A tale of barrels

YEAH!!!!!! WE HAVE ALL OUR 07 WINES IN BARRELS NOW AND THE AGING PROCESS HAS BEGUN.

This shot from last year shows how we store our barrels on metal racks after they are full. The racks can be easily moved with our fork lift attachment on our tractor for storage. Each French oak barrel holds 300 liters or 24 cases of wine so we have to be very careful when we move them. We use only French oak as our winemaker is very particular about that. Some of our area winemakers are using what is called "European Oak barrels" from Romania which are one third less and supposedly from the same species of oak tree except from a few hundred miles more Easterly but we are still using the real deal. We use new French for the best juice and then one year old oak for the rest. After two years we sell the barrels empty for garden planters. Each new French oak barrel costs about $1300 Kiwi and we sell them for $60 so barrel cost is a significant part of our winemaking costs. "You get what you pay for in life" is what my dad always said so we will keep up this process as long as our wine comes out as good as it has so far.

More next time on labeling processes which can be a maze of regulations and lots of paperwork.


Dr Jim in Tennessee

Well, it has been a long time with no post. I am sorry for the delay but in NZ we had a very busy time and our slow dial up internet connection was out for several weeks. We just got back to Nashville (and high speed access) so now I can catch up on our activities at Hawks Nest this last month.
We had a very busy 6 weeks there this time. Our grape harvest went fine and we got 8 tons fo grapes with our Cab Franc getting very ripe with high sugar content. (that is good) The Malbec harvest was not as good but still ok. The grapes are all crushed, fermented, and in French oak barrels now starting to settle down for a long rest to mature slow for the next year. We bottled our 07 harvest and have selected two blends this year. Both have a small percentage of Merlot added for body. Thus or 06 wines to be released this coming US fall will be a nice blend of Cab Franc/Malbec/ and Merlot. The initial opinions of a local group of winemakers were all very favorable. Each harvest the winemakers of Matakana get together to discuss the just pressed grapes and critically review the previous year's aging wine that is to soon be released. In a blind tasting of 5 local Cab Franc predominant red blends our two did very well.

Now we will offer our two 06 blends to Robert Lipman and his staff for tasting and hope they like one or even both. This new wine should be on shelves in Nashville by Thanksgiving. It will be our third vintage offered in the states and we feel that it will be well received. Our 04 and 05 wines are just about sold out in NZ but there are about 90 cases still here in Nashville for Tennesseans to taste. If you have not yet tasted our 2005 Hawks Nest Orchard Block red, ask for it not at your local favorite outlet.

What about the photos? The one of the rainbow is from last week as a shower blew in on our hill. That is from our front yard looking down toward the ocean. The orchard shot shows the picking trollies that we use for our persimmon harvest. In the back ground you can see the yellow bins stacked on the ground after being filled. We the pick them up with the tractor. We have 14 acres of persimmon trees- about 1500 trees- and had a record fruit harvest of sweet Asian Persimmons this year. It took 10 pickers 6 weeks to pick it all as we had over 100 tons. They picked over 5,500 of those big yellow bins!!!! What a harvest.

The Vintry is our new Matakana Wine center that sells only local wine at cellar door prices. That is Nicki (on the right) and Che who own and run the center. They are our official wine sales outlet as we do not have on site sales at our vineyard. Nicki, the owner, is super knowlegable about wines and the area. The Vintry has just opened for a few months and has quickly become THE PLACE to see and be seen in Matakana. Thanks Nicki for supporting all of us local vineyards and especially Hawks Nest.

The final shot is at the Vintry again and shows me (the fat one) with the local head political guy of our region. In NZ the country is divided into districts similar to our states. Our district is called Rodney and the head guy is call the Mayor--similar to our governer. So this is a big deal for me to get to meet the head honcho. His name is John Law--a good name for the top politician I guess. He dropped in for a local opening of a tourist information center and came in to see the new wine center while I was there hosting a tasting. Thus I got the photo op and he a some free wine!!

So, sorry for the log post but it has been over a month since I have written anything at all. I will try to be more active over the next few months while we are in Tennessee for the US summer.

More soon and happy wine drinking


Dr Jim