April 2009
Posted: Apr 28, 2009 12:46pm ET
Posted by Stuart Bourne On a cold and wet afternoon in the Barossa Valley, I sit back and ponder the vintage 2009 that has now come and gone. This will be my last entry, and first up I want to say what a pleasure it has been to provide you all with ongoing updates from Barossa Valley Estate , from the first fruit samples from our vineyards this year before harvest commenced to the last ferment ticking through in barrel.
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Posted: Apr 24, 2009 12:58pm ET
Posted by Santiago Achával Hola , friends. When I think about when I last posted an Argentina harvest update, "AWOL" comes to mind—only I wasn't "Away Without Leave," I was "Away While Overloaded"! I apologize! Let me tell you about the past few weeks at Achával-Ferrer : The weather continued on its best behavior, so good that describing it becomes a bit monotonous! I’ll leave it to your imagination with this: I’ve never seen a vintage which gave us fewer reasons to worry about the weather.
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Posted: Apr 23, 2009 6:31pm ET
Posted by Steve Smith Sauvignon Blanc may be the New Zealand wine everyone talks about, but those of us who are really serious about winemaking in New Zealand are concentrating a lot of our passion and skill on making red wines that at their best can be as memorable and unique as our famous Sauvignon Blanc.
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Posted: Apr 22, 2009 12:02pm ET
Posted by Stuart Bourne Week 11 of vintage in the Barossa Valley has come to an end. We were finished last week but there are still a few parcels of fruit out there that other producers will be pulling in during this week and the next.
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Posted: Apr 21, 2009 4:46am ET
Posted by Ken Forrester As I sat with my morning coffee this past Sunday, watching the very first of our autumn rains, I was again reminded of how nature constantly evolves. We pressed off the very last little batch of hand-destemmed 2009 Cabernet on Saturday morning—soft juice, inky purple in color, fully ripe, gentle tannins, with no hint of those sometimes leafy Cab flavors, and the alcohol is only a shade over 12.
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Posted: Apr 20, 2009 5:16pm ET
Posted by Steve Smith Well, it is easy to get lost in New Zealand (or "go bush" in local colloquialism, which does not refer to becoming a political refugee!). Errant road signage can send you deep into the mountains or off a cliff into the Pacific.
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Posted: Apr 14, 2009 2:15pm ET
Posted by Ken Forrester After a quick trip to Prowein in Germany, followed by two days in the Pfalz, which borders France in the area around Strasbourg and Alsace and shares a rich and colorful history of occupation by German, French and American forces through the wars and troubled times of the past.
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Posted: Apr 13, 2009 2:14pm ET
Posted by Stuart Bourne Week 10 of the Barossa Valley Estate crush is now over, and with that has come what I consider the first major hurdle of vintage 2009 now being successfully jumped over. That hurdle is the taking in of the last fruit delivery into the crusher on Thursday just gone.
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Posted: Apr 9, 2009 5:46pm ET
Posted by Álvaro Espinoza In the first days of April, we are starting to crush red varieties from the best vineyards in Colchagua and Maipo valleys. Last Saturday, we started crushing our first small biodynamic block of Antiyal Cabernet Sauvignon that is around our house; that's almost 7 days earlier than last year, showing how far in advance this harvest is.
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Posted: Apr 6, 2009 4:28pm ET
Posted by Stuart Bourne Week 9 of the 2009 Barossa Valley Estate vintage is now done and dusted, and the way it looks, there may even be a small Easter break for all of us this weekend. I think this will be good for everybody, as the last nine weeks, although very ordered and planned, have nonetheless been quite an adventure and very busy.
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Posted: Apr 1, 2009 9:09am ET
Posted by Álvaro Espinoza We are arriving at almost the middle of the harvest in Chile's Central valley. We have already finished the Sauvignon Blancs; there are just some remaining blocks in the cooler areas of the coastal region.
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