Balsamico

This year the secret project has been to start up a balsamic vinegar line. The Italians call the series of progressively-smaller barrels the vinegar moves through a batteria or battery. This is a sequence of five or six, give or take, barrels, getting smaller as you move through the series & liquid evaporates. My first sequence starts with a 50 litre oak barrel. In a year, the balsamic will be moved to a 40 litre barrel, then 30, 20, 10 & 5 litres for the 6th year.

Where 'normal' wine vinegar starts with wine, which then acetifies courtesy of acetobacter converting alcohol to acetic acid, traditional balsamic is a different pathway. Instead of starting with grape juice fermented to wine, the start point with balsamic (most of the time, not counting the commercial, short-cuts processes) is unfermented grape juice that is cooked out over flame to make musto cotto. Reduced to about half of the starting volume by the slow boiling process, the cooled must is settled & transferred to barrel, along with a small amount of gluconobacter culture (a story in itself). Unless you already happen to have some balsamic & bacteria in the bottom of that barrel already.

Gluconobacter are a group of bacteria sometimes found in combination with types of acetobacter, but they operate quite differently. Where acetobacter eat alcohol to make vinegar, gluconobacter eat some kinds of sugars while they make acid. So no alcoholic fermentation needed in the traditional balsamic process.

From hand-picking sauvignon blanc grapes from Quarry Hill, to foot-crushing & basket-pressing the fruit, then settling & filtering the juice, cooking it out in my 92 litre stainless steel pot on a heavy-duty metal frame wok-burner over a couple of days to make the musto cotto... it has been a fascinating learning process. Not least about the hazards of do it yourself gas fitting.

Now the hard part. Staying hands-off that little barrel & let the gluconobacter do the work, racking & transferring down the line once a year. In six years time, perhaps something good. Though traditional balsamico from Modena takes 12 years...

The image above is a close shot of some of the 32 jets on the Mongolian wok burner, with the 92 litre stainless steel pot of must cooking out on top. Beautiful to watch at night, if a bit noisy from the air-mixing Venturi effect the system uses (sounds a little like a jet engine when it gets going).

Risotto, for dry white wine

I've been trying out some food combinations for the new 2011 Quarry Hill North Block dry white, which is a blend of savagnin and sauvignon blanc. This risotto worked really well - with the wine picking up the pea and pea pod characters in the dish.

Take enough fresh peas, in the pod, to produce about a cup of shelled peas. While shelling, soak a half-handful of dried porcini in hot water. Add the pea pods, the porcini and soaking water to some vegetable stock and simmer. While the stock is simmering, cut some pancetta into small pieces and sweat in olive oil until they have gone half-brown and a little crisp. Add rice (I used carnaroli, but arborio would be fine) and stir over heat for a few minutes until the rice has taken up the oil. Add dry white wine, bubble away and then start to ladle in stock, a ladle at a time, with a bit of stirring and shaking of the pan as you go.

When the rice is about 3/4 done, you'll have used most of the stock and can fish the porcini out and add to the risotto pot (keep the pods for the worm farm). Add the fresh peas for the last couple of minutes of the cooking time, remove from heat, stir in butter and grated parmesan, adjust the seasoning and let stand, covered, for five minutes. Stir and serve with a little more cheese and perhaps some flat-leaf parsley, and white wine.

This is a fairly robust risotto, with some brown colours from the porcini & cooking of the pancetta, that set off well against the green of the fresh peas. While a sangiovese could also pair up, a white wine with a bit of herb or grassy characters can pick up the peas and pea pods, as well as cut against the smooth, rich textures of the rice. A Soave, or other garganega based wine, would also be worth a try.

'Noble' grapes

I attended the 7th ANU Wine Symposium yesterday, which continues with Canberra District vineyard and winery tours today, concluding with a gala dinner tonight at which James Halliday is the after dinner speaker. The speakers at the symposium included Brian Croser talking riesling, Dan Buckle from Mt Langhi Ghiran talking shiraz, Nick Stock on why alternative varieties aren't a path to great wine, Libbie Tassie on alternative varieties suited to Australian regions and an excellent presentation on climate change (Andy Pitman).

Lots to think about and discuss, including content relevant to Italian grapes and wines in Australia. But to start, a few comments on some ideas threading through the day, as well as through discussions out of session. Brian Walsh from Yalumba tugged at some of the inconsistencies of wine thinking, especially that the arguments valuing single site wines of 'terroir' often advocate avoiding winemaking interventions that efface diversity, yet also hold that those single sites should be managed for consistency (rather than diverse expression across that single site, or over time). So managing for consistency to express vineyard terroir, then swinging round to avoiding managing for consistency in the winery to also express vineyard terroir.

Threading through some of the day, especially conversations I had out of session, were continuing ideas that some grapes are 'noble'. This can be an inherent claim to nobility (the genetic argument), a claim that only some grapes have made 'great wine' (the historical argument), and a muddy two-step starting with the idea that great wine is basically French wine so therefore the noble French grapes are the path to making great wine.

For me, when people argue for terroir expression as how great wines are made (akin to Andrew Jefford's 'wines of place' category) and argue that only some grapes are 'noble', there is a rift through the middle of their arguments. If great terroirs and wines are found and made through a lengthy process of trial and attunement, surely the starting point can be the broadest possible set of grape varieties capable of optimal expression of that terroir? Wouldn't starting with a small set of 'noble' grapes to try against and within a terroir actually reduce your chances of finding best fit?

My own small experience since 2005 has been that at Quarry Hill sauvignon blanc is less of a good fit that savagnin; shiraz a better fit in most seasons than pinot noir. The 'noble' grape thinking, for this specific site, has to me effaced what's positive and distinctive about our terroir. The ignoble, here, speak more clearly. Perhaps this means we can never produce 'great wine'?

[The Francophile list of 'noble grapes' is usually riesling, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon & merlot. If the categorical belt goes out a notch, nebbiolo, sangiovese (Brunello mode) and shiraz might sneak in.]

Vin santo

I have been working on a vin santo (ish) trial project for a while now. In 2010, savagnin fruit from our 2006 plantings at Quarry Hill were allowed to ripen a little further than for a crisp, dry table wine. The grapes, still with sound skins and good acid, were transferred to wooden drying racks, which were then stacked into wheeled towers. Half a ton of fruit made two drying stacks.

The fruit took a couple of months to dry, with regular checks, rack by rack, to remove any grapes that looked dodgy (an especial eye for sour rots). Drying rates were checked against a series of tagged sample bunches, weighed periodically through the drying.

The final dried weight of the fruit had dropped by around 45%, which is probably a bit too far. I would try 30%-35% next time (as I did in my 2007 trial of drying sagrantino). The dried fruit was then crushed by feet before being bucketed into the tiny manual basket press above. The acid, honey and raisined juice was given some time to settle before being racked to ferment.

So far, much of the techniques used were as common to French vin de paille wines as they are to Italian vin santo. The next step was to both ferment and age the thick juice (27 baume) in an oxidative environment. Lacking the small, cigar-shaped caratelli barrels used for much vin santo, I used two small plastic fermenters and then into glass demi-john for conditioning - both vessels with significant headspace, as with vin santo.

The wine took about 10 months to slowly tick through a ferment in ambient conditions, no heating or cooling. It has been racked twice, some off-spec juice discarded, and all remaining 44 litres of it now need a final tidying up before bottle.

So does it taste like vin santo, or a French vin de paille, or something else entirely? Tasting it earlier this month, I'd have to say bits of all three. Depending on how it negotiates the last steps to bottle, there could be half bottles of something distinctive to sell, or even give away. This has certainly whetted my appetite for looking deeper into Italian vin santo, as well as helping appreciate the work involved in taking half a ton of fresh grapes into 40-odd litres of finished wine.

Picking savagnin at Quarry Hill

Savagnin was planted at Quarry Hill in 2006. Thought at the time to be 'real' albarino, it has since looked well-suited to the site. A tiny amount of fruit was picked in 2009 for a micro-ferment of 27 litres. In 2010, more fruit (most rack-dried to make an experimental dessert wine, some off to Brian Schmidt at Maipenrai).

For vintage 2011, the savagnin vines were cane-pruned back to 6-8 buds per cane, with double or tirple buds flicked out by hand. Later in the season, the vines were shoot-thinned to control yield but also to shape the canopy and ensure good airflow in this wet year.

Picking happened on Monday March 7, along with the sauvignon blanc, and the savagnin plantings provided 2.4 tonnes of good quality fruit. Tasting the fruit at picking, then the juice from the press that evening, the main impressions were of citrus and crunching through a green-skinned apple.

So from planting vines in the winter of 2006, we should have a dry, textural new white wine available around August 2011. It's important not to rush these things.

Spring in the vineyard

I quite like some of the dancing forms and shapes you can see in young vine shoots. This is a nine year old shiraz vine, taken tonight in the early evening.

The grafted sagrantino is waking up more slowly than everything else in the vineyard. The 2006 plantings of tempranillo and savagnin are all showing good early growth on those cane-pruned vines.
This photograph shows early shoot and leaf growth in the cane-pruned savagnin; looking like a good set of possible bunches.

Planting grenache and cinsault

At Quarry Hill, we are part of the way through removing a struggling block of pinot noir and converting it to a planting of mixed varieties that will produce a red Rhone blend.

The photograph shows the use of an about-to-fail planting spear from our grenache planting session last Saturday. Four rows of BVRC38 clone grenache sourced from Elite Nursery in the Barossa went in, with four more to go next weekend. We have also planted two rows of cinsault (old vine selections), and prepared a row for grafting to roussanne. This is on top of the initial grenache planting at the top of the hill we put in in 2009.

When completed, the block will supply grenache, shiraz (Great Western clone), cinsault and roussanne. With a planting of mataro/mourvedre going in below the 2006 plantings of tempranillo, we should have the makings of a decent volume of a hopefully good red Rhone blend.

Blind tasting of 23 Canberra District shiraz from the 2009 vintage

Last night I got to do a fascinating horizontal blind tasting of 23 Canberra District shiraz wines from the 2009 vintage. First, a big thanks to Len Sorbello and the Winewise crew for putting this on. I won't post scores, and will wait until Winewise publishes before I make specific comments on particular wines, but it was a fascinating exercise. I thought the idea of a wine publication conducting a horizontal tasting, but inviting winemakers and growers involved in producing the wines to come along and participate, was a really good one, and not something I have seen before. Seeing the similarities and differences in fruit flavours and aromas across sub-regions, makers and styles was eye-opening for me. Thankfully, I could pick the Quarry Hill wine out of the blind lineup. It is a strong vintage for Canberra, including for shiraz, with the average standard of the wines high.

We tasted, in order of serving, not any ranking or scoring:
1 2009 Lerida Estate Shiraz
2 2009 Capital Wines Frontbencher Shiraz (Tank Sample)
3 2009 Brindabella Hills Shiraz (Tank Sample)
4 2009 Lambert Vineyards Shiraz
5 2009 Quarry Hill Shiraz
6 2009 Mount Majura Shiraz (Tank Sample)
7 2009 Eden Road The Long Road Shiraz (60% Canberra)
8 2009 Collector Reserve Shiraz
9 2009 Dionysus Winery Murrumbateman Shiraz
10 2009 Bourke Street Shiraz
11 2009 Capital Wines Kyeema Reserve Shiraz (Tank Sample)
12 2009 Nick O’Leary Shiraz
13 2009 Lark Hill Shiraz Viognier
14 2009 Alinga Shiraz
15 2009 Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier
16 2009 Dionysus Winery Estate Shiraz
17 2009 Collector Marked Tree Red Shiraz
18 2009 Lerida Estate Shiraz Viognier
19 2009 Long Rail Gully Shiraz
20 2009 Jeir Creek Shiraz
21 2009 McKellar Ridge Basket Press Shiraz Viognier
22 2009 Clonakilla O'Riada Shiraz
23 2009 Ravensworth Shiraz Viognier

Well done Winewise for doing this, and Frank Van de Loo from Mount Majura for hosting. Made me feel lucky to be involved in Canberra District wine.

Not Sicilian pasta

Hardly the traditional Sicilian sardine pasta, but this went well tonight with pinot noir of the acid/tannin/structure variety (Quarry Hill 2008 pinot noir to be precise).

Take half a bulb of Florence fennel, dice it fine and sweat off in olive oil with a little salt (add some garlic near the end). While the fennel cooks slowly, soak some sultanas (could also use currants) in marsala (I used a dry marsala). Take some good bread, for me it was two small slices from the end of a Knead sourdough, blitz to crumb in a food processor, spread on an oven tray, sprinkle with olive oil and roast off in the oven until the crumbs go mid to dark brown. Spread on a plate to cool off the pangrattato.

Cook off some oricchiette (ear pasta) and when nearly done, add to the fennel around 8 chopped anchovies, the drained sultanas and a bit of something green (I used a bit of leftover cooked english spinach) for colour, plus some of the pasta cooking water. Toss the drained pasta through the sauce over very low heat until it takes up some of the liquid. When on the plate, top generously with the pangrattato and enjoy with something crisp and acidic to cut against the oil and earthy flavours.

Fog lifting at Quarry Hill

Walked through the vineyard this morning with Mark Terrell and Shane Hackett. Shane was there to look at the fate of the grafting he did last Spring, and take new budwood for further grafting. It was a very foggy morning, with heavy dew. Though we are about to go into the second week of winter, the vineyard is not yet fully dormant. This is especially the case with the younger vines, such as the grenache rootlings planted in 2009, some of which still had active tip growth. Shane took budwood from the 2006 tempranillo plantings, and the grafted sangiovese and sagrantino. The photo is of the fog lifting, looking across sauvignon blanc (left front) down to savagnin, sangiovese and tempranillo. The block on the right starts with 1999 plantings of pinot right at the top, then shiraz, until some grafted tempranillo and sagrantino at the bottom.