Scott McWilliam's Vintage Report
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Introduction
Harvest at McWilliam’s is probably the most vibrant and exhausting
time of the year. The wineries are bustling with activity and our regular team
of staff is helped by a colorful group of wine industry workers. That, and the
ever changing nuances of the weather, ensures that no one vintage is the same.
This is one of the challenges of winemaking that makes life as a winemaker interesting
and exciting.Here in Australia we call our harvest ‘vintage’. Just a quirk of culture, much like we call cookies ‘bikkies’.
Since I started as a winemaker for my family, I have seen vintages in many different Australian wine growing regions. The diversity of climates represented in our vineyards has allowed me to work with many different grape varieties and to make an array of wine styles. Being dependent on the mercy of the weather is not unlike a rollercoaster ride. One minute you are slowly going up-hill in excited anticipation of a good vintage and the next minute it is a challenging downhill ride before going up-hill again. But it is always thrilling and I always have the security of my family’s experience over 6 generations of winemaking. This year I am working vintage in the beautiful Hunter Valley, where my family has many premium vineyards of very old vines.
Hunter Valley
In the past six months, the Hunter Valley experienced a wide array of weather. We had some unusually hot weather in October (our Spring). When temperatures reach above 100°F, the vines actually shut down and it can take a while for them to pick up again.
In November we had quite a lot of rain,
however, which filled up our water supplies and resulted in a good bunch-set.
December and January have been pleasantly cool and mild; and if this weather
continues, we should have a very good vintage. At cool temperatures, the grapes
ripen slower, which allows more flavors to develop. Most of the ripening process
is the conversion of acid to sugar. The amount of sugar in the grape determines
the alcohol in the finished wine. Cooler temperatures slow this process down,
resulting in a more balanced wine.In the winery, everything is being prepared for the start of vintage. This is the time of year where everything and everyone is sparkling clean. Soon there will be red stains on the floors and our hands, that will stubbornly refuse to vanish until vintage is well and truly over. In the vineyard, the grapes are being carefully monitored for their ripeness. Samples are taken at regular intervals to see how the flavors are developing and to determine sugar and acid levels. Before long harvesting will start.
Coonawarra
Over 900 miles away, in the Coonawarra, where I spent some of last year’s vintage, things are looking very promising. The weather has been ideal, with cool nights and warm and sunny days and minimal rainfall. November and December had some very cool periods, which doesn’t seem to have slowed ripening. In fact, veraison, the time when the berries soften and change color, has started about 2 weeks early. If mother nature remains on our side, it should be an excellent vintage.
2005 February:
7 10
13 15
17 20
22 24
27
2005 March: 2 3
5 8
10 12
16
Harvest has finally commenced. We picked our first grapes a couple of days
ago, mostly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, which ripen first in the Hunter Valley.
Today, we harvested the Chardonnay from Mt. Pleasant. The mountain rises 1300
feet behind our winery and holds some of our oldest and best vineyards. The
Old Hill Vineyard was first planted in 1880 and some of those vines still remain
today.
The fruit is of very high quality this year. The cool ripening season should
result in a wine with abundant fruit flavors and a nice crispness. We picked
at approximately 12.8º baumé (~23.1 brix), and the grapes still had excellent
acid levels and a perfect pH.
In Australia, we use the French scale of baumé to determine the grapes’ sugar
level. Baumé are easy to work with, because they convert almost directly to
percent alcohol if fermented dry. In other words, grapes picked at 12.8º baumé
will result in a wine of approximately 12.8 percent alcohol.
Once the grapes reached the winery, they were de-stemmed and then gently pressed.
The free run juice, which is the extra virgin olive oil of wine, was transferred
to stainless steel tanks and inoculated with a yeast culture to ferment at cool
temperatures for about 7-10 days.
This week will be a very busy week for us all. I spent most of my day traveling
between our vineyards to check on how the grapes are progressing. It appears
that most of our grapes are ripening all at once! Because of the cooler weather,
we have had no physiological shut-down during the hot daytime hours – generally
a normal occurrence in our hot Australian summers. The grapes have had ideal
growing conditions through most of the season and have ripened slowly and evenly
up until now. Now that we are experiencing some warmer weather, ripening is
occurring at break-neck speed. It appears that the vines are trying to make
the most of the hotter weather while it lasts! There is no reason to worry about
this speed, however, as the concentration of fruit flavors is already so great.
I awoke to a beautiful summer morning today.
The sun was just rising and several hot air balloons, filled with delighted
tourists, were floating above the vineyards. It is on mornings like this
that I realize how lucky I am to be living in wine country. Thanks to the
intermittent thunderstorms that frequent this region in summer, the hills
and the rows between the vineyards are lovely and green - something that
hasn’t escaped the kangaroos, either. On my way past the vineyards I spotted
several of them having a good old time. Contrary to some stories, kangaroos
don’t eat grapes or grapevine leaves – so they are a welcome guest in our
vineyard.
The Chardonnay from the Old Hill has almost
finished its fermentation. We moved the wine from the stainless steel tanks
to new and one year old oak barrels to complete fermentation. As predicted
at harvest, the wine is bursting with lots of tropical fruit flavors. Layers
of ripe melon and peach are a delicious sneak preview of what will be a
beautiful wine. From now on, the barrels will receive a weekly topping and
battonage – or lees stirring. (Lees are the yeast cultures that settle to
the bottom of the barrel).
At our morning tasting, when we taste all of our ferments to ensure that
everything is going as we wish, I am seeing some great wines emerging. Mount
Pleasant is a relatively small winery, so we taste ‘only’ about 25 different
ferments, this number will increase significantly, of course, as crush progresses.
The tastings ensure the continued quality of the ferments and help us make
further winemaking decisions. It is also an opportunity for us winemakers
to use all of our talents together for further decision making.
We had one of the busiest weeks on record, pushing the capacity of our
equipment and our workers. The floor of the winery looks like the back of a
sophisticated home entertainment system: there are what seems like hundreds
of hoses running in all directions, crisscrossing and snaking their way
through the winery.
We have been working around the clock, in order to ensure that we pick the
grapes when they are at their best. Our lovely staff at the winery’s
Elizabeth Café is keeping us energetic and healthy with gourmet sandwiches
the size of small countries, bikkies and cups of delicious coffee. Andrew, a
winemaker mate of mine, keeps us laughing with his emphatic renditions of
West Side Story songs…
I am really excited, because it is looking like a classic vintage. We have
been closely monitoring the rainfall patterns and temperatures throughout
the growing season and it now appears evident that this year is very similar
to the great 2000 vintage.
Our 2000 wines have received very high acclaim already, with one of our reds
receiving higher accolades than Australia’s most famed red wines.
To have the potential of similarly great wines at our fingertips is very
thrilling, but also creates a lot of pressure to perform.
I have a lot of reverence for the quality of the wines McWilliam’s has
produced in the last 128 years. I feel honored in the presence of so much
history and excellence, which drives my determination to continue the
wonderful work my family has done over so many generations.
Here at Mount Pleasant, we produce many of our best wines. The winery is
very special because since its foundation in 1921, it has only had three
chief winemakers. All of them were, and are, highly esteemed within the
industry. Phil Ryan, the current chief winemaker, has been with us for
almost 30 years now and is a wealth of knowledge.
We are now crushing Semillon and Shiraz at the same time. This is a very
rare occurrence that hasn’t happened since 1981. The recent warm spell has
lifted the sugar levels rapidly, while retaining balanced acidity and a low
pH in the grapes. This is a great basis for longevity in the finished wines.
As our vineyard manager Graham puts it: “The quality of the red grapes is
fan-bloody-tastic!”. A very Australian thing to say.
Because of the cool ripening period, the Shiraz is displaying some beautiful
peppery, spicy characteristics rather than the region’s typical fruity and
savory aromas.
Crush never passes without a few minor glitches.
I was watching some grapes coming in this morning, when all of a sudden we
heard a loud clunking noise, followed by ominous silence.
As we soon discovered, an enormous piece of ‘kryptonite’, as Phil later
calls it, had somehow made its way into one of the grape bins. It
mysteriously managed to pass through the crusher and de-stemmer without
causing any harm, only to severely damage the auger that carries the stems
onto a truck.
As a result, we were forced to shovel the stems into wheel barrows and then
onto the truck.
It is a tough job at temperatures of around 95ºF and high
humidity.
As I predicted, my hands have instantly stained a deep shade of purple and I
have given up trying to remove the color.
The juice is intensely colored
this year and I managed to get myself splashed from
head to toe during a pump-over.
Pump-overs, the pumping of the grape juice over the grape skins, are one of
the winemaking techniques we utilize in red wine making and they serve a
variety of purposes. In red wine, it is the grape skins that give them their
character and color. The grape flesh is colorless, so all the wine's color
must come from the skin. The skin also holds tannins, a vital ingredient for
the long term cellaring and the structure of wine. Pump-overs aid in the
extraction of those colors and flavors. They also ensure an even temperature
within the ferment and enrich the ferment with oxygen. Although large
quantities of oxygen are harmful, small amounts are actually beneficial to
the wine.
We harvested some of the Old Hill Shiraz today. The grapes have reached
about 13.7°baumė (~24.66 brix), a nice level of ripeness. The 125 year old
Shiraz vines produce small crops of tiny berries that are almost black to
look at – a sign of great flavor and color concentration. The older the
vines, the less fruit they generally produce. Less fruit, however, means
that the vine puts all its energy into what little fruit it is carrying,
resulting in superior quality. With lower yields, it is very expensive to
make wine from old vines, and these days they are harder to find. My
family’s commitment to winemaking and quality, however, has ensured that our
old vines are nurtured and not replaced. In the Coonawarra we have, for
instance, a 4.5 acre vineyard of the oldest Shiraz vines in the region. They
were planted in 1893 and are used to make our Stentiford’s Reserve Old Vines
Shiraz.
The Old Hill Shiraz was handpicked in the early morning hours and made the
short journey to the winery, where the grapes were de-stemmed and then
gently crushed and transferred to stainless steel fermentation tanks. The
must (the mix of grape skins, pulp and juice) will now be held at cool
temperatures for approximately 48 hours. This is called a ‘cold soak’, which
allows for extra skin contact without fermentation. This results in
different flavors, adding complexity to the finished wine.
We currently have a group of people from our sales force visiting. We like
sending them up to our wineries for training, so that they can experience
the evolution of our wines first hand. They set out at 6am to harvest the
last of the Old Hill Shiraz. What a change from their normal working day!
Today, I added yeast culture to the Old Hill Shiraz that was harvested a few
days ago, and the juice is now happily fermenting away. It is fascinating to
watch the clear juice turn a vibrant purple overnight. The vigor of the
fermentation also produces a delicious looking and vibrantly pink froth on
top of the ferment. One visitor aptly commented that it reminded him of his
mother’s blackberry jam bubbling away on the stove.
For the next three days, the ferment will need to be pumped-over three times
daily to achieve the desired color and flavor intensity. Our ferments are
temperature controlled in order to protect the fresh fruit flavors and to
extend the length of the ferment and the time of skin contact. Longer
fermentation periods allow for more complex flavors in the wine.
I’ve had a few eventful days again. Between the endless receiving of grapes,
pump-overs, and tastings, I actually had to get cleaned up to host a group
of wine ambassadors from the Benelux region. They are being sent here as
part of an initiative of the Australian Wine Bureau. I work very closely
with the Australian Wine Bureau and have participated in a number of events
and initiatives for them, such as the ‘G’day in a Glass’ tastings in the US.
These are always fun to do and bring a lot of variety in my life. I also
love receiving first hand feedback for my wines, of course.
A lot of our Shiraz has now been harvested and I noticed that the aroma of
fermenting wine has permeated every last corner of the winery and offices. I
can often observe visitors lifting their noses into the air and sniffing as
soon as they leave their cars. I wonder if they find the smell as delicious
as I do.
My dad came up for a visit as well. He lives in the Riverina region of New
South Wales, but travels around to all our vineyard sites to keep an eye on
things. Dad, Phil and I went around tasting all the wines.
The Old Paddock and Old Hill ferments are very complex this year, with
intense dark fruit and mulberry characteristics and lovely hints of
chocolate. The Rosehill Shiraz, which is located about 5km from the winery
in a flatter part of the valley, is displaying rich raspberry and plum
flavors. The Chardonnay is very tropical, with lashings of ripe peach. It
has been in barrel for a little while now and has soaked up some of the oak
characteristics as well. We are very happy how things are shaping up.
Dad said that vintage in the Coonawarra is still looking really good, with
the cooler characteristics of chocolate, mint and black currant expected in
the reds. Harvest is probably another 2 weeks away and it looks like the
ripening might happen simultaneously like here in the Hunter Valley.
Dad also went to our vineyards in the Hilltops region. This is a higher
altitude, cool climate region, which he actually ‘rediscovered’ in the 80’s.
It is now a well known region that is quickly gaining acclaim within the
wine world. The Hilltops have just emerged out of 3 years of severe drought.
Last year, our crop levels were so reduced, we were unable to make some
wines. Excellent Spring rains and follow up showers in January have filled
our dam, however, and brought welcome relief. The temperatures have been
below average, allowing excellent flavor development and acid retention,
much akin to the brilliant 2002 vintage.
The Shiraz is showing some great aromas and flavors of spice and has
excellent color. The Chardonnay has slightly smaller berries than average,
but the peach flavors have been the best since the 2000 vintage - a vintage
that won us many awards and accolades. Harvest is probably a week or two
away. By that time we will just about be finished here in the Hunter.
It is officially one of the fastest vintages on record. Phil Ryan, who has
seen close to 30 vintages at Mount Pleasant, says it is the fastest vintage
he has experienced.
As a result, every red fermenter is full – another unprecedented event for
Mt Pleasant. This seems to be a year pushing for the Guinness Book of
Records!
It is one of the winemaker’s big responsibilities and challenges to manage
the space available within the winery without sacrificing quality, and to
track the movement of every separate ferment. We keep all of our different
vineyards separate, as the qualities can in some years vary and to give us
more blending freedom. Then we keep the free run juice separate from the
pressings and split some ferments for different winemaking techniques. With
so many different parcels of fruit, at times difficult choices have to be
made. I sometimes feel like a juggler on a monocycle, juggling a lot of fire
clubs.
Some great news reached the winery in the last few days. McWilliam’s Wines
was proclaimed the most successful exhibitor at the Sydney Royal Wine Show
for an unprecedented 11th consecutive year in a row! To win this accolade,
our wines had to receive top marks across a broad range of styles, from
young and aged table wines, to dessert wines and even Sherries and Brandies.
And of course, we were competing against most of Australia’s top wines. This
is the best feedback for all the winemakers; a great reward for all the
sweat, blood and tears.
At the morning tasting I noticed that the oak, that was quite dominant in
the Chardonnay a week ago, is now starting to integrate. In addition, the
weekly lees stirring is resulting in a fatter mid-palate, giving a creamy
texture to the wine.
The Old Hill Shiraz is at around 11 percent alcohol now, with roughly 2 to 2
½ percent to go. At this stage, the wine is still slightly sweet and showing
an abundance of primary fruit characteristics that are found in the berry,
such as raspberry and plum, and is also displaying the secondary fruit
characteristics that result from the winemaking influence, such as jam and
stewed fruit aromas. I like finishing fermentation in barrel, as it adds
complexity to the wine and tends to integrate the oak characteristics more.
Consequently, the wine was racked off the skins and transferred to new
French oak. The oak will now impart the aromas of vanilla, coconut and brown
spice into the wine and also add structure to the mouth feel.
The grape marc, the mixture of grape skins and seeds that remains in the
bottom of the tank once it is racked, is manually shoveled out and gently
pressed. The pressings are then kept separate. I regularly lend a hand with
the shovel, as it keeps me close to the entire process of winemaking and to
our cellar staff. A good relationship with the cellar staff is very
important to me, as they play an integral role in the making of a great
wine.
We had a very eventful morning at the crusher today. Our grapes arrive in
small steel containers that are lifted off the truck via forklift. The
bottom of each container has two slots for the tines to fit in. A brown
snake must have perceived this to be a cozy spot to live. It took up
residence until the bin was lifted off the truck. All of a sudden, a shocked
and probably angry snake came out from under the container.
Now, Australia has about 9 of the world’s most deadly snakes and we have
three of them in the Hunter Valley. This was a king brown, which is right
towards the top of that list.
Everyone jumped out of the way and the snake slithered into the crusher
area.
Joe, who has worked with us for a long time and is known for his heroic
stories of battling snakes in the vineyard which nobody seems to believe,
was the person who sprang to action. He grabbed a spanner and sprang after
the snake, yelling “I’ll kill it!”
He couldn’t find the snake anywhere, however. We all thought it must have
gotten into a small gap underneath the receival pit. Next, Joe crawled into
the gap, spanner in hand. After a few seconds we heard him yelling out to
us. “Give us a torch will you!” We scrambled to get him a torch. For a few
minutes we heard grunting, clunking and shuffling noises and than loud bangs
and clanks. A few seconds later Joe emerged from the gap. He got up and
stood there, torch under his arm, spanner in one hand and a huge 6 foot king
brown snake in the other! His face was beaming and he triumphantly announced
“I got him!”
The Old Hill Shiraz has now completed the primary fermentation process. The
wine is completely dry, as all the sugar has been converted to alcohol.
Consequently, we added a cultured agent for malo-lactic fermentation. This
secondary fermentation changes the sharp tasting, unstable malic acid (the
green apple acid) to the softer, stable lactic acid, giving the wine a
softer and creamier mouthfeel. In Chardonnay, generally the only white wine
that undergoes this process, malo-lactic fermentation also expresses itself
with buttery, creamy flavors.
There aren’t very many grapes left on the vines now. Those that are, are now in grave danger. I mentioned early in the vintage that kangaroos are not a threat to our vineyards; however, wild pigs are. They appear to enjoy the flavor of very ripe grapes and can decimate a vineyard within a few days. While birds are easy to scare away, it is much harder to scare pigs. Charlie, our vineyard manager’s dog, tries his best, but he is much better at chasing forklifts!
It is amazing how, towards the end of harvest, the winery quickly turns from
the bustling and noisy activity of a beehive into the quiet reverence and
sometimes ghostliness of a museum. Arriving at work early in the morning, I
was first surprised by the lack of cars in the car park and then the silence
inside the winery.
Most of our seasonal staff has left us to continue vintage in Australia’s
cooler climate areas or in New Zealand. Last week, we were wondering where
to put the next delivery of
grapes and this week there are only half a dozen
different ferments bubbling away. As much as I like the adrenalin-pumped
intensity of the first few weeks of vintage, I look forward to these quieter
times, when I can relax and contemplate the next steps that need to be done. However, it is not exactly the time to put my feet up and savor the fruits
of my labor, as I will be doing a lot of the jobs around the winery myself
now.
In the laboratory, we are checking for the progression of the malo-lactic
fermentation every day. The fermentation can take anywhere between a couple
of weeks and a couple of months. It is important to catch the end of the
process, as the wine becomes very susceptible to oxidation and we need to
take immediate precautionary measures.
Every year we also take fruit from other areas. We particularly like the
Shiraz coming from Orange, a cool climate area a few hours South-West of
Sydney. The fruit is crushed at a contracted winery in Orange and
transported by tanker to Mt Pleasant. Our first delivery arrived today. This
fruit is reserved exclusively for the McWilliam’s Hanwood Estate Shiraz. It
is displaying lovely delicate flavors of ripe plum and raspberry jam and
will give extra depth of flavor and more delicate, fragrant aspects to the
wine.
On this fruit, we will also be trialing micro-oxygenation, a process which
causes some of the phenolics (bitter compounds) to polymerize and soften the
palate.
Despite all the obvious attention that has been given to the 2005 vintage,
there are also previous vintages to look after. The 2004 Shiraz, which has
been quietly maturing in oak since last year, needs to be assessed. This
means taking samples from each group of barrels. One group of barrels
contains what used to be one single ferment. The barrels are stacked on
racks within the same area and are, of course, marked according to content.
This way, we carry the diversity of our blending options through to the
final blending stage, giving us more options and more creative opportunity.
Taking samples sounds very simple, but it is actually a very labor intensive
undertaking. The barrels are all neatly stacked in the barrel shed. To reach
every individual group and to be able to take random samples, all the
barrels need to be removed from their position. Samples are then taken and
the barrels are re-stacked. As a result, the main shed turns into a jumble
of barrels for a day.
Once we have the samples, we determine the sulphur, acid and pH levels. We
also taste the wines and make some tentative decisions for blending options.
Blending doesn’t take place until later this year, but it doesn’t hurt to
get a head start on some ideas and follow some new visions. 2004 was a very
good vintage and it is now after almost a year of maturation that the true
wines are emerging.
In the last few days we said goodbye to Graham our vineyard manager, who has
been with the company for over twenty years. Many of our staff remain with
us for a large part of their career and we regard them as part of the
family. Graham has played an integral role in the making of some truly great
wines, since great wines always start in the vineyard. Therefore, it was a
very emotional farewell with many great wines and many stories shared. Phil
Ryan recalled a story when Graham was asked about the processes to produce
high quality fruit from one of our most renowned vineyards, the Lovedale
Vineyard. After telling a colorful tale of battling the elements and
nurturing the vines, he was asked why on earth he should have to go through
so much trouble. To which Graham emphatically replied, “Wait until you try
the 2000.” For a great wine and the moment of savoring that wine, no amount
of effort is too much. This is a philosophy that is very much part of our
family.
The party was also a great chance to catch up with other family members, who
are normally dispersed among our different vineyard areas.
I also received some more news from our other vineyards.
It appears that the Hilltops (see my notes on the 27th of February) will
again surpass our expectations for producing quality red. Our Rogers Block
Shiraz is looking fantastic with nice acid balance, excellent fruit
intensity and amazing color. The season has not seen any rain since January
so disease pressure has not been something we’ve had to worry about,
although we had some welcome rain a few days ago which will prevent the
Cabernet from over-stressing.
The Yarra Valley, a stones throw north of Melbourne, has been extremely wet,
similar to the ‘96 vintage. Wet summers are, however, not unusual in the
region and we adjust our vineyard practices accordingly by keeping the
yields low.
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