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April Showers

30/04/2013

Well, vintage – or harvest – is finally over for 2013. The guys picked the Petit Verdot up on the hill on a balmy April day, and that was that. I think if you asked the key protagonists in the cellar to come up with words which they associate with vintage 2013, once you climbed over the expletives, you might get: hard and fast, and just a little bit hot. I believe that the saying of vintage came from Joch ‘there’s been a slight change of plan’ ….but that’s vintage for you.

We did have a fair bit of help, mind you, over and above our stalwart winery operators. We’d already had Florent over from our NSW distributors, World Wine Estates. He put in some solid hours on a couple of reasonably hot days. James Brandwood then showed up, also from NSW, ostensibly for dinner. He was of course dragged in to do some pump overs in the evening. What did he think he was going to do, sit around drinking cocktails? He seemed quite chipper doing his work though.

Since the end of vintage we’ve had fair opening rains which has been a welcome break after a dry summer – I think we had about 50 mm. The creek filled nicely with rain, enough to warrant the wellies coming out and some serious paddling from the junior members of the team.

Louise has been out and about the country doing tastings and lunches, mainly for the fairer sex, as it happens. First up was a lunch at Sue Bell’s magnificent Glen Roy Shearing Shed and winery down in the Coonawarra. ’Sips in the Sticks’ was the final event of the inaugural Adelaide Food and Wine Festival, and was a cracker.

All lady winemakers had to provide dessert for the guests, and they were all judged by head of the local CWA (Country Women’s Association) Kate Spicer and Nick Ryan, wine writer and journalist for the Sunday Mail. Judging was intense and professional. That’s my pavlova in the bottom left hand corner of the photo.

Louise came out of the ring early, pretty confident if truth be told, informing all and sundry via Twitter that her pavlova was going to blow the competition out of the water. Ah, hubris hubris. The pavlova was dismissed by the inimitable Kate Spicer as ‘grainy’ (oh the shame) and the winner with her grandmother’s lemon delicious recipe was Corrina Wright from Oliver’s Taranga. Kerri Thompson from Wines by KT was disqualified with her gem cakes – not a dessert, KT.

This was a terrific event. The rest of the delicious food was prepared by Kate and the Penola CWA and Sue’s venue was wonderful. Thanks Sue for having us. Next up was Women Wine and Shoes up in Brisbane and in Melbourne, and though very different beasts, all events were belters. Thanks go to Jane and Sue from the Fabulous Ladies Wine Society for putting on two such well organised and entertaining nights.

Joch showed off our new Shiraz at the launch of the 2011 Scarce Earth Single vineyard Shiraz last Saturday at the Visitor Centre, but did not manage to get any photos. I think one of our number one fans Andrew Driscoll took a few – any chance you can send some on Andrew?! The two Battle of Bosworth 2011 Single Vineyard Shiraz – ‘Chanticleer’ and ‘Braden’s’ will be available for tasting and sale in cellar door soon. Finally, a silly photo of Joch in a little mini, taken by young Charlie Seppelt from Yangarra. Super Mario? Or Spanish Conquistador? Either or, that mo is going very soon.

2011 McLaren Vale Scarce Earth Shiraz Launch Saturday 27th April

20/04/2013

Tickets are available for the launch of the 2011 McLaren Vale 2011 Scarce Earth Single Vineyard Shiraz. This is the third release of these wines. In the words of Stacey who works at the McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism Assoc, please find details about the Scarce Earth project below:

Scarce Earth is an initiative of the McLaren Vale wine region exploring and celebrating the geological climatic and soil diversity of the region. All wines come from a single block, a small plot of land with a unique flavour profile and personality.

Join us for a unique opportunity to taste the new release 2011 Vintage McLaren Vale Scarce Earth single vineyard Shiraz wines from 12:00 pm – 4pm at the beautiful grounds of the McLaren Vale & Fleurieu Visitor Centre on the 27th April 2013. Tickets are $25 and include all tastings, tasting notes, master classes and refreshments.

Joch will be on duty all day, showing off our 2011 Battle of Bosworth 2011 Braden’s Scarce Earth and 2011 Chanticleer Scarce Earth Single Vineyard Shiraz. You can compare and contrast our two wines, as well as taste over 20 other McLaren Vale shiraz. Our wines are both made using Shiraz from the same underlying geologies, but with radically different soil types. Chanticleer is on the free-draining stony loam soils, and Braden’s comes from the Bay of Biscay black cracking soils.

To book your tickets simply head to the McLare Vale website which you can do by clicking here. Make sure you head over and say g’day to Joch!

The Halfway Mark

28/02/2013

Well, Joch reckons he has ‘broken the back of vintage’ – or he will have done by the end of the week. Smaller than anticipated amounts of grapes and a burst of warm weather ensuring everything came in on top of each other has resulted in a fairly compressed harvest. We’ve still got Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and a fair bit of Shiraz out there, but a lot of the hard work has already been done. Joch, Nairn, Ian, Spencer and Brenton have been working their proverbials off. See the boys below on a warm morning after finishing off picking the Braden’s Pinot.

We didn’t dare ask what the stains were on Ian’s T shirt (on the left.) We try to pick the whites at night to ensure we get them into the winery nice and cool, to preserve their gentle flavours. The guys were picking the Semillon, below, on a perfect picking evening.

We found someone to help us out taking temperatures (of the ferments) and checking beaumes (to see how the ferment is progressing) none other that the doyenne of MYOB and our very soon to be ex-bookkeeper (she gave us a year’s notice), Leonie Broadbridge. I honestly don’t think that there is anything in this world that Leonie can’t turn her hand to. Thanks Leonie.

Despite the long hours of toil, there’s always time to relax and have a laugh at some of the days events (bogged harvester, tractor door removed without notice etc etc) and here we see Joch on his favourite, the old David Brown, looking a little bit bush ranger but managing to see the funny side of things.

It looks as if all that happens here is making wine, well no, some of us have to strike out to sell some of it! Roxie, Emma and Louise headed off to the Adelaide Convention Centre for the 3 day Cellar Door festival, where we caught up with customers old and new. A very successful few days was had. Here’s Roxie on the stand…Who is prettier, Rox or those gladioli?!

Hopefully the next blog will herald the beginning of the end of harvest and the advent of autumnal weather and some serious stews, braises and a little osso bucco action in the kitchen. Hopefully there’ll be time for one last swim of the season, too.

First Crush at Battle of Bosworth Vintage 2013

14/02/2013

We had an exciting start to the week, with the first crush of grapes at our new winery shed. The winery shed was built by Tyrrell’s (of the Hunter Valley) about twenty years ago. We bought the winery and its adjacent vineyards, both of which are next door to our Orchard block, and took over in April last year. And here we are making wine on site. This event called for Monday morning bubbles, to celebrate.

There’s Paul ‘Rowdy’ Matthews above, ‘handing over’ to Joch. Rowdy stayed and gave some expert advise on how the winery operates, which was fantastic. Rowdy ran the place for 17 years, so he has a good store of knowledge. Peter and Anthea Bosworth came along for the gala event, see below, and that’s Ian ‘the Bomb’ Adam looking both Country AND Western in the middle of them.

You can see Ian backing up the tractor and gondola of Pinot to the receival hopper below; this was the drum roll bit for us! Be careful Ian, remember to drive slowly, and no random cornering….

Quite a few locals popped their heads in to see what was going on – that’s contractor and grape grower Clint Ledgard on the left on BoB stalwart Spencer. Clint has helped out over the years – I’m never sure of how it all works, but I do see him working on the old UR harvester quite a bit. I do believe Clint was very helpful last night while picking the Semillon, Spencer? Something about not enough diesel for the tractor pulling the harvester?! Thanks Clint.

Book keeper Leonie always likes to know what’s going on about the place, she came along to check on proceedings and to help celebrate. She had a few helpful tips about operations, too – there’s almost nothing Leonie does not know, across all disciplines.

So….from the gondola into the pristine, almost virginal receival hopper with the augur thing…. (technical stuff is not my specialty). Look how clean it is! Well done Nairn.

Then up the conveyor thing to be gently crushed (we treat the Pinot with kid gloves to preserve those light cherry and strawberry flavours)

Through some red hoses….on their way…

…into the fermenting vessel. Hoorah, well done guys, first ever ferment ready to start at our place. A very exciting Monday morning.

Well done Nairn – the man in charge of the winery.

As an aside, we also hand-picked about 30% of our Pinot into these flex cube thingummies below, so they can undergo some ‘carbonic maceration’. This process (the grapes ferment from within – they don’t go through the crusher) help keep tannins soft and approachable. This ‘cab mac’ component will be blended back to the Pinot grapes which underwent more traditional process, see above.

In other news, I had to cancel my trip back to the UK to (wo)man the stand at our UK importers annual tasting, Bibendum Wines ‘A Matter of Taste’. Our guinea pig, Snowball could have told me that a netball comeback in one’s mid 40′s probably wasn’t going to be sustainable in the long term, but I insisted and ended up with a fractured ankle. Ouch. I managed to draft in a wine savvy friend of an old university mate of mine to stand in and pour the wines and talk the talk. Jim Carey (look at the spelling!) actually visited the vineyards before Christmas on a wine and rellie visiting tour of OZ with his Australian partner. Sadly both Joch and I missed him here at the vineyards, but many thanks for being such a hardworking and dedicated extended member of the BoB staff. My old Uni mate Chaz apparently turned up for the glory at the end of what is a very long days tasting. Thanks Chazzie and many thanks Jim.

Finally, from a work health and safety perspective, at long last we have proper signage on the dunny up at cellar door! Thanks Spencer for supplying and applying – much more professional than the chalk.

Upcoming events in March and April 2013

There are some great events coming up that Battle of Bosworth and Spring Seed are involved in, so open up your diaries and start blocking some dates off. First up is ‘Sips in the Country’, which is part of the inaugural Adelaide Food and Wine Festival. Sips in the Country is on Sunday April the 14th, at Glenroy Shearing Shed, 14183 Riddoch Highway in Coonawarra. It is being catered for by the CWA, and the ladies of wine are making dessert! This promises to be a belter of an event, and in a wonderful setting. For more information about the event, click here and for bookings, click here.

The next couple of events are gender specific, which means, menfolk, you’ll have to stay home and do the darning or ironing. The Fabulous Ladies Wine Society in conjunction with Aussie Wine Month presented by Wine Australia are holding two events, one in Melbourne and one in Brisbane, called Wine, Women and Shoes.

They both promise to be a whole lot of fun. The Melbourne event is on Thursday 18th April at the Prince Deck and the Brisbane event is on Tuesday the 23rd April at Rydges Southbank. Click here for more details about the events, and to make bookings. Cheers!