Note: We are following the 2011 grape harvest through the writings of several Niagara insiders. This is the fourth post from William Roman at Rosewood Estate, and Part XIV in our series.
By William Roman, Operations Manager, Rosewood Estate Winery and Meadery
Talking strictly grapes, we have finished bringing in all the fruit that will be used to produce wine at Rosewood this year, excluding some grapes that will be brought in for a special project (to be discussed shortly). Both the grower-contracted and estate fruit has all been brought in — this let’s us sleep a little easier at night not worrying about the weather to come and allows us to dedicate all of our time to the production of the various wines now found in our cellar.
Within the last two weeks the bulk and last of the Pinot Noir from Wismer Vineyards (Jordan) was picked and sorted. The fruit is from a clone that is unknown, known as “Behind the Barn Pinot.”
After some vineyard sorting, the fruit arrived at the winery in great condition. The brix came in at a reasonable level when you consider how wet both September and October have been. After nearly 2 weeks of fermenting, this pinot is almost dry and has produced some nice bright red fruit and earthy flavours — it should make for an interesting wine after some oak contact.
Following the Pinot Noir was several days of winemaking tasks, including multiple rackings, punchdowns and pumpovers (twice daily), yeast inoculations, and pressing-barreling of the Pinot Noir that was brought in earlier in the harvest.
During this time period we used some of the Pinot Noir to make a unique mead we like to call — Mead Noir.
It is a blend of Pinot Noir juice (after a cold soak) and honey, then inoculated to produce alcohol — the colour and flavour of this new vintage is spectacular. After a few days of this we began bringing in Merlot from some of the growers — including fruit from Peninsula Ridge and Raccoon Alley vineyard in Jordan.
These batches of grapes were immediately weighed, then sorted, and placed into tank so that we can start to manage the skins and phenolic extraction, and then subsequently the fermentations.
Last Friday we had a busy day picking all the estate grown Merlot and Cabernet Franc after two solid days of rain. There was a large crew of Vietnamese pickers brought in to help, at one point during the day there were 35 pickers! This large crew size had finished picking all the fruit by 5pm, right before it began to rain again.
Going back to my previous post, in the past two weeks we have continued to wait for our “windows of opportunity” to pick fruit when mother nature has co-operated. The very next morning we brought in the last of the Merlot from Alvento after their crews had finished picking their crop.
The various Merlots all show different characteristics and uniqueness to themselves — I am very excited to see how the different batches of Merlot develop as they age in barrel over time. With the fruit from Alvento being processed, this completes the harvest portion of this vintage for Rosewood.
I mentioned very quickly at the beginning of this post about a special project — this is referring to an independent wine that I am crafting with Rosewood’s Assistant Winemaker and Vineyard Manager – Luke Orwinski.
We are producing a Bordeaux style blend, incorporating Merlot and Cab Franc from Rosewood, Cab Sauv from a grower outside of Jordan, and Petite Verdot from the Beamsville Bench.
We have picked our Merlot and Cab Franc and have allowed them to cold soak for a week now. From our vineyard samples, we are approximately 1.5 to 2 weeks away from picking our Cab Sauv and Petite Verdot. We are both very excited about this project as we intend to incorporate several winemaking techniques that have not been previously utilized or experimented with at Rosewood.
The flavour and colour extraction that has already taken place over the last week in our Merlot and Cab Franc is intense with very dark and rich flavour being “extracted” through the extended pre-fermentation grape contact. We are excited and looking forward to how the future of this wine unfolds.
Up Next?
• Continue to manage fermentations — pumpovers plus punchdowns where applicable for red fermentations including a few natural fermentations, and watch the remaining white fermentations. After the red fermentations finish we will start pressing the grapes (skins), allow to settle over night and place into barrel.
• Finish cold stabilizing the whites which have finished fermenting. (Semillon)
• clean-up vineyard – need to finish several tasks related to the bird netting before we can send in a tractor to cultivate the soil, and then start prepruning the vineyard (once the leaves have fallen)
• Continue our daily ritual of trying all the ferments (spitting of course) to see how the fermentations are progressing — this is the fun part of winemaking when you get to see the hard work of this vintage begin to payoff with interesting flavours and complexity beginning to develop.
• Continue enjoying both local and international wines to unwind — in the past week our in-house sommelier brought us a great Pinot Noir from Oregon! (see picture)
Cheers!
Wills
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