Case study of vigour-based zonal vineyard management and phenolic variation in wine

Precision viticulture technology (such as EM38 and plant cell density imagery) represents a sound approach to understanding spatial variation within vineyards and providing targetted management of these areas. This case study shows that using spatial mapping technology to guide differential harvesting can result in wines with different phenolic characteristics and might also provide insights into vineyard terroir.

Berry desiccation: developing pre-emptive methods to adapt to heat spikes and dry conditions

Mount Langi Ghiran vineyard, in Western Victoria, in collaboration with The University of Melbourne, is researching compounds in vineyards to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat events. Research outcomes show treatments can reduce berry desiccation at statistically significant levels.

Assessing vineyard viability after bushfire.

As another summer approaches the not so distant memories of the 2009 bushfires that swept across Victoria are ever present. A new joint study, detailed in the following research article, has taken a close look at the 2009 impacts and suggests the best ways for grapegrowers to quantify the financial and environmental costs to vines and infrastructure from bushfires.

Normally, at this time of year, we are in full swing with the second racking of the recent vintage Shiraz. Normally, we rack the wines to kick the tannin development along a little, to round things out on the palate. Normally.

But 2011 was anything but normal. Do you remember the rain at Christmas? A wet and challenging year, to say the least. We like challenges.

We have made a good deal less wine this year, and we hand picked and selected a huge proportion of our vineyards, sifting through to be sure no problems were present on the fruit. Wines are delicate, fine, floral and spicy, and a little less robust on the tannin than usual.

Somebody famous once said that history will judge us on how we respond to challenges. It’s a issue as a winemaker to be adaptive, rather than prescriptive, with how we handle each unique season. This year we have done two new things to nurse the pedigree and quality of these grapes through to barrel. Firstly, an aerative racking of the Shiraz just after alcoholic fermentation had finished, before the malolactic. I have been concerned the wines would show green edges and vegetal characters, and air can help with this. We would not normally do this, but it has worked really well, at least the wines show no greenness. Score one point for adaptive winemaking.

We racked the wines after malo like we would normally do, but unlike other years, our feeling is that the 2011 Shirazs are so fine, delicate and pretty they do not warrant any more handling for now.

Which leaves KP free to go to Vietnam for a well deserved 6 week adventure.

Dan Buckle, December 2011 

The Role of the Wine Critic, Past and Future.

The recent Jumillagate scandal may not have come to your attention. You can read about it here http://bit.ly/tZ9iJG . The question comes up – should wine writers be paid by producers to review their wines? Where do we draw the lines here? What constitutes independent journalism, especially in a world of blogs and social media?

Mount Langi Ghiran has enjoyed and continues to enjoy some stellar reviews from the media. Indeed, the cover of the June 1996 Wine Spectator was enormously important in the history of Mount Langi Ghiran, when the Langi Shiraz was pictured net to Henschke Mt Edelstone and Penfolds Grange. It’s an image we are trying to preserve in the minds of our customers. 

The point is that for wine drinkers, looking to independent sources for assessment of wines is useful in making buying decisions. After all, you wouldn’t want to believe the winemakers, and certainly not the marketing department. And the grand comedy of back labels is only funny to some. The insulting notion that people read them seriously is frightening indeed. But I digress.

We’re talking about Third Party Endorsement. Since its really hard to get famous people to be seen publicly drinking your booze (did I mention that U2 drank 2008 Langi Shiraz at Cutler & Co last year in Melbourne?), we turn to the wine writers and the Wine Shows for independent reviews to help spruik our wares.

In the past the wine writing community has been limited to mainstream print media – books, newspapers and magazines – plus limited circulation newsletters and wine club information. If we look at the print media, it’s also important to remember that they are in the business of selling copies. This is a controversial point in the world of journalism, since the presentation of newsworthy truths and the stuff that people will buy are often at odds. You just have to visit a newsagent to see this. 

So there has seemingly been an unwritten rule to review wines which are good wines, wines which are cost-appropriate, and ideally wines which have a story or point of interest. That sells newspapers and apparently titillates the Saturday afternoon foodie and wineloving reader.

This is further supported by the public profile of these writers, and their readers (apparently) want good informed buying guidance, not a list of what not to buy. Meantime, we humble wine producers, desperately hoping to garner some points for our wines to push the sales along, send countless bottles to the wine media. To the point where these folks get together and talk about samples as clutter, disposal issues,  the problems of recycling large quantities of glass, and who gets all the excess. As Halliday puts it, he is at times surrounded by “squawking wingless seagulls”. It’s no joke when wine writers receive literally pallets of wine for review. 

The position of mainstream restaurant reviewers is far more critical, sometimes scathing, opinionated, controversial and even polemic. Apparently the restaurant review readers are looking for a bit more agro, scandal and tall-poppy-dismemberment in their text. Apparently.

The case of the honest wine magazine journalist who makes a buck for their story in a professional sense would seem clear-cut. Until we start to question the junkets. To be fair, the one’s I know make a strong point of professionalism and journalistic integrity. 

Times, they say, are a changing. The rise and rise of blogs, Facebook and Twitter has altered the landscape for wine writing since anyone can drive WordPress - and they do. The bandwidth is filling faster than you can say “#NationalBroadbandnetwork”. 

In the end, like many things Interweb, you need to look at the credentials and motivations of the writers. Narcissism lurks in the world of blogs, and it’s no surprise that the motivations of wine bloggers are questionable, but who really reads this stuff? Lots of people, it would seem. And it’s growing – has to be – since readers are increasingly expecting their content to be digital, if not free. To make the balanced point, there is also some really good writing out there and reviews of commendable independence. (Then there are winemakers like me with a monthly newsletter to put out – thanks for reading this – please buy my wines). 

What should we do, then, with bloggers who criticize openly, who write negative comments in the name of open thinking? It’s just not de riguer. Of course we could stop sending samples, but once it’s for sale publicly the wine, like the truth, is out there.

Dan Buckle, November 2011

In recent months, the so-called Natural Wine Movement has grabbed to wine trade’s attention, with the release of several  so-called “natural” wines, and even a “Natural Wine Fair” held at London’s Borough Market last May. 

This seems a natural (ahem) progression on from the organic and biodynamic movements of recent years, and the noble quest for purity, authenticity and sustainability in all our agricultural consumptions. We frequently hear wine described as a “natural” product. What I think the “natural” wine idea seeks to draw out is a catalogue of our human intervention, to separate wines made with ideologies from those made in factories.

It is 2011, after all, and a small but growing segment of consumers are turning away from mass produced food and beverage in favour of the locally grown, down-to-earth and (arguably) healthier alternatives. It’s a contentious issue, made more complicated by the “Mother Earth” versus “Science” debate, and by the fact that each side of the fence are talking in different languages. 

In a recent blog article Nick Stock brought up a few serious questions about the Australian Wine Show System (you can see his blog here: http://bit.ly/qsYJVm ). This has prompted significant discussion both on- and off-line.

The first criticism he makes is that the major state capital Agricultural Societies appear to be using the Wine Shows which they run as a cash cow, to fund the Society and raise revenue without giving much back to the Wine Industry itself. When you do the maths, it’s a big number – for example, if Melbourne Wine Show receives over 2500 entries (often many more), each costing the entrant $125, then the total revenue comes up above $312,000. Considering the wines are submitted freely, the judges give their time freely, and the Ag Society has few costs for the venues, the revenue after costs might be in excess of $200,000. At  present, there is little transparency for these financials.

There has been a revolution in wine technology and you have missed it. It was not televised.
You have missed it because, at the same time, people with loud voices, people with lots of Facebook friends, people with lots of Twitter followers, people with PR skills have been pimping all things natural in wine. And filtration seems a little un-natural.

Filtration is gross intervention, to put it bluntly. At a time when so-called “minimal interventionist philosophy winemaking” is de rigeur, those of us out the back filtering have kept quiet. But beware of winemakers touting philosophy. Time to speak up, because I believe wine anoraks and consumers are ready to acknowledge a few home truths about the wine we drink.

Nathan Scarlett
Technical Viticulturist - Rathbone Wine Group

Climate change is real (IPCC 2007). This fact has been recently reconfirmed with greater certainty by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2011). The impact of seasonal weather on winegrapes is well understood by viticulturists, hence our obsession over short/long-term weather predictions to help our viticultural planning.  “To state that grape and wine production is highly sensitive to climatic variability is almost a platitude” states Prof. Keller from Washington State University in a fascinating review article on climate change and optimizing fruit development for viticulturists (Keller 2010). RWG vineyards (Yering Station, Mount Langi Ghiran, Parker Coonawarra and Xanadu), other wine companies and the research science community are already planning for climate change and initiating adaptive capability. With continued focus, the future looks bright for continuing our regional wine styles and maintaining the ability to make world class wines. We just need to be smart, progressive and able to rapidly respond to our weather conditions. The aim of viticultural adaptive responses is to maintain vine health and fruit/vineyard site integrity.

ANU Wine Symposium, 2011

Tim Kirk from Clonakilla and his brother Kiaran asked me to come here today to talk about Shiraz. This was for two reasons – firstly, because as winemaker at Mount Langi Ghiran I am producing around 700 tonnes of Shiraz each vintage, and this is our specialisation. 

And secondly because I recently wrote a blog piece where I criticized some Australian Shiraz producers for using the synonym Syrah on their labels. Wonderful thing about blogs is that anyone can post them. Frightening thing about blogs is that apparently some people actually read them.

So I’m interested in etymology and words from my past life as an Arts student, and so a little more on that later.