By Dan Coward
Small Ferments
The vintage at St Hallett is firing along on all cylinders. And that’s a lot of cylinders, believe me! For St Hallett, part of the skill is juggling an extremely lively tank schedule with such a range of fruit sources and picking schedules. When Stuart Blackwell meets me at the door he cuts straight to the chase and tells me that for Chris and Toby the absolute key is fermenter capacity planning and team communication as everything will and does change on a daily basis. There are no recipes as vintages always brings new challenges and the focus on individual sites means you have to adjust constantly to get the best each year. In a nutshell, if they’re all full and pumping along then you know the team is making the right decisions and that when it comes to blending time you are going to be in great shape with lots of different, separately fermented parcels to work with. The tank forecast works one week in advance and a quick tour of the winery later on confirms that pretty much anything without holes in it gets called into action to ferment different parcels: an empty hogshead or barrique will do just nicely thank you!
Fermanter plan
Such is the expertise of the team here and the slickness of the operation that winemaker Toby spends four days a week in the vineyards. He knows his winery team are on top of things and it’s his responsibility to make all the right decisions about picking. “The gap between exceptional and good isn’t very much, and a day here or there can make all the difference” says Stuart, who also likens the vintage operation to a top class restaurant kitchen, such is the early morning pursuit of quality ingredients at the market and the pressure to make the best of them.
As in other parts of South Australia, vintage 2010 is well ahead of what was once considered usual, but it is in line with the previous couple of years. Weather patterns seem to have shifted with a hotter December and January now meaning that the fruit comes along much faster. This isn’t a problem for Shiraz which likes to ripen quickly and in a linear fashion. When I was there at the start of March, they were just starting to pick the premium Shiraz areas like Greenock, Seppeltsfield, Lyndoch and Williamstown. Cooler areas like the Eden Valley will come a bit later.
Toby spends four days a week in the vineyard
St Hallett aspires to blend experience and evolution. There is lots of history here and Stuart’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the valley ensures that not an ounce of experience or cunning goes wasted. Alongside that, the young team in the winery understands and respects where St Hallett has come from but doesn’t try to work to any rigid schedule. Challenge is welcomed and trials and experimentation are the order of the day. What you end up with is an exploration of all the variety of the Barossa vine growing area and a young team that is happy to work with the natural idiosyncrasies, rather than against them. The by-product of this small batch system is that an in-depth picture of every different grower’s fruit and vineyard blocks (even down to the row) is built up over time, meaning that the grower is paid the right amount and is motivated to keep high standards every year. Without these relationships, St Hallett would be lost.
Tags: Australia, Baross, Harvest diary, Shiraz, St Hallett
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by bibendumtimes: News from the Barossa Valley! Another brilliant update by @up_shiraz from the harvest at St Hallett http://bit.ly/bFCUDW...