The 2010 NZ Riesling Challenge…
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 ...
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 ... 
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 ... 
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. 
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 beautiful looking bunch of Riesling grapes from the Georgres Road vineyard in Waipara. Is it ready to harvest ? 
The weather has been amazing up until now, we couldnt have asked for better. But of course it cant last. This week is forecast to be a little unsettled with 2 or 3 days damp or wet weather. We still have some fruit out there on the vine and the task now will be to manage its arrival into the winery in the best possible shape. Too ... 
As if you needed one. Riesling actually goes brilliantly with a lot of Pork dishes. 
Pinot Gris, in all its glory. Harvested by hand a few days ago at 24.5 Brix. But what to do with it ? There seems to some murmuring around both the lack of any defined Pinot Gris style in NZ and the labelling or lack thereof on each bottle which doesnt alert the consumer as to the style they can expect. And fair enough too. Unless you ... 
Punching down - a 2-3-4 times daily occurrence as we attempt to reintroduce the floating 'cap' of skins into the vinous liquid below. The CO2 gas produced as a by-product of fermentation by the yeasts pushes the grape skins to the surface. In our fermenters the cap would easily be strong enough to support the weight of a person, such is the power the ferment. ... 
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.
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