Wednesday, January 31, 2007

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!

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

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.