By the Huia Crew, http://www.huia.net.nz/
Huia winery
Vintage at Huia has been its usual hectic pace. Every year begins for us at pruning with expectation and anticipation building over the next 11 months. The weather during this past season has been unusual. Spring brought us a mix of very hot and sunny days, with some long cold wet periods in between. Flowering was good on Pinot noir and Chardonnay, but unsettled weather over flowering reduced the crop level in Sauvignon Blanc. As summer progressed temperatures remained below average. It was not until later in February that things started to warm up. Since then we have had the most wonderful weather, clear dry days with light winds. The effect has been to keep our yields quite low to produce some of the cleanest, most aromatic fruit we have seen for a number of years.
Vintage usually starts for us with a bubbly pick. We try to time our harvests according to the biodynamic calendar. This year was no exception and we harvested some crisp chardonnay for our 2010 Blanc de Blancs. You can buy a bottle in about 4 or so years time when its’ ready!
The next fruit into the Huia winery was Pinot noir. We have harvested Pinot from three key geographic regions in Wairau Valley this year. There are 5 different vineyards, three almost side by side up the Brancott Valley, around 18 separate blocks and over 9 different clones. Yields have been quite low despite a reasonable flowering in Pinot noir, so the flavours in the vineyard have been really intense.
One of the most exciting Pinot Noir vineyards this year is a steeply sloping hillside vineyard in the Brancott Valley which has produced some stellar fruit. The only problem was that the rows are so narrow and the vines so low to the ground that we had to virtually crawl up the rows to hand pick the fruit. Have pity on the 5 six-foot tall German backpackers who came to help out! It was worth it though. Our Pinots are all nearly through ferment now with a couple of the parcels pressed off and in barrel. The rest are being pressed off ready for settling and racking to barrel. Watch video below to see the grapes pressed off and fermentation tanks cleaned with Mr. Hendrix’s kind support.
We ferment the Pinot Noir in vineyard blocks as they ripen and are picked. The separate clones within vineyards tend to ripen simultaneously. The grapes are all hand-picked and destemmed into tank to soak and ferment. Once ferment is finished and the caps start to move the wine is drained from the tanks. The doors are opened to vent the carbon dioxide fermentation gas, then we get in and push the grape skins, seeds and yeast out of the tanks into the bins. Each tank is pressed separately to keep each clonal set and vineyard separate. This allows greater choice at blending, expressing the individual vineyard terrior.
Tags: Harvest News Huia, Huia, Marlborough, new zealand, pinot noir
Top post guys. I so want to taste the component parts of the Pinot. Will you bottle some bottles seaparately, then come and give a Pinot masterclass in the uk?