to know and experience the passion that these wine makers have for making great wines.

Stay tuned for more details.

If you would really like to attend a particular event send us an email to marketing@saveurs.com.hk and we will let you know as soon as the events are confirmed. 

Rebecca Leung Interviews Mathieu Deiss

Rebecca Leung took some time at the Vinexpo to talk to Domaine Marcel Deiss wine maker Mathieu Deiss.

In English and Cantonese.

Meet The Wine Maker - Sandra Tavares de Silva

 

Portugal has some of the most sought after wine growing regions in the world and you will find the ladies of the Douro Valley are leading the charge. We'd like to introduce you to Van Zellers chief oenologist Sandra Tavares de Silva.

Sandra has a university degree in agriculture from ISA (Lisbon University) and a Master in oenology from Italy.

Sandra started her professional career as a trainee at José Maria da Fonseca (producers of Periquita and Lancers, amongst others) and with Cristiano Van Zeller in 1999. She became a full time oenologist at Vale D. Maria in January 2000 and has been the chief oenologist and wine partner since then.

Sandra is one of the star oenologists in Portugal, producing some of the top wines in the country and she shares her wine making passion with her husband, wine maker Jorge Borges (Pintas and others).

For more information on Sandra and the wines of Van Zellers call Dean at +852 9730 0781 or deanaslin@saveurs.com.hk.

Rebecca Leung Interviews for 'Wine is Beautiful'

Rebecca Leung interviews our very own Cristiano Van Zeller when he was here visiting during VINEXPO earlier this year. Cristiano talks about the traditional methods of wine making still employed by wine makers in the Douro like stomping the grapes by foot! Cristiano is owner and wine maker with Van Zellers and Quinta Vale Donna Maria in the Douro, Portugal.


For the latest happenings in the wine industry and more interviews go to Rebecca's group, 'Wine is Beautiful' 

From the Glass of Tim Burvill

Many articles have been written about the current oversupply issues the Australian Wine Industry is facing at the moment so I contacted RockBare wine maker Tim Burvill to see if he could give us a 'grass roots' perspective on this situation. Tim was kind enough to drag himself away from a poolside McLaren Vale Chardonnay and share his views.

The issues of the AWI have been well documented by the mainstream media over the past 12 months.  So, without going into too much detail, we have a situation where the annual grape harvest (in 2010 it is predicted to be 1.8 million tonnes or 140 million dozen) is about 30% above requirements.  The area of grapevines planted in Australia doubled between 1997 to 2007 to 164,000 hectares, and such a massive increase in plantings has lead to a predictable surplus.  Compounding the problem has been the over-dependence of the AWI on a few large players which got bigger and bigger every few years as mergers and acquisitions took place (and might I add, most at completely over-inflated prices).  Throw in a global financial crisis, an appreciating Australian dollar, huge write-downs on the recent acquisitions,  and coupled with the inability of these large Australian wine corporations to be able to effectively market a sell large and diverse wine brand portfolio's, and we find our self in our present position. 

It will be very interesting to see how all of this plays out.  Grape growers are the ones really bearing the brunt of the industry's problems.  Since the large wineries, which were taking the majority of the crop previously, have opted out of the grape market, most grape growers coming out of contract are struggling to find a home for their fruit.  This in turn is resulting in very low fruit prices being offered by these out-of-contract grower.  How long will these growers be able to sustain growing crops in which they lose money on?  We will undoubtedly see vineyard pulled out, particularly in the newer grape growing regions that lack strong brands competing for their fruit.

The other sector of the industry hurting is the small wineries which were reliant on selling a container or two of wine to the USA and UK every year.  These sales for the most part have ground to a halt, and causing cash-flow and over-stock issues.  This is further exacerbating the low grape prices, as these smaller wineries which for the most part played in the high-priced fruit sector, also opt out of the grape market whilst they concentrate on selling through the stock in their warehouse.

 All sounds pretty grim doesn't it?  Well, it's not all doom and gloom.  In fact, some Australian wine companies have never had it better.  Wineries with strong brands, and solid finances are finding their market share increasing.  Yes, you read correctly, increasing.   We are are seeing a period of strong brands cementing their position in the market, and improving their footprint as they ride above the price-discount melee occurring below them.  Indeed, quality fruit has never been cheaper, nor have growers ever been more inclined to grow and crop their fruit as the wineries wish them to.  A New World Order is being created in the AWI at present.  For the most part, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th generation family owned wine companies are the ones charging ahead.  They have seen all of this before (crashes in the industry) and for the most part are well prepared.  They still offer the consumer a product with integrity- from who owns it, to who makes it, and that their brand cannot be found being trashed in the big supermarkets.   Also on the rise are the wineries who have partnered with importers/distributors on their brand.  These type of relationships give both the winery and the sales partner the confidence to invest additional time, focus and marketing dollars to the brand.  I think it will be very rare moving forward for any new brands to be solely owned from vineyard to the brand.  The capital requirement and risk is simply too high to make it a viable in the ultra competitive world wine market.

 One thing can be certain as we charge into the 2010 harvest.  By the end of this year, we will be operating in a very different market to the one we started the year in.

 Cheers

Tim

If you have an opinion on the subject please feel free to post it here and if you have anything you would like wine makers to answer please feel free to ask.

Dean