With a couple of weeks left of harvest 2010, and rather strange thunderstorm conditions outside, Fairview winemaker Anthony de Jager gave me his thoughts on the harvest to date.
As I mentioned in one of the videos that we did prior to the harvest, we had a really good ripening period and lead up to the harvest. The end of January and beginning of February was also cool and moderate, so the grapes had plenty of time for steady ripening.
The harvest started very smoothly and we began to bring grapes in during the last week of January. This year we decided to make a conscious effort to try and bring grapes in a little earlier, as we are very aware of the alcohol levels in South African wines, and the pressure to bring them down to reasonable levels. A concerted effort in the vineyard meant that the earlier grapes were showing good phenolic ripeness at harvest, with sugars at around 22 degrees balling.
We have made more extensive use of our machine harvester in the Fairview vineyards this year, which has allowed us to start very early in the morning (around 4am). This has made a very positive impact on the workflow in the cellar during the day. I also feel that the effect of the machine harvester is showing in the wines, but more about them later.
The vineyards hot up
During the third week of February, we started to see forecasts for some very hot weather coming up and we stepped up the efforts on our larger white wine plantings – the Sauvignon Blanc in Darling, as well as the Viognier in Paarl. By Friday the 19th we had managed to bring virtually all of our white grapes in, with the last of the Viognier coming in early on the 20th, as the heat arrived. We had also brought in a lot of Shiraz and Pinotage by that time, including our single vineyard Shirazes from the Eenzaamheid, Jakkalsfontein and The Beacon sites.
From the 20th of February, until yesterday (8th of March) we have had a heat surge. Temperatures have rarely dipped below 34 degrees and we have had a good few days in the 40s. From what I have heard, this past Sunday was the hottest day in Paarl since 1993, with temperatures touching 47 degrees in some places!
The heat meant that the sugars began to rise and we needed to work quickly to bring in the grapes from the Fairview farm. This saw a lot of grapes arrive at the cellar at the beginning of the following week. There are only ‘so many’ tanks in the cellar so we had a real logistical balancing act on our hands to make sure that we were able to accommodate the fruit that was arriving. Luckily we have a good team and I think that we handled things well. The early start to the work day helped a lot.
We were fortunate in that we have vineyards in four different areas and not all were as affected by the heat wave. Our Stellenbosch vineyards are a bit earlier than usual, but not significantly, and the last of the red varietals at Darling were also not overly ripe. My only concern at this stage would be the very last of the Bordeaux varietals from Stellenbosch, but time will tell how the heat affected them.
Awareness of energy usage during harvest
One of the biggest users of energy in the cellar is our cooling plants which are required to keep the tank temperatures low during the start of fermentation. With our increased use of the machine harvester we have been receiving our grapes a lot cooler, which has meant reduced energy usage for cooling. Unfortunately the heat wave meant that we have not been able to cut our energy usage as much as we had aimed, but it has remained more or less the same.
We also purchased a new additional mechanical harvester for use at our Darling vineyards. This harvester incorporates a berry sorter in the machine which removes the storks and petioles from the grapes. These can often add a stemmy, green character to wines, and the initial indications are that these have been avoided, which should allow the wine to really show the fruit flavours.
A first impression of the wines
Winemakers always seem to say the vintage is looking great, but I really do feel as though it is! The Sauvignon Blancs are looking very good. They don’t have the explosive aromatics of the 2009s but there is even better mouthfeel, and palate weight in the 2010s. I think that this can be attributed to a combination of improved canopy management, the maturing vineyard and of course the cool conditions of the harvest. The Chenin Blanc is amazing – watch that wine!
On the red side, I think that the early Pinotages are possibly some of the best that I have seen from this farm. Soft, supple tannins and rich fruit, but none of that jammy overripe character. They promise to be lovely, elegant wines.
My pick of the 2010s that we have seen so far looks to be The Beacon Shiraz. Of course this wine still has quite a way to go, and will be heading to barrels this afternoon. I am really looking forward to seeing how that develops over the next year.
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Tags: Anthony de Jager, Fairview, harvest, Paarl, weather, Wines
