Wednesday 28th February 2007

Today we went The Whole Nine Yards!

Over the years, one particular south-facing block of chardonnay has always out-performed all the others at Jordan. The geology of the soil is different and although this vineyard, like many of our other vineyards, is also situated on 600 million year old granite, there is a geological fault running right through it with white quartzite pebbles demarcating the break from one Chardonnay vineyard to the next.

The Jordan Chardonnay has always been rated one of the top South African chardonnays, yet Kathy and I knew that we could do better. From 2002 we decided to do a separate chardonnay bottling from this extraordinary single vineyard site. The day afterwards, I was invited to do a tasting at one of Richard Branson’s game lodges, so took along a bottle of this as yet unnamed wine with me. During the tasting, I explained to all the guests that it was made from our best block of Chardonnay at Jordan and spent a longer time in 100% new French oak than our usual Jordan Chardonnay. Before I could say any more, one of the guests piped up that it sounded like we went ‘the whole nine yards’ to make this wine!

“The Whole Nine Yards” I said to myself –“that sounds like a very apt name for this special wine”, so when Kathy met me at Cape Town airport the next day, I told her the story, expecting her to be excited. “Huh”, she snorted – “I’d much rather have made the wine with Bruce Willis” she said, laughing. (In case you didn't know, Bruce Willis had starred in the movie called The Whole Nine Yards!)

Months passed by before I could get my own back: we had just received 5 stars in the John Platter guide, and one evening I found myself at the top end of Cape Town, pouring our Jordan wines at the opening of an exclusive new boutique hotel. A group of very beautiful, young tour operators walked in. One particular beauty caught my eye – she obviously didn’t know me from a bar of soap, and yet had obviously heard about the Nine Yards, as she stuck out her glass, looked me straight in the eye and said, “Oh you must be the guy with the Nine Inches!”

All I could do was chuckle, and tell her that my Nine Yards was a lot bigger!

Tuesday 27th February 2007

Today in 1860, the corkscrew was patented by M.L Byrn! How life has changed since then. At Jordan we offer customers the choice of either cork or screw cap (Stelvin) closures, although more and more customers are now asking for Stelvin.

I’ll never forget the time when Andre van Rensburg and I happened to be visiting a wine shop in Pretoria at the same time, just as a customer was complaining about the fact that the bottle he had opened the night before was missing a cork. As much as Mandy tried to explain that the bottle was sealed with a screw cap, so he was protesting that the wine only had a capsule, no cork. Of course Andre and I looked at each other with intrigue and simultaneously asked the customer what type of cork-screw he had used, as we wanted one with that same foil cutter!

Today we harvested from 8 different vineyard blocks of chardonnay and merlot, in most cases finishing a section of a vineyard that had been deliberately left to ripen further, thus concentrating the flavours.

Monday 26th February 2007

Today was a serious Chardonnay day! On Friday the barrels arrived to replace those that had been bobbing around the English Channel just over a month ago – just in time for our Nine Yards Chardonnay vineyard, which is due to be harvested tomorrow. Talk about cutting it fine!

Kathy collected our two Mauritian sales reps, Belinda and Kristel from the airport – they should have arrived on Friday already, but tropical cyclone Gamede had grounded all flights to and from Mauritius for a few days. They will be spending a few days with us to learn a bit more about the winemaking process, and also to understand what makes Jordan so different to other wine cellars. By the end of harvesting activities for the day, we had brought in just over 500 tonnes of the 2007 vintage into the cellar. The photograph above is of Kristel (R) and Belinda (L) with the mist just starting to cover the vineyards in the background. On the right they are shown here helping to harvest the Merlot!

Saturday 24th - Sunday 25th February 2007

Yet again we didn’t harvest over the weekend, and as we started the 5th week of the 2007 vintage, I knew that this would be the most difficult. One of my tasks for the weekend was to finalise our Jordan trip to Europe coinciding with the London Wine Trade Fair in May. Sjaak, Juanita, Rachel, Kathy and I will be visiting customers in Holland, Belgium, Ireland and the UK, including presenting Jordan master classes, customer visits and dinners and a new vintage launch in London. Advance planning is the key to every successful venture! We don’t always get it right, but this time managed to rent two furnished apartments just off Trafalgar Square. While online, and as a treat at the end of what would have been a hard week at the Trade Fair, I also managed to get us all some great seats for the 24th May to see “Simply Red” performing in the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Friday 23rd February 2007

Ted wore two jackets and a balaclava for the first part of the morning as he was harvesting the last Sauvignon Blanc vineyard of the 2007 vintage. By the time I arrived back at the shed to collect the hand harvest team, the air was still cool and thick with mist. False Bay and Table Mountain were hidden for a while as the team harvested our oldest chardonnay vineyard, still in great condition after 22 years. As the mist lifted we were treated to perfect 360 degree views of the Cape Peninsula. The photograph below (left) shows the view looking south towards False Bay and Hangklip. The one on the right is of some of our E-facing Chardonnay vineyards, with Ted and Sheelagh's house against the hill in the background, and in the distance one can see towards Simonstown and Cape Point at the other end of False Bay.

This photograph below of Ted on the harvesting machine is looking due west towards Cape Town and Table Mountain. Constantia is on the far left of the harvester, and the Durbanville wine region is on the far right!

Porcupines love Chardonnay! The day before, while walking through the vineyard we were now hand-harvesting, I could see a few neatly nibbled bunches down one of the rows. The porcupine dens are situated under some old Wild Olive trees, a few metres from the edge of the vineyard, and the scattering of quills was a dead giveaway to the porcupine dinner party the night before. “More Chardonnay please”, I could imagine them saying, rattling their quills in anticipation.

Thursday 22nd February 2007

In case she’s reading this, “Happy Birthday Drew Barrymore!”

It is hard to believe that we are into the 4th week of the 2007 vintage. Our vineyard sample analysis shows that only one block of Merlot is ready to harvest today and I realise that next week will be a nightmare, as our chardonnay, merlot and cabernet sauvignon will all be ripening together.

There is no point harvesting grapes that are not perfectly ripe, so the hand picking team is assigned general farm tasks. Ted only needs Joel to drive the tractor and trailer for the machine harvested Merlot, and two assistants to pick any grapes left at the vineyard poles. The on-board computer of the Pellenc harvester has automatic sensors that change the frequency and force of the shakers whenever a pole passes through the harvesting cage. This ensures that the hollow Teflon shakers aren’t damaged, as well as ensuring that no vineyard poles are broken during the harvesting process.

Wednesday 21st February 2007

I used to like the Elvis Costello song ‘Accidents will happen’ until I saw the look on Ludwich’s face! He was as white as a sheet as he realized what he had done. “I’ve opened the wrong valve and dumped a tonne of shiraz rosé into the waste drain below the compost trailer.”

What else could I do other than run for my camera? This happened just as guests were leaving Jordan after our second Harvest Lunch! There was no point in ranting and raving – nothing I could do would save the grapes! With one flick of a switch, Ludwich had ensured that he was the frontrunner for the ‘Stuff-up-of-the-Year’ floating trophy! (A few years ago we had a student wrap a 100mm hose around our press, destroying our thick stainless steel must line to the presses in the process. A heavy, flattened tee-piece now serves as a trophy.) This is one trophy that nobody wants to win!

The photo alongside shows Ludwich (left) with ‘the evidence’ as well as Clive and Denovan in the process of helping Ludwich clean up the mess.

Tuesday 20th February 2007

After finishing the last of the 2007 Chenin Blanc grapes, Davey’s team moved to one of our E-facing Merlot vineyards just as the day started warming up.

I was down at Overgaauw chatting to Braam and David van Velden when the Eskom power suddenly went off. Lucinda answered my call on the farm radio – “The power went off for a second, but is back on again” she said. I was still in darkness though, so asked her if our generator was running. “I suppose it must be!” was the reply – “I can hear the diesel engine in the background.” Yet again I thanked my lucky stars that we had put in a generator a few years ago that could run the whole winery if there should ever be a power problem - it certainly paid for itself last year when we had so many power cuts!

Other than Jordan, Paul Cluver, Alex Dale and David Niewoud’s wines, Peter Clinton, our USA agent also represents Eben Sadie, so later that evening we solved the world’s problems over a bottle of Columella at Belthazar on the Cape Town Waterfront. After dinner we went to harass Bruce Robertson at The Showroom!

Monday 19th February 2007

Yet again everyone had a relaxed weekend, taking turns to come in to help with the Merlot pumpovers. Making red wine is all about extaction – extraction of both colour and flavour and one only has a three or four day ‘window of opportunity’ in which to do this. We draw the fermenting red wine out of the tank and pump it slowly and evenly over the skins three times a day. This is called ‘wetting the cap’ and this process ensures that the colour and flavour components situated in the skins are extracted early on during fermentation. This photo shows how intense the colour can be after only two days of pumpovers.

In the cool, early hours of the morning, the hand-harvesting team harvested one of our oldest and most intense Sauvignon Blanc vineyards before going on to harvest a Montpellier clone block of Chenin Blanc for our barrel fermented Chenin. By the end of the day we had picked 359 tonnes so far for the vintage, less than half way through our estimated total.

Thursday 15th February 2007

With 62 tonnes of merlot being harvested today, there was bound to be a mishap or two!
This is usually a time where one would expect to perhaps overfill a red wine tank, but Ludwich did a remarkable job in keeping track of which overhead tank was being filled! The merlot was being harvested so quickly that tractor driver Pieter Nero had to join the machine harvest team to transport the grapes to the cellar. Joel Booysen couldn’t keep up with only one trailer and we didn’t want any unnecessary oxidation taking place.

I heard the commotion even before I was called on the radio. Somehow one of the hinge pins had come loose at the back of the trailer, and as Pieter lifted it to tip the load into the hopper, the stainless steel bin slipped sideways and came to rest at an awkward angle against the wheel. We struggled for at least an hour, using the forklift and brute force to try and get the bin back into position on the trailer. Eventually we resorted to taking out both hinge pins and the hydraulic jack, and started the process of emptying the bin by hand as the photo of Leon and Tim alongside shows. Once empty we used the forklift to position it again on the base of the trailer, some quick welding on my part and we were back in business!

Earlier one of the interns managed to get the squeegee caught in the auger that transports the pressed grape skins to the compost trailer– luckily it wasn’t his leg!

None of the cellar staff had much time for lunch today. Graham, however, found the time to make this 'designer' sandwich!

Jordan Farm Map

At long last, our new farm map arrived, so now you will be able to see which vineyard blocks I am talking about! This has been a few months of surveying, where literally thousands of points were plotted, covering every part of the farm.

Wednesday 14th February 2007

Happy St Valentine’s Day!

The sky is crisp and bright, and long before the Stellenbosch Mountains are haloed in the first rays of light, I can tell that it will be a beautiful, clear, sun-filled day.

“In the heavens I see your eyes
In your eyes I see the heavens.
Why look for another Moon
Or another Sun?-
What I see will always be enough for me.” – Rumi

Red is regarded as being synonymous with Love – my ‘Lady in Red’ today is the first Merlot of 2007 being harvested for a serious barrel-aged red wine. The flavours are so intense, that the wine may end up being a component of the ‘Sophia’, a wine I specially make for the Cape Winemakers Guild Annual Auction.

What made the day more challenging is the fact that we are harvesting the last of the Chenin Blanc at the same time! The Chenin is an old south-facing vineyard that has to be hand-harvested, and the trailer loads come in a lot slower than the Merlot. After every four loads of Merlot, the whole system has to be cleaned before the next Chenin can be crushed!

Valentine’s Day also saw the first of our Jordan Harvest lunches, where once a week on a Wednesday, we invite our Trade customers to the farm to see the cellar in action.
It was great to catch up with the likes of Ian Rubin, Hein and Yvonne from Kagga Kamma as well as managers from Wakame, The Nose Wine Bar and many others. Claire Bertin (sommelier at Browns Restaurant in JHB) and Graham Fisher from Stanlake Park in the UK also joined in before they went back to work in the cellar.

Richard Chamberlain put out a fantastic harvest spread of coriander-crusted seared tuna (great with the Nine Yards Chardonnay) and rosemary marinated leg of lamb (delicious with either the Merlot or Cobblers Hill) accompanied by platters of green salads, asparagus, roasted peppers and courgettes – I could go on ….!

St Valentine’s evening saw roses and wine galore as couples descended on Jordan to picnic on the lawns in front of the winery, all organized by Tasting Room manager, Luzanne Hansen.

Tuesday 13th February 2007

There is a time in every vineyard’s life when it is time to say goodbye!

"You say yes, I say no

You say stop and I say go, go, go Oh, no

You say goodbye and I say hello Hello, hello

I don't know why you say goodbye

I say hello Hello, hello

I don't know why you say goodbye

I say hello"

These lyrics written by Paul McCartney sum up our very emotional decision to take out the sauvignon blanc vines on this 25 year old E-facing vineyard. Economically we should have taken this decision 5 years ago! We have learnt how to coax reasonable flavours from these vines, but at less than 5 tonnes/ha, and with the gravelly soil better suited to Cabernet Sauvignon, it was time for the vineyard to bow out gracefully.

As we still weren’t harvesting after the weekend rain, I took my last own ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ of block 6 ( on the slope above the cellar) before the harvest team cut off all the shoots in preparation to remove the vines, roots and all. Joel then took the mulcher along the rows, which cut the foliage into a fine mulch. The photographs show how well this works when the shoots are still green. Had I waited another few weeks it would have mulched the canes with difficulty.

One of the most important points to remember with leaf-roll virus control is to remove all the roots and leave the ground fallow for a few years. Failing to do this could result in the re-infestation of leaf-roll in the new young vineyard due to terrestrial species of vine louse (mealy-bug) that over-winter on the remaining roots.

Monday 12th February 2007

Lucinda, our Namibian harvest intern and I spent a few hours taking samples in the vineyards from early in the morning. Back at the winery lab, we could analyse and taste the effects of the 36 mm of rainfall. Predictably, the sugar levels had dropped up to 1 degree brix in some cases, the acid levels had dropped and the pH had increased. The juices also tasted slightly flat and lacked a concentration of flavour. Experience has taught me that with balanced vines not suffering any stress, this is only temporary. It is still a nerve-racking time though and we make the decision to take more samples tomorrow. To date we have harvested 230 tonnes and are only a quarter of the way through the harvest.

Just before lunch, Peter Clinton, President of Vinnovative Imports, (Jordan Winery’s USA importer) arrives with Mick Swain, our Chicago distributor, for a tasting and tour of the Jordan cellar and vineyards. The difference in temperature from vineyard to vineyard is quite remarkable– there is easily a 5˚ C difference from one side of the property to the other, with the South-facing side being the coolest. The picture alongside shows Mick (on the left) standing with Peter looking across at one of our terraced south-facing chardonnay vineyards, the view that inspired the sketch on our label. “Being a geologist in my previous life has enabled me to plan the whole property according to soil type and slope” I explain to Mick. This is why we are able to specialize with certain varieties on particular soils and slopes, and with Jordan being one of the few properties around with N-, S-, E- and W-facing slopes, we have been lucky enough to win international awards for both red and white wines.

Friday 9th – Sunday 11th February

“Raindrops keep falling on my head” by BJ Thomas kept playing over and over in my mind since Thursday night’s rain. The lyrics, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David are almost synonymous with the Film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and the weather has been more suited to curling up in front of the TV to watch a movie classic than harvesting grapes in the middle of February!

"So I just did me some talkin' to the sun

And I said I didn't like the way he got things done

Sleepin' on the job

Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'

But there's one thing I know

The blues they send to meet me won't defeat me

It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me"

Happiness for me was to check the rain gauge every few hours – we needed some rain to keep the dust down, and yet too much could delay or downgrade the vintage. Alex Dale and Paul Cluver came for dinner on Friday evening with our mutual USA importer, Peter Clinton of Vinnovative Imports ( http://www.capewines.com/) Judging by our stack of empty bottles the next morning, and the groans coming from Peter, I guessed that he had more than just raindrops falling on his head!

By Sunday, 36 mm had been recorded, a rainy long weekend for the cellar and for the first time in 15 vintages at Jordan, everyone had two easy weekends in a row!

Thursday 8th February 2007

On average, each person in the picking team harvested a metric tonne (1000kg) of grapes today! This meant a bonus of R2-15 per lug box (18kg) for everyone, and with a massive cold front expected by nightfall, we needed to get the Chenin into the cellar ASAP. We issue a Jordan coupon (like the ones in the picture alongside), every time a lug box is emptied into the trailer, and there is incredible rivalry to see who picks the most grapes in a day. Coupons are jealously guarded, hidden from prying eyes in overall pockets, bras and scarves, and with a previous vintage, ‘Rasta’, one of the vineyard workers kept his in a bank bag tucked away with his cell-phone in his hair!

Wednesday 7th February

Chenin Blanc is often referred to as South Africa’s Cinderella grape!

Today we harvested the block of Chenin Blanc on the hillside just behind our house. After cold settling and racking, we will be using Vin 13 yeast to make a fresh and fruity styled wine, which will later be blended with Sauvignon Blanc as the primary component of our Bradgate Chenin /Sauvignon Blanc blend. Unbeknown to many, Jordan has done particularly well with barrel-fermented Chenin, garnering two gold medals as well as the Chenin Blanc Trophy last year for South Africa’s best Chenin at the South African Wine Trophy Show. This is made from a 25 year old, shy-bearing vineyard planted on our cooler south-facing slope and because it is later ripening, is still at least a week or so away from harvest.

Every evening we all get together for supper, with Rachel, our Jordan Marketing Manager, cooking a meal for up to 20 people! During the meal, (and before everyone goes back to the winery to clean up), we have a ‘blind’ tasting where we taste some great wines from all over the world. Jordan cellar staff, family and harvest interns are put through their paces as they try to deduce what wines I have put in the line-up!

Julie and Iain Anderson have been helping us with our harvest videos (see the latest Jordan videos at http://www.winefilms.co.za/winefarms/Jordan/Jordanharvest.html ) and joined us for one of these tastings. Included in the line-up was a 2004 Pinot Blanc from Germany and a fantastic 1987 Cabernet blend from Iron Horse in California, the first wine that Kathy and I helped bottle when we worked there! I also selected a 1976 Roodeberg from our cellar which coincided with Sjaak’s birth year. The wine had matured well and showed remarkable fruit and structure for a 31 year old drink!

Tuesday 6th February 2007

Tuesday 6th February 2007

As a teenager I enjoyed reading Antonia Ridge’s ‘For Love of a Rose’, a story about the creation of the famous Peace rose. Today we had our own variation on this theme – ‘For love of a Rosé – a wine for peace!

Over the last two years, many of our customers have asked us to produce a rosé, so last September, when Kathy, Sjaak and I visited France on a study tour, we tasted as many highly regarded dry rosés as possible. Kathy and I also spent some time in Provence and along the Rhone, determined to find the style of rosé we wanted to make - a serious, dry style, fruity yet without the alcoholic character found in rosés which are made by bleeding juice off very ripe grapes to concentrate a red wine. We soon realized that the best rosés are made in the vineyard! We therefore pieced together our ideal flavour profile of selected Jordan shiraz, merlot and cabernet sauvignon vineyards, with a possibility of some full flavoured cabernet franc to add some juicy red-berry spiciness.

Neil Young could easily have meant to add an accent on the e when he wrote the song ‘Love is a rose!’ “Love is a rose (é) but you better not pick it – it only grows when it’s on the vine. A handful of thorns and you’ll know you’ve missed it …”

Determined not to miss our maiden rosé, Elaine (Jordan bookkeeper) and Luzanne (Jordan Tasting Room Manager) joined Kathy at the press.

The first vineyard to be harvested today was a French-clone merlot, and soon the cellar was filled with the aroma of red berries and spicy green olives. We had previously crop-thinned the vineyards earmarked for rosé and also green-harvested the blocks in early January to ensure even ripening and extra concentration.

Choosing the ideal length of skin contact time is always a bit stressful, as one loses colour during the fermentation process – two hours later, we decided to press.

Monday 5th February 2007

Farming doesn’t stop during harvest!

We have to constantly monitor stress on all our vineyards,

and to ensure continued strong growth on our young vines, I decided to drip-irrigate our highest block again. The photo alongside is of our newest Sauvignon Blanc vineyard, planted close to 400 metres above sea level. One can clearly see how the drippers wet the reddish clay-loam soil. We use pressure-compensating emitters which are inserted into the dripper lines during manufacture – each delivering 2.2 litres of water per hour directly at each vine.

The height above sea level means that it is a very cool, elevated site, ideal for Sauvignon Blanc. From the vineyard one can see 5 different wine regions, and also look out over Table Mountain and Table Bay on the Atlantic Ocean side as well as over False Bay on the Indian Ocean side. The downside is that we need two pumps in series to pump the water almost 250 metres higher than the winery elevation!

This picture is taken alongside the young vineyard looking towards Table Mountain, Lions Head and Signal Hill. The Cape Town airport buildings are visible to the left of the photograph, illustrating the fact that Jordan is one of the closest farms to Cape Town!

Friday 2nd February 2007

JJ Cale’s “I’ve got Friday on my mind” reminded me that we could still distinguish the days of the week from each other! Previous vintages have taught me that after a while, every day is a Monday, and we haven’t reached that level of exhaustion yet.

Graham Fisher, the last member of our 2007 harvest team, arrived directly from his early morning flight from the UK and was immediately thrown in at the deep end! Through our association with the Dart family who own Stanlake Park Vineyard and Winery in Berkshire, (close to Windsor Castle), we now also sell Jordan wines from their 15th century tasting room. (For more information visit http://www.stanlakepark.com/ ) They are producing some exciting wines which is why they are being watched like hawks by the Champenoise concerned about the effects of global warming! Graham, the Stanlake Park viticulturalist has joined us for the vintage to gain a bit more cellar experience.

With the team all assembled on the same spot for the first time, we were able to take a photo of us all on the press.

Let me introduce the cellar team to you:

Front:
left to right – Vanessa ‘Snoopy’ Robertson (Spice to some!), Ludwich ‘Vlekkie’ Jacobs, Clive ‘Smiley’ Engelbrecht (no relation to Jean Engelbrecht!), Leon ‘Wollie’ Janse van Rensburg, Tim ‘elastoplast’ Hoek, Dennovan ‘Abdul’ or ‘Jan van Riebeek’ Daniels.

Back:
Left to right – Sjaak ‘Tintin’ or ‘Sharkie’ Nelson, Kathy ‘Kattie’ Jordan, Gary ‘Kerrie Kerrie’ Jordan, Frans ‘Priest’ Ben, Graham ‘Pommy’ Fisher, James ‘Jumbo’ Briqua, Lucinda ‘Lufthansa’ Heyns.

Thursday 1st February 2007

Everyone was relieved that we only had 9 tonnes of sauvignon blanc to hand–harvest today, as we spent much of the day racking the sauvignon blanc juice that had been cold-settling for two days. 38.5 tonnes of grapes harvested on the 30th had yielded 23 000 litres of free-run juice (597 litres/tonne) and 4040 litres of press juice (105 litres/tonne).Not only do we keep the press fractions separate, but every vineyard is pressed and settled separately to ensure the highest quality.

Clarification of the juice takes place by letting it settle under gravity for two days at between 8 and 12˚ C .Racking involves the decanting of the juice from the sediment and this sediment that forms at the bottom of the tank is then put through a lees filter to recover the juice. This can be up to 10% of the volume or more depending on the skin contact time - the longer the skin contact, the more sediment that needs to settle.

This photo shows Frans Ben, our cellar foreman at the lees filter with a solid cake of lees about to be discarded.

Wednesday 31st January

The name, ‘Iron Maiden’ doesn’t refer to Margaret Thatcher in her youth! When I walked into the cellar as the first chardonnay of the year arrived from the vineyard, and heard the group’s new album “Different World” playing over the presses, I realized that the maiden vintage of our newest chardonnay block was destined to be tank fermented!

One has to ‘think like a grape’ when making chardonnay. The chemistry of sauvignon blanc grapes is vastly different to that of chardonnay. With sauvignon, we reckon that 6 to occasionally 12 hrs skin contact are necessary for maximum extraction of flavour. In the case of chardonnay though, 5 months on the skins in the vineyard is long enough! At Jordan, our ideal analysis on tank-fermented chardonnay grapes is a sugar of between 22.5 and 23˚ brix, total acidity of 8 g/litre and a pH of 3.3 or less. It is the juice flavour complexity that determines whether it will be tank or barrel fermented.

As I walked down the rows sampling various vineyards, I realized that the harvesting pace would have to slow down for the rest of the week. There would only be enough work to keep the hand-harvesting team busy and there was no sense in just ‘bringing it all in’. Maximum flavour comes to those that wait, and judging the right moment to harvest provides as much stress for a winemaker as that experienced by a 747 pilot on take-off or landing!

Tuesday 30th January

It seemed like I had only just fallen asleep when the alarm buzzed me awake at 3.00 am.
For a split second I hated Sauvignon Blanc! Why does its fragile chemical make-up have to differ so much from other varieties? Why does it have to be so sensitive to warm harvesting conditions? Then the excitement of the early morning harvest shook me wide awake and I drove up the hill to meet Ted at block M1.

The sky is clear and the stars bright as the harvester fans rev and the shakers start removing the berries from the tightly packed bunches. I find myself humming the lyrics to Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ … ‘Look at the stars, look how they shine for you’…

By the time I get back to the cellar, Sjaak and Tim have arrived and are already halfway through pressing the last load of yesterday’s Sauvignon Blanc. Flavour-wise we had decided to leave this press overnight to give the Sauvignon Blanc some extra skin contact. The pH reading had been just on pH 3.0, low enough to allow for some extra time on the skins. This has the effect of extracting more flavour, but usually pushes up the pH slightly, obviously not a problem in this case. With the new must chiller working so well, any oxidation reactions are slowed dramatically as the temperature of the mash is only about 8 degrees Celsius!

The whole picking team turned up for work today and by lunch, had finished hand-harvesting Block 28 Sauvignon Blanc. It was still cool enough for them to carry on picking the rest of Block 11 or Windhoek – “Windy Corner” as the farm staff call it. Ted had finished M1 just after 11.00am, having harvested 27 tonnes and rather than start another vineyard which wasn’t quite ready, we decided to rather clean and service the machine harvester, a two hour process. Thorough daily cleaning of all winery and harvesting equipment is necessary if one wants to avoid spoilage yeasts such as Brettanomyces, as once this yeast takes hold of your cellar it can be near impossible to eliminate.

Having started so early in the morning, everyone in the cellar was able to go home by 22h30. No-one could hide their smiles – it was as if they were on holiday!

Gary Jordan's 2007 Harvest Diary

Day 1 - Monday 29th January 2007

By nightfall the African sun gives up trying to burn off the cool mist that swirled around the Jordan Sauvignon Blanc vineyards for much of the day. The cool temperatures are a relief after the heatwave that descended on the Cape during the past week and the mist does what it can to soothe the scorched vineyards. Temperatures that had soared into the mid forties (celcius) the previous week have cooled down to about 12 degrees as the first bunches of the 2007 harvest, our 15th at Jordan, are picked in the early hours of the morning.

Ted has no problem remembering which buttons to press as he guides the Pellenc harvester over the hedged rows of vines. It was as if the 2006 harvest was only yesterday! He has already harvested about 5 tonnes of Sauvignon Blanc in Block M3 by the time the hand-harvesting team arrives. Without even taking a head count, I guess that only about half the team have turned up for work. Then I remember that it is Monday! “I couldn’t wait any longer,” says Davey, the Jordan farm foreman with a knowing smile. “I’m sure that everyone will be at work tomorrow”, he adds confidently.

Starting on a Monday is often a bit of a gamble. We had harvested a small part of Block 28 Sauvignon Blanc the previous Friday, just to test the crusher and press and also to commission our new must chiller, so were confident that the cellar was ready for one of our earliest harvests to date.

Sauvignon Blanc is not only site-sensitive, but the timing of harvest and temperature of the grapes and juice plays a huge role in the success of a great wine. Increased light and heat-exposed bunches have a much lower pyrazine content, an essential compound present in top Sauvignon Blanc. I arrived back in the cellar to see the second load being crushed. “This new chiller works flipping well”, says Sjaak beaming. “I can hardly touch the pipes they are so cold!” I knew then that the 2007 vintage was off to a good start.

Flavours on the juice seem surprisingly intense – our gamble to have fairly dense, slightly shaded vineyard canopies this year instead of the usual ‘hollow tunnel’ Sauvignon Blanc canopies seems to have paid off. We had such a cool, disease-free run up to the vintage that despite the heat wave, we may even end up with more flavour than usual on most of our vineyards. Our drip irrigation system has had to work overtime the last two weeks to replace what was being lost during the hot weather and this may also have helped to cool the vineyard environment and control sugar accumulation. With this being our driest growing season in 24 years at Jordan, we have had to plan the irrigation of our vineyards very carefully.

Deliveries of new barrels for the 2007 barrel-fermented chardonnay take place throughout the day, and an e-mail from Frederic Rousseau from Rousseau cooperage brings some good news: “Your barrels to replace those lost when the MSC Napoli ran aground off the English Coast are finished and will leave France the day after tomorrow. This is the first time this has happened since my grandfather started exporting barrels overseas!” I hope this container makes it to Stellenbosch in time for when we harvest our Nine Yards Chardonnay vineyard next month. I quickly calculate that we’ll need the barrels by the 22nd February, two days after the ship arrives. We’ll be cutting it fine, but just in case, I order some additional barrels supplied from local stock by Seguin Moreau and Damy. When the picking team finishes shortly before 17h00, Sjaak reminds our new cellar interns that they are now only halfway through their day! Pressing of the Sauvignon Blanc harvested in the early morning begins and all decisions from then on are made based on taste, backed up by checking the pH of the juice during the various stages of the pressing cycle. pH’s are between 3.25 and 3.4, and acids are around 8.5 g/litre – perfect! A quick calculation shows that we harvested close to 31 tonnes for the day. To view a video clip of the Sauvignon Blanc being harvested go to
http://www.winefilms.co.za/winefarms/Jordan/JordH2.html or visit http://www.jordanwines.com for more Jordan news.