Pinophiles Part 5: Wooing Tree

Out Of Madeira? We've Got Just The Thing

Our last stop in Central Otago was Wooing Tree, its namesake being the almost-controversially-removed Oak (?) dotting the vineyard's nucleus (under which several Otago natives claim to have been conceived.) While our first four visits were confined to cellar door tasting rooms, Wooing Tree's viticultural foreman Geoff Bews marched us out amongst the vines for a up-close crash course on Pinot plants.  The first "ah-hah!" moment was Geoff's explaining the wiring system employed at most cool-climate vineyards.  Instead of letting the branches flare out naturally, farmers will weave the vines into a row-long loom of wires.  This is called VSP, or "Vertical Shoot Positioning"; it facilitates airflow throughout the vineyard and concentrates growth to the fruit bearing shoots by exposing the heart of the plant to more sunlight.

Before the jump and more technicality...for whatever reason Wooing Tree inspired Cael, Rick, and Scott to spontaneously "Erin Warner":

Bubble's Depot

West Baltimore's #1 Champagne Grower/Distributor

Professor Carleigh penciled in an ace for our bubbly class/tasting: Master of Wine (http://www.mastersofwine.org/) Steve Charters: France's resident Champagne connoisseur.  Layer Charter's poetically contemptuous British accent onto his encyclopedic Champagne knowledge and what do you get?  A meaty sparkling wine blog with insider info worthy of Bud Fox.

Champagne is about 100 miles east and a tad north of Paris, according to Steve it's about as far north as you can go and still find well-grown sparkling wine grapes.  Reims and Epernay are the commercial hubs; grapes grow on the region's remaining farmable acres.  Google maps "Reims" and look to its Northeast countryside...seriously.  "Why...so....serious?!''- Heath Ledger.  Because for one, it's the ideal setting for growing sweet, acidic renditions of the 3 sparkling wine grapes: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Mernier (more on the second reason later).  Champagne's cool, slow, long summer ripening period is this perfection's scientific explanation.

For some comic relief before the rest of bubbly and the jump, I offer the following exchange between Scott and Carleigh at our aromatics tasting:

Dr. Carleigh: "What do you think the Austrians put in their wine, besides sugar, to replace the lack of alcohol from fermentation?"

Scott: "Sugar."

Dr. Carleigh: "No, The correct answer is antifreeze."

Old Spice Women's Division: Meet Your New Female Spokesperson

A photo blog of Aussie Kim at the final a few weeks ago (all my lampooning aside, she's a wicked awesome athlete: great sport who played an excellent match) -

Set 1 - First Serve - Pits running at full speed

Final Serve - It's like MJ's vitiligo, might as well splash some water on the neckline and go 100% coverage.

Biff Tannins

              

                 

Don't confuse Biff Tannen (L) with tannin (R), he might just choke you

FINALLY, after three weeks of tasting white wines we've moved on to reds.  As our first day tasting reds, we began with a discussion of tannin.  Most of us had never heard of it, but we all know what it is.  You know that a wine has tannins when after a sip your mouth puckers up and you’re left with have a dry, rough feeling.  You'll almost inevitably run your tongue over your teeth.  It’s not a good thing.

But what causes it?  Tannins are a natural preservative found in the leaves, stems, and seeds of grapes.  They can also be found in oak barrels (particularly new ones) used for storing/aging wine.  They give red wine its color, structure, body, and age. Some grapes (thin-skinned grapes and those grown in hotter climates) have more tannin than others and, obviously, some wines (younger wines and those that have had more contact with oak) have more than others.  As a wine ages, the tannins crystallize and stick to the side of the bottle and are left behind after you pour.  They also manifest themselves in the deposits left behind in the bottom of a bottle of red wine. 

In attempt to perfect tannin levels, vineyards try to harvest their grapes at the optimal ripeness.  Wineries can manipulate the extract of tannin through different maceration techniques (maceration is the term for the process by which a winery keeps the skins, seeds, and stems in contact with the juice during fermentation in order to extract their color and flavor).  Maceration creates some chemical reaction that reduces tannin (sorry, that’s all I’ve got on that; I think I got a B- in 10^th grade chemistry).

Vino after the jump

Pinophiles Part 4: Rockburn Vineyard

Formerly the 3 hectare Hay's Lake started in 1991 as Richard Bunton's hobby, Rockburn now has 40+ hectares of vines and is the first brand we visited that exports to the states.  Contrary to the more rugged terroir of our first 3 visits, at Rockburn, it's business time.  As you can see by their cellar door paddock (located off-site...we never saw the actual vineyard), they are new school.

Our host was winemaker Malcolm Francis, pictured behind the above countertop's queue of glasses who looks like a mulleted Kip Dynamite.  Please, please visit Rockburn's team homepage for a closer picture of Francis (http://www.rockburn.co.nz/team.html), who boasts a second claim to fame as the inspiration for one of the title characters on this classic late 90's toon - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinky_and_the_Brain.

We only tasted two wines:

'07 Parkburn Riesling - $20NZ, 12.5% alc: I'd recommend it; this wine wasn't that sweet and had a Pechy/Mango nose with great balance.  While most of Rockburn's wines combine grapes from both the Hayes Lake paddock and the 33 acre Parkburn plot they purchased in 1999, this is the only one made exclusively with grapes from the original plot.  Because Central Otago doesn't get cold enough (< -8 Celsius) for frozen grape harvesting (a sweetening technique), they have to employ other tactics.

'09 Pinot Noir - $45NZ, 14.4% alc: Too many tannins for me (it's young=stronger tannins...more on tannins from Robert in a bit.)  On taste, it had dark cherry and chocolate flavors...Just take it from Malcolm: pinot-noir-vid.html

Stay tuned for our final stop: Wooing Tree

-Trevor

Let's Go Otago

Here we have Dick's recount of our sojourn's first day trip, and a fitting pic of the shark.

The couples decided to rent a car and included shark and I in their plans to go sightseeing.  Trevor wanted to stay home and watch the NFL playoffs on his computer.  Our first stop was the Otago Peninsula: a coastal drive of about 30 mins outside the city.  We went to see albatrosses, yellow-eyed and blue-eyed penguins (unfortunately they do not come out until 945pm) suffice to say we didn't catch any live ones (or dead ones?).  It was incredibly beautiful and looked like what I’d picture Scotland or Ireland to look like.  It was funny because the group was in awe, however, the kiwi’s consider the area we’re in to be the ugly part of NZ.  After bird watching we went to the aquarium which was awful.  We could build a better one in our backyard.  I was thrilled the aquarium was such a bust because it gave me something to make fun of tim for as it was his suggestion.  {Trevor comment - here's something Tim can use to make fun of me}

After the aquarium we went to the larnarch castle.  It was expensive to get in $20, but I felt guilty about not seeing the sugar plantation in Jamaica (my mother's one suggestion during our family trip this past winter that i shot down) so I made everyone do it.  The castle was awesome as is the story behind it.  Wikipedia it to get the full info.  The gardens are unreal and I was very happy we did it.  After the castle we went to St. Claire beach (where shark and I went the night before to see the sunrise).  Very cool part of town, its where all the surfers hang out and has a really neat feel.  We stopped in an outdoor pub and had one pint before returning home.  

- Rick

An Old/New World: Sauvignon Blanc

The first three Pinophile posts pushed this one back in the pipeline, but last Tuesday we dove into some Sauvignon Blanc.  Prior to my departing Chapel Hill, Avy Gravy and I settled into a nice rhythm of scooping up Harris Teeter's coldest bottle of generic Sauvignon Blanc and capping off episodes (seasons...?) of The Wire, so I was eager to learn more about the grape.

A bottle of Sancerre (Stuck-up French AOC appellation for Sauvignon Blanc), and

Roberre (Fed-up Georgian anticipating ETA of his Sauvignon Blanc)

The highlight of the tasting for me was Kris Kringle (Cael Pulitzer to some) coining the adjective "herbalicious" to describe the wines.  After the jump, Sauvignon Blanc.