Fingerprinting Wine

Scientists now have the ability to fingerprint wine and can tell where the grapes were produced to make the wine. This dispels the myth that wine has no sense of place and that terroir didn’t exist.

Terroir is about the environment in which the grapes were grown which means soil and season.

If one is able to detect terroir traces in wine it must therefore soak up the nutrients from the soil. This is what the wine purists have always thought but big industrialist’s have disputed.

Once and for all, don’t drink shit wine that doesn’t have a fingerprint and mass produced crap that you get from Montana etc.  

Posted via email from Jayson's posterous

Chateau Brown Pessac-Leognan Bordeaux

‘What a great job I have of tasting wine all day’ is the comment I hear most. To be honest it is a damn fine job until you taste some crap wine or crap wine all day! Then the job is transformed into what a poor job I have to make sure that the consumer doesn’t have to go through what I have just been through.

Tasting good wine is an experience, and as Wine Vault TV grows so does the experience of tasting good wine.
I had the fortune of tasting two fine wines from the same Chateau on Saturday and this is where the description ‘Great Job’ is applied.

The Chateau Brown 1998 from Pessac-Leognan was still youthful in both its colour and bouquet and on the palate. There were hints of lime, rubber footwear, and apricot with a splash of lemon on the nose and a textural experience that one seeks but seldom finds in new world white wine.

The Chateau Brown 2002 was slightly troubled and represented the vintage down to a T. The vintage was hard for the fruit and winery staff with the prolonged cold and frost with poor fruit set and wet summer topped off by a colder but more stable August and September. These final 2 months were its’ saving grace. The wine tasted slightly botrytised with hints of honey, lemon, lime and apricots and the nose slightly dull compared to the youthful 1998. The palate was very satisfying but still lacked the charisma of the ’98, overall it was great to taste wines that sang a song of the vintage rather than industrial wine that sings the same song each year.

I hope that Marlborough sings a different song each year from now on!

Danger! What are we doing to our National Grape?

After a recent visit to Marlborough It still leaves me staggering at what we, as a wine producing country, are doing to the grape varietal that put us on the World Wine Map.

We are in danger of losing out to the competition, for countries like Chile are able to adopt our techniques, Yeasts, and winemakers to reproduce Marlborough Styled Sauvignon Blanc at half the price.

Let’s look at the facts that support the decision to harness our reputation and make better wine.

The average Vineyard/winery wage is $18 vs $4 for the average wage in Chile. This allows wineries to hand pick fruit or machine harvest for even greater margin or lower price. We have made Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc to a recipe which allows other countries to copy and for cheaper. The irrigation that is allowed on New Zealand vineyards dilutes the effect of Terroir and then we machine harvest thus increasing the need to add more Sulphur Dioxide to stop the grapes from oxidising and starting to ferment on route to the winery.

Then we fine and filter the wine thus removing more of the natural character of the grape and then start the fermentation off with a cultured yeast.

The cultured yeast is available for all to buy and therefore our competitors in this ever so hard market.

Given our isolation we should be making a premium wine and something that resembles Sauvignon Blanc not an industrial chemical with a taste so homogenous that it is easy to replicate year after year.

It is time to get back to where we started and make better wine, not the same, but better.

There are some wineries that are championing the cause of terroir expression but not enough to sustain New Zealand’s image overseas.

The cost of NZ Sauvignon Blanc remains high overseas but when a Marlborough Styled wine from Chile can be bought for a quarter of the price who isn’t going to look at a spending reduction on a luxury item?

Please leave a comment.

Patterned Bottles for New Zealand Wine Bottles

I truly believe that the time is upon us to start marketing Martinborough Pinot Noir as it should be. The region needs to pull together and start working as one rather than in competition with each other.

To start with I would design a bottle that all Martinborough Vineyards would use, thus reducing the cost. I would put a pattern on the bottle like they do in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. This gives the consumer a bottle that is easily recognisable and looks trustworthy.

I would then create a Waiarapa sub region group and employ the same tactics throughout Gladstone etc. Sharing the knowledge reduces the overall cost of implementation and dis-inhibits  the winery from spending money. By making sub-regions and marketing them properly the region could grow and overtake Central Otago Pinot Noir sales.

With a little bit of thought the region could see their Pinot Noir become a best seller like their competitors in Central Otago. They have marketed themselves as a group and taken their wines to the world.

Start small and then grow. So start with the bottle design and labelling then move to other regions. Make the wine 100% Martinborough fruit and thus increasing the integrity of the region.

This same business model could be implemented in any of the viticultural regions and see sales increase. So take the lead and start a new and exciting challenge. I know that most New Zealand wineries see each other as competition but working together for the region will pay off.

Your challenge is to do it!

Oliver Driver of TV3 on Wine Vault TV

www.thewinevault.co.nz

Regional Styles for New Zealand Wines

Time has come, it is here!

The time and need for regional styles of wine throughout New Zealand. I have been retailing for a while and each day I get asked about certain wines and what they are like.

Usually the questions about taste and residual sugar relate to Riesling and Pinot Gris. The question most commonly asked is ‘How sweet is this wine?’. People are beginning to want to know, especially if they are shopping in stores where help is minimal or even non-existent, about the wine style.

I am sure it would benefit all wine producers, and thus increase in sales, if customers knew what style of wine they were getting.
I would love to see off-dry Riesling coming from Central Otago, Dry Riesling from Martinborough and sweet styles from Marlborough or something like that.

Pinot Gris also suffers at the hand of indecision within the consumer so they buy another wine or no wine at all.

Come on New Zealand don’t be afraid to regionalise the wines that we already produce. I am sure you would see greater sales in all areas if there were some regional styles.

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