May 17th, 2010
This week Ive been racking the 2009 Central Otago Pinot Noir and Waipara Pinot Noir out of barrel and into various tanks, each group of tanks resembling the final composition for the two different regions. 2009 looks to be a very very good year. Im sure most other producers will agree. It is at least as good as ...
May 16th, 2010
A little action from the grape harvest in Waipara over the weekend. A fine day and a harvest crew who masquerade as an operatic choir proved to be an irresistable mix. Not only were the grapes coaxed off the vine to the sounds of Madam Butterfly and the like, the choir, who all hail from Taiwan, brought out their own chef who set up his woks and rice cooker for a midday feast. It was a brilliant day all round. Encore!
May 14th, 2010
Heres a Poetic reminder to all those people out there content to continue consuming cheap. mass market, homogeneous wines without personality. TRY SOMETHING NEW, BE ADVENTUROUS, TAKE A RISK - YOU WILL BE REWARDED...
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN...
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the ...
May 10th, 2010
Ive decided to inoculate half of this years Central Otago Pinot Noir and let the other half 'go wild'. So heres a shot of the yeast bursting back into life from their freeze dried state. You just add them to a little warm water (35-40C) and some sugar (in the form of grape juice) and it doesnt take long for them to get active. Once ...
May 9th, 2010
Busy time of year this. Not only is the 2010 harvest in full swing, it is also the time to start assembling the 2009 Pinot Noirs. Bottling date is scheduled for around 4 weeks time so I need to start sniffing, swirling and spitting my way through all of the barrels to get and idea about the final blend of each wine. Also ...
May 6th, 2010
Riveting action direct from the Sandihurst Winery cellar. Its the fermentation lock of Mike Browns Riesling doing its thing. This wine is part of the 2010 NZ Riesling Challenge. 12 Winemakers from around the country were invited to take part. They each received 4 tonnes of Riesling grapes from The Mound vineyard in Waipara and were instructed to make a wine in any style they wished. The resulting wines will be judged and then assembled to be sold as part of a ...
May 5th, 2010
Pre fermentation Central Otago Pinot Noir, macerating/soaking, in order to extract the best colour from the skins. The fruit was harvested last Sunday and brought up from the vineyard to the winery in a refrigerated truck the same day. Each clone of Pinot Noir was kept separate and destemmed into 1.5 tonne open top fermenters. The coldness of the fruit together with a little SO2 combines to hold off the ...
May 4th, 2010
In terms of grapes picked we are definitely on the home stretch now. Most grapes have now been picked and processed. Pinot Noirs from Waipara and Central Otago are in, Riesling and Pinot Gris from Waipara are also in and in varying stages of fermentation. There is just a little Riesling left on the vine and, from my own patch, a little Syrah. Another week ...
April 30th, 2010
Heres what you will be drinking around Christmas time this year. Looking nothing like the finished product it will soon become, here is our 2010 Waipara Riesling. On the 'dog years' scale of winemaking its just a teenager, full of youthful exuberance and in need of a little guidance, direction and discipline before maturing wonderfully into the type of adult we always hoped it would.
April 28th, 2010
One of the issues with Riesling is knowing where you want the final balance of the wine to end up. Here we see the fermentation, having started life as juice of around 21 Brix is now down to just over 3. This equates to a residual sugar level of about 40g/L. Not bad considering that it started off with just over 200g/L (nearly twice the amount of Coke! - YES, ...
A native of Christchurch, and a curious wanderer of distant shores, Kirk’s talent for beautiful wines can, at least in part, be attributed to his dark decade in chartered accountancy. There, amongst the spreadsheets, columns and rows, Kirk is said to have developed the finely-tuned attention to detail he was later to apply to Sandihurst’s advantage.
It was following a culturally eye-opening period in Europe and Asia that Kirk experienced the moment of truth that was to drive him to abandon his pinstripes and retrain. He had tasted life, French pastries and dim sum and now he wanted more. So, roll up his neatly pressed sleeves he did. Enlightened and decidedly un-accountant-like, Kirk then took his new-found talents to California and Germany’s Pfalz where he refined his vinous skills and gained further invaluable experience. And a family. Finally, and after several happy years, the lure of New Zealand proved too strong to resist, and Kirk returned home and into the veritable arms of Sandihurst Winery.
Artist and alchemist, whilst Kirk’s Mr Nice Guy persona belies a dry wit and wicked laugh, his genius knows only modesty. When he declares his wine to be “okay”, it’s time to bank another medal.
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