Grapes are picked and wines are made. Mostly resting in bottle for release early this Summer. 2021 was a tricky vintage as normal: cold, wet and grey. Conditions not withstanding the fruit we picked was ultimately very high quality, we just had to wait as late as early November to pick it.
I am fortunate to work with Vanessa Stone for the artwork on The English Winemaker labels, and we have been choosing images of Italy for her to render in cut paper for The Italian Field Blend label.
The two images that we used on the 2018 wines will be carried forward to the 2019 versions, but there are going to be some minor changes to the names of the wines. The Barbera caused some minor issues with the board of classification for D.O.C status, which was not a big problem but it took up a lot of time and energy for no particular reason. As a result I am going to de-classify all the wines from the 2019 vintage down to Vino da Tavola, the main downside of which is that I will not be able to say “Barbera” on the label on the wine made from Barbera, but thems the rules.
The three wines from 2019 will therefore be:
And we’re off!
Beautiful Moscato grapes are in from the vineyard and fermentation is off and away. We selected a portion of the cleanest fruit, well it was all clean to be fair, to use for the whole bunch element and the rest went in de-stemmed. Started off smelling like really verdant grape juice but by the next morning it is was Acacia honey and stem ginger. Amazing stuff.
The rest of the crop is a little tardy this year so hanging fire on the Barbera and Field Blend for a minute or two yet.
September continued to be glorious in stark contrast to the wretched conditions of late July and early August. Not quite as great as the contrast with leaving Stansted airport at 8 in the morning with rain and 8 degrees C for company and landing in Milan it it apparently still being Summer: 33 degrees and a pure azure sky!
The fruit for The Red was selected from the vineyard plot that provides the fruit for “La Quercia”, this is a high South facing slope on Limestone. I took the decision to harvest slightly earlier due to the rapidly rising sugar levels and not wanting an overly alcoholic wine. A first pass through the vineyard selected the fruit perfect for using as whole bunch with the second pass for the de-stemmed portion.
The whole bunch fruit was then hand sorted and divided equally between 5 year old barrels (previously used for aging Barbera). The barrels were topped up with de-stemmed fruit. It’s worked out to be the same ratio whole bunch as the Moscato.
The Moscato has been ticking away quite perfectly. The mass of the skins has helped maintain a more even temperature and only need a gentle hand plunge to keep the cap wet and active. By late September the juice had fermented out to dry and was sealed up, still on its skins, to get to know itself for a few weeks. We naturally had to have a final taste before it was locked away and it is looking amazing: obviously full of solids still but the bright golden yellow colour is extraordinary, on the nose there was tangerine pith and acacia honey, the palate had not only that essence of grape but a touch of clove and all zinging off a nervy vein of salinity. Very exciting to taste.
The morning after processing the Barbera fermentation had already started spontaneously (just like the Moscato) which is a great sign!
It was a bit of a funny old growing season, started off wet then got rather warm. Vigour was our biggest problem so mowing and haircutting the vines were the major jobs. Then it rained and we all got rather worried, then it all dried out and it was all okay again.
The original forecast was to start picking the Moscato on the 20th of August, we actually picked in early September: beautiful fruit it was too. Perfect ripeness, no rot, no wasp, no dilution, just a little bit of sunburn here and there. Lovely stuff.
Moscato in Piemonte is a bit of a religion and the rules are super strict about what you can do with it and still call it Moscato. Essentially it has to be sweet, fizzy and low alcohol. Mine is going to none of those things!
All the wines this year are going to be in very small quantities of around about 600 bottles. The Moscato is a good proportion whole bunch and fermenting on it’s skins. How long it spends on the skins post fermentation is yet to be decided but we are looking at at least 28 days.
In the heart of the Moferrato, South of Asti, grows arguably the finest Barbera and Moscato in Piedmont, so the finest on the whole of the peninsula. This means very little of course next to the greatness of Nebbiolo, but the fruit from these limestone and sandy marls on softly rolling hills produce world class wines.
Sweet fizzy and low alcohol wine might not be your cup of tea, but the apparent simplicity of these wines belies their extraordinary character. Not only that but they age gracefully and rewardingly, if you see an old Moscato d’Asti languishing at the back of a shelf in a wine shop, grab it, you will be surprised. After a gawky phase at 2 years the secondary development mirrors the primary but in a more robust way. At 8 years old they can quite extraordinary.
There is pressure from producers for there to be a DOC/G for a dry Moscato wine, but the wheels of Italian bureaucracy being what they are this could take a decade to achieve. In the meantime we have to label with made up names with Vino Bianco on the label and absolutely cannot, not ever, put “Moscato” on the label.
Barbera from around Nizza Monferrato finally achieved official recognition as being of exceptional quality in 2014, Barbera Nizza DOCG is the top of the quality tree and in some ways put the Barbera d’Alba/d’Asti debate to rest. This is where The English Winemakers fruit for the 2018 Whole Bunch Barbera will be sourced from.
The maddestly hot Summer in living memory resulted in a rather challenging vintage. Not least due to the grapes being ripe ridiculously early (tales from Central Otago included grapes being harvested on the last day of February: unheard of), so the logistics of having enough people around to get the job done was tricky.
The weather also meant that there was a running battle with vigour and mildew. The vines wanted to grow and grow they did, so those that did not get a regular haircut really got away, and the humidity did the rest. Some were not quite on the ball as much as they ought to be and a lot of fruit got left on the vine.
The quality of fruit that had been well looked after was terrific, potential alcohol was generally about spot on and physiological ripeness in balance. Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, the twin tenets of New Zealand wine production, were both in excellent shape in North Canterbury. The Pinot Noir coming from the active Limestone sites was particularly impressive.
Even with skilled pickers the fruit still needed careful selection in the winery and the sorting table got a pretty serious workout, by far the most labour intensive part of the whole process. With a natural wine making philosophy there were no additions and fermentation was allowed to kick off spontaneously. The spin with these wines was the extended skin contact, with even the Sauvignon getting 28 days on the skins after the end of fermentation.
2018 North Canterbury wines are going to look great when the first ones get released in around October.
These are exciting times for the English wine industry. The volume of land planted to vines is growing exponentially with more new vineyard registered in the last few years than in the previous decade. There is now comfortably over 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) under vine, more than doubling since 1998. 20 years ago this would have been unbelievable especially when you consider that nearly half of all plantings are to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir rather than Germanic varieties.
However there has not really been in massive increase in the number of wineries, and fewer than there were 30 years ago. Wineries are therefore expanding, and fizz is the unifying theme. Whether you like it or not English Fizz is well and truly on the map. It would be nice to think that that Champagne style bubbles was not the future though, and I certainly hope for still English wines that have a feel of place, that have plenty of character, are affordable and delicious. The 2015 & 2016 releases give reason for hope, especially from Pinot Bianco and some very interesting still Chardonnays. The word from the cellars is that despite lower volumes the 2017s are looking pretty tidy too.
