Hawks Nest Wines of NZ

Hawks Nest Wines of NZ
WE are home to Matakana Valley and all looks very green and lush. It is always strange when we come back from the US winter and awake the first AM here in NZ summer. It is daylight at 6 AM and the sun does not go down until almost 9 PM at this time of the year. That is a shock to our systems used to the Jan dark days of Nashville for sure. These long days of summer are what make our grapes grow so well. We caught up with Jeremy or manager yesterday and had a "walk about" at the vineyard. It has been very rainy the last two weeks and it shows with lots of green grass and much foliage on the vines.

What is going on with the grapes now?? The fruit is "set" in the bunches and the green grapes are enlarging. Now is the time that the sun needs to shine directly on the grapes to get them to grown well and to produce health bunches with large full grapes. To get more sunlight to hit the grapes we do leafplucking. We do it by hand (as we do everything here!!) and the photo shows two local girls busy at work removing the large leaves in the lower part of the vine canopy so sunlight can get through to the bunches. As you can see, they do not pluck off the top leaves as they are important for growth of the entire vine and thus health of the plants. By getting the lower third of the large leaves off the vines the grapes are exposed to sun and wind to dry out. Wind access becomes important as more sugar content begins to occurr in the ripening grapes. After rain and with summer humidy the grape bunches need to be able to "breath' to mature and to stay dry to reduce grape skin damage. If we need to spray we now have easy access direct to the ripening grapes and thus can do select targeted low volume spray application that does not harm the vine or the general environment. We can't be spray free but we try hard to only spray when really needed and with minimal volume of chemicals.

The other photo shows the hard work need in the cellar at this time of the year. Constant tasting of our 06 wine in the barrel is required to monitor the progress of the wine. That is our son, Brandon, working hard at the tasting chore!!!! Poor guy. As it gets warmer in Matakana with the summer temperature peak a bit of the wine evaporates and the barrels have to be "topped up" to keep air away from the juice in the barrels. (this is to minimize the wine oxidization) To protect the wine from fungus we have to add a small amount of sulfites. (that is why wine labels carry the statement--"contains sulfites") Since we want a finished quality wine that can be stored for some time so it can age gracefully, we have to do our best to keep the naturally occuring fungus levels very low in the barrels. Nature is the same in humans as well as with grapes. In my old career as a gynecologist I spent much time treating fungus infections in women that were hard to eradicate. Now I have learned that the darn fungus loves sweet grape juice as much as it does human tissues!!!!!!

So, I need to mow a bit around the vines and help out with the tasting chores so I better sign off for now.

More soon;

DR Jim--happy to be BACK DOWN UNDER!!!!!!