It is a very wet Marlborough day today, so I don’t imagine much pruning is going on. As I mentioned last week, the only things going on in the vineyard at the moment are pruning and maintence. Pruning is probably the most important time of the year as it gets the vines set up for the growing season coming. The vines are fully dormant so are not affected by the wet or cold weather, in fact the water is good to increase the moisture in the soil.
As it has been a wet morning, Simon has been in the office, so he was able to give me a run down on what is going on in the winery at the moment. All of the 2010 vintage wines are still in the winery, the Pinot Grigio is to be filtered today, this is to remove any traces of yeast and colloids and to make the wine clear and bright. We are hoping to get this wine bottled this month, as it has been so popular and all been allocated (we still have a wee bit left that we are supplying restaurants with).
The Sauvignon Blanc has been blended and is looking good, it has a nice minerality, and is a fuller wine than in previous years. It still has to be cold stabilised to make the tartrate crystals fall out, so the wine is stable, and can be stored for extended periods of time at cool temperatures. The Pinot Noir is still in barrel maturing, and is several months away before it will be taken out and blended, though it is already showing bright cherry and plum notes, and has a nice weight.
This time of year is busy in the winery and office, as wines are being finished, bottling dates secured, and I have to keep on top of our allocations to make sure we don’t run of out of a wine before the next vintage is ready.
In between all of this, I attended a NZ winegrowers seminar a couple of weeks ago, one of the presentations that was very useful was a social media one, again highlighting the importance of being online and available to talk to all of you, and to be talked to and about! A lot of different applications and social media tools were also talked about, one in particular that stood out to me was an application that you could attach to your face book page to allow you to buy wine online through facebook. For more information go to www.yourwineyourway.com and to check out how to buy our wine online click on this link http://bit.ly/bWDSlN
For those of you that are interested, there is still a little bit left of the 2008 Durvillea Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc which is drinking really well, so make sure you get yourself some before it all runs out!
Sophie