1 February 2010Blending Trials 2009 (Road Trip Day 1)

How quickly time rolls by.  It hardly seems that 12 months have gone by.  But Patrick and I are back in Central Otago, and we have just finished reviewing the 2009 Pinot Noir in barrels and doing a few blending trials.

This time my partner, Jane, is along as well.  She is catching up with all the great folk involved in the logistics of storing and dispatching our wine; and to affix our 'Recommended by WineState Magazine' stickers to the Pinot Noir 2008 and the '4 Star' stickers to the Pinot Gris 2009.  It's rough work but someone needed to do it.  Her reward is sittting on the deck in the lovely Central sun with a glass of that 4 star Gris (lightly chilled of course).

We travelled by Inter Islander ferry and the trusty Toyota RAV from Wellington to Central Otago.  And just to prove you can never guarantee a smooth crossing on Cook Strait even in summer the weather was rough on Saturday night and Jane was still recovering for the whole drive to our accomodation on our Pinot supplier's vineyard in Bendigo.

But back to the wines.  We had a joint session with Dan and James at Maude Wines, our winemakers, to review the barrels.  They had recently finished malo but were already giving a great glimpse of the fruit weight, structure and flavours that are in storeonce they've settled down.  Already though we are able to sort some 'winners' (barrels to include in the final blend) and 'losers' (barrels that don't meet our standards). A few trial blends have given us an idea about what we can produce.  However, the final decision will be made in another few weeks.

Now its off for a 'cleansing ale' - Speights of course.