Misha's Vineyard

One of Singapore’s most established and popular wine bars – Que Pasa – hosted a wine tasting of Misha’s Vineyard Wines with our star winemaker Olly Masters presenting the range of wines. It was fantastic to see such interest from the mix of experienced wine aficionados to people who were quite new to wine. Some of the tasters were trying Gewurztraminer for the first time – and loved it!

During the introduction we talked about New Zealand and why New Zealand wine has made such a splash on the world stage in such a short period of time – and had them taste the “freshness and purity” that only can come from a country with such breathtaking beauty and pristine environment. We then went through a tasting of the Misha’s Vineyard wines that was accompanied by some delicious snacks put on by the Que Pasa team to match the range of aromatic white wines and Pinot Noir.

Singapore’s wine market continues to develop at a pace to match the F1! Misha and Andy recalled going to Que Pasa in 1995 when it was the only wine bar in Singapore. Now with wine bars and wine clubs all over the island city it was great to see the first one still delivering fantastic wines and food to its customers. As interest in wine develops in Singapore the style of wine from New Zealand is becoming even more popular. The palate style and Asian food match of our pure cool climate varietals is especially pleasing to Singaporeans looking for wines of elegance and texture.

Thanks to the amazing team at Que Pasa for a wonderful experience, to our great distributor in Singapore – Crystal Wines, and thanks to all those wine lovers who came along to try our wines. We plan to be back regularly to show you new vintages and continue our friendship.

Tags: Central Otago Pinot Noir, Gewurztraminer, Misha Wilkinson, mishas vineyard, Olly Masters, Que Pasa

Comments Off

Harvest Update

The 2011 growing season has thrown some interesting weather at us. The first half of the season was warm and dry but in January temperatures dropped and have stayed unseasonably cool and wet for much of the rest of the growing season. Overall we have still managed to come through with a great finish to the season due to some diligent vineyard management and keeping crops low. We’re delighted with the amazing fruit that’s been picked so far. This year’s harvest started slowly on Wednesday 30th March with a short day as we took a little Pinot Noir from the House Block. They were just 4 year old vines and their first “producing” season so we had to ensure the vines had a well balanced yield given the youth of the vines. Over the next couple of days we picked mainly Pinot Noir including the Abel clone of Pinot Noir from our Lakefront block– always a lush and flavorsome section of the vineyard! After three days of harvest we had partially picked 4 of our 8 clones of Pinot Noir – with still a lot of vineyard to go! Winemaker and official harvest scheduler, Olly Masters, tasted a lot of fruit on the Monday of Week 2 of harvest, and as usual, Olly is not in a rush to get the fruit off the vine as he waits for the berries to develop the flavours he’s looking for so we didn’t resume picking until Wednesday.

The first white varietal to be picked was the Sauvignon Blanc on our “Ski Slope”. It’s an interesting area to harvest. We pick mostly downhill as the bucket runners would simply not manage to get full buckets up the steep slope to the tractor and trailer and our picking crew would struggle to climb uphill as well. Thank goodness for the Misha’s Vineyard mini-bus to get them from the bottom of the hill to the top in order to start another downhill run. Ski Slope also tests the brakes on the tractors with two 400kg harvest bins on the trailer facing straight down the slope to the lake. The Sauvignon Blanc from Misha’s Vineyard is quite different from the more typical Marlborough style of Sauvignon Blanc produced in New Zealand. It’s more tropical and luscious than herbaceous and grassy. We think it’s the stunning view these vines have that makes the difference!

Friday started with 7 1/2 tonnes of Clone 667 Pinot Noir from Lakefront then we switched to Gewürztraminer – all .95ha of it in our “Fruitbowl” section of the vineyard. Gewürztraminer is one of the best varietals for being able to taste the wine flavours in the fruit before processing. It has really delicious lychee and musk flavours with a fruit sweetness that makes you want to munch on bunches while you’re picking!

Thanks to this year’s hardworking harvest team from Germany, Poland, Japan and of course New Zealand. It’s tough getting up in the cold to be picked up in town and driven up on site ready to start snipping at 7:30am. The starts can be quite icy until the sun starts to warm the air, but of course running up our hills warms everyone up!. However the spectacular view from Misha’s Vineyard on a beautiful Central Otago day is worth it!

Tags: central otago, central otago pinot, Central Otago Pinot Noir, Gewurztraminer, mishas vineyard, Olly Masters, Sauvignon Blanc, Wine Harvest

Comments Off

Vineyard Manager Rich Williams provides an up-close view of the varietals on Misha’s Vineyard as we go through the last month of the ripening season.

Hi All, Last year the regular photo comparison updates were very popular with wine industry ‘insiders”, sommeliers, wine enthusiasts and people just generally interested in seeing how the grapes develop. We hope this provides a good pictorial view of how the various varietals develop over the last part of the season. If you wish to look back on last year – these posts are still available in our archives. As you will see, they are a lot different to last year and out of interest I weighed each bunch before I tossed them away. The weight of each bunch is listed after the photos.

Top Block
PN 5 180g
PN 115 200g
PN 667 186g
PN 5 220g
PN 667 178g
PN 777 150g
PN 5 257g
PN 115 175g
PN 777 174g

High Wire
PG 2/15 223g
PN 777 166g
PN 667 245g
RS 239 180g

Fruit Bowl
GWZ 456 165g
RS 239 130g
GWZ 456 185g

Dress Circle
PG 2/15 308g
PG Barrie 234g
PG 2/15 213g

Lake Front
PN 6 225g
PN 667 290g
PN 6 248g
PN Abel 252g

Ski Slope
PN 6 259g
SB MS 197g

House Block
RS 110 124g
RS 110 104g
RS 198.19 95g
RS 110 98g
PN 114 209g
PN 4 125g

Regards

Rich Williams

Tags: central otago, central otago pinot, Central Otago Pinot Noir, Gewurztraminer, Misha, mishas vineyard, Rich Williams

Comments Off

Misha’s Vineyard Wines – Wine dinner at “The Cliff “ Restaurant sells out.

The Cliff restaurant at the Sentosa Resort & Spa on beautiful Sentosa Island in Singapore hosted a sell-out wine dinner featuring a menu of sensational delicacies from the chefs at The Cliff kitchen paired with the range of Misha’s Vineyard Wines. Guests from The Cliff, Rubicon Reserve Wines and Misha’s Vineyard were treated to some amazing pre-dinner hors d’oeuvres including cherry tomatoes on a small balloon of basil oil which when squeezed gave a burst of fragrant oil into the tomato! The setting – despite the rain – was very special and somewhere that everyone visiting Singapore should put on their list of places to dine.

The menu – simply put – was sensational!

MISHA’S Vineyard WINES @ THE CLIFF
2ND DECEMBER 2010

OYSTER,
lemon granite, tabasco jelly, seawater foam
Misha’s Vineyard “The Starlet”, 2009, Sauvignon Blanc

FOIE GRAS & APPLES
fizzy lemonade, apple espuma
Misha’s Vineyard “Limelight”, 2009, Riesling

TUNA
hot miso-lemon vinaigrette,
Japanese sweet potato and yuzu purée
Misha’s Vineyard “Dress Circle”, 2009, Pinot Gris

LAMB
loin and shank, fava beans, artichoke and
Sardinian fagiolo salad, yogurt textures
Misha’s Vineyard “The High Note”, 2009, Pinot Noir

CHEESE
selection of Frech cheese with preserves
Misha’s Vineyard “The Gallery”,2009, Gewurztraminer

Thank you to Restaurant Manager Kim Drew, F & B Director Adam Haywood, the whole team at The Cliff, and to Rubicon Reserve Wines for organizing such a wonderful event. We’re looking forward to going back!

Tags: central otago pinot, Food and Wine, Gewurztraminer, Limelight Riesling, Misha, mishas vineyard, Pinot Gris, pinot noir, Riesling, Rubicon Reserve, Sauvignon Blanc, Sentosa Resort & Spa, The Gallery, The High Note, Wine Distributor

Comments Off

An update from Vineyard Manager Rich Williams on how the vineyard is progressing…

Our cracker start continues from October, though the last 10 days have been quite windy. Temperatures have stayed reasonably warm and left the vines without their usual green and yellow look that were symptomatic of the spring last year.

The vines have started flowering (19th November) in the House Block and Ski Slope Pinot Noir staying in sync with the timing of budburst. With that in mind it should not be long for the rest of the varieties to be away. The start is of a similar date last year though this year we were initially a week behind and now we have caught up again. I’m seeing larger canopies across the board with less wind damage in the usual spots. There are still some issues with small vine syndrome on some blocks which bear the brunt of the wind – north end Dress Circle, north end Lake Front, High Wire by the gate – but the percentage across the board will be small and I will be dropping some fruit in these positions to get the vines to kick into gear once more. So expect bigger yields due to a great growth spurt and less wind damage.

Straight up, I have never seen a start like this one. This year is very different and I have had to have a large team on hand over the last couple of weeks. This has enabled us to catch up to where I now feel we are up to date. The young House Block took up a bit of time initially with the experienced Fulltime crew. After shoot thinning out the Pinot Noir, I decided the priority lay in the young Riesling were the vines were sulking holding up to 4 bunches per shoot and this was holding the vines back from pushing nice even shoot growth. So we made the call to do some early season bunch thinning down to 1 and 2 bunches depending on size and topped it off with a couple of Calcium-Nitrate additions the vines were away again. I’m really happy with how the Pinot Noir is looking although there is also quite a lot of fruit on these vines that will need to be looked at very soon so that the same does not happen to them.

After the young stuff, we were then making steady progress on the Ski Slope thinning out the cane pruned Sav Blanc. So far I’m satisfied with the rate of growth on these vines and cropping level seems to be low, though more even and slightly up on last year. Pinot Noir in this block is also trucking along well, more even and better wire fill than 2009/10.

I’ve had a group of casual workers shoot thinning, starting with the Lake Front Block. This block of Pinot Noir is one of the stand-outs of the season so far. Very even full height open canopy with consistent cropping level. Already we have 2 tuck wires up with shoot tips at post height already and will probably look to raise the third wire next week. The Abel clone on cane is also looking good without the vigour that it once had. From there the guys thinned out the Dress Circle Pinot Gris then the High Wire block. Shoot growth is outstanding through here. A large crop of Pinot Gris will be on the cards, with the variety producing 2 and 3 bunches a shoot.

I had a group of Ni-van workers shoot thin the Top Block Pinot Noir in a couple of days which really took the pressure off and this week the full timers have finished off the shoot thinning in the Fruit Bowl Gewürztraminer which I’m ecstatic about. A lot more even throughout this block with what looks like a larger crop than last year. The drain through the middle seems to be paying off although the already larger vines in the gully just want to grow but still really open ensuring light penetrates the canopy interior. Lastly, the Riesling is still to shoot thin but not much removal needs to be done to open it up. It will be finished off early next week along with some more wire tucking and some less than exciting removal of suckering shoots from the base of the plants. On the whole shoot thinning is all but done and 2 wires up around the board.

So on track and looking great!

Tags: central otago, central otago pinot, Central Otago Pinot Noir, Gewurztraminer, mishas vineyard, pinot noir, Rich Williams

Comments Off

An update from Rich Williams – Vineyard Manager

August has delivered some warmer weather with a bit of rain and fog thrown in but always cleared up to be nice and warm days. We had some 80km/hr winds earlier in the month but has been mostly settled and fine. The grass has greened up and the sap is starting to flow in the vines as we gear up for bud burst. I have experienced some quite strange occurrences in and around the vineyard. I have seen rabbits in trees eating high up in the briar bushes! No kidding! As well as this, upon digging in the Lakefront block found a vine root actually growing through the middle of a small rock! There must have been some tasty nutrients on the other side of that rock that the vine root wanted. Nature never fails to surprise.

We have made good progress with the pruning this month. The Top Block is all done and looking really good. The Sav Blanc on the steep Ski slope is 90% finished. The Savvy has been cane pruned which utilises the more fertile buds on the cane to ensure the best yield as Sav Blanc tends to produce infertile buds on the first two nodes. I was a bit worried initially that the canes wouldn’t be long enough to have a decent crop and also invigorate the vines into developing some good strong healthy growth for the coming season. We have been especially careful here with cane length and bud numbers as to not put too much stress on these plants. I’m amazed that they have turned out so well and given some accurate and early shoot thinning I think the Savvy will come through well this year. We will finish off the tying down next week as I want to get some rain on the brittle canes to ease the wrapping process. This has allowed us to move up to the Fruit Bowl and finish off the Gewurztraminer. This block also is looking really good and is such a challenging block to manage as there are quite different light and heavy soils through here with differing soil moisture content but this will only add to complexity once we gain control over them. This has been achieved by careful selection of well spaced spurs and a mix of cane on heavy soil to match vine vigour to capacity. The crew has done a great job accentuating wire fill through here as well which should provide a more appropriate tonnage and a little more wine for the people who love it. I’m looking forward to seeing how this block performs through the season. I still have concerns about the drainage through the centre of this block and I’m tempted to dig some drainage pipe through here under the vines which would remove excess water runoff from the buildings through the block and then allow for additional irrigation to be given to the drier parts giving better consistency.

Two of the Aquaflex soil moisture strips have been installed and the third will be installed in the coming week when a concrete decision is made on its position. The other moisture strip has been installed in the top irrigation block of the Ski Slope in the Sav Blanc just above half way. I was a bit afraid to start digging here as there are plenty of large rocks strewn around the surface however upon digging it was a different story. Soil tests have revealed the Ski Slope is one of the heaviest soils on top, however I got a big surprise when I found it was sitting on coarse golden sand and was easy digging down to 650 cm. Root distribution was still in the top 5-35cm of soil though vine size was quite small. Just to back up the complex nature of the soils here, I replaced a broken post about 50 meters downhill and the soil was instead 15cm of sticky yellow/red clay on top of gravel and large rocks.

Counts for replants have been done and old spray guards around older vines have been removed to tidy the place up. Vines of appropriate clone and rootstock will arrive in the next couple of weeks to fill up the gaps. Things to come in the next month will be the ongoing task of removing metal pins, vineyard maintenance, sheep grazing, and fertiliser spreading, replants and then of course budburst at the end of September.

I’m also just back from Dunedin attending Neil Kinsey’s “Principles of soil fertility” course based on the Albrecht system. It was an amazingly informative and detailed course and Neil had some funny stories to tell while we listened attentively to soil stuff over the 10 hour days. He reminded me of Colonel Sanders of the soil.

I’ve come back to the vineyard with many new ideas and confirmation that most of what we are doing is headed in the right direction. The detail I’ve collected may bee too much for this blog but it will keep Robin and the team entertained for the next few weeks. The main message however was “we should first treat the soil, then the plants”!

Tags: central otago pinot, Gewurztraminer, Misha, misha's, mishas vineyard, Rich Williams, Sauvignon Blanc

Comments Off

An update from Andy:
At the end of week two of harvest we are about half way with 54 tonnes of grapes now in the winery for processing. These have not been full work weeks as Olly carefully selects sections of the vineyard that are just right for picking and we anticipate about 6 days more picking spread over the next two weeks to complete the season. At this stage all of the Gewurtztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc is picked, we are part way throught the Riesling and have taken some sections of Pinot Noir. The remaining Riesling, all of the Pinot Gris and most of the Pinot Noir is still enjoying a warm Autumn. The canopy on the vines in most of the vineyard has held up well this year so flavours continue to develop in the fruit. Picking by taste and not by brix and acid numbers is to me a wonderful expression of art rather than science.

Our harvest crew has been fantastic and although some of our French workers have left to return home, and Ken – from China – has also moved on – we are looking forward to some great new crew joining the team next week. I’ve been working with the team each day driving tractors and running buckets – and my aches and pains are testimony to the steepness of the slopes and heavy buckets. We are really thankful to the effort our whole team, both permanent staff and casuals, have been putting in and appreciate their care and attention to picking. Our focus on quality has been applied by every member of the team.

The word from the winery is wow! They are really delighted with the quality of fruit coming in and even my limited palate is enjoying the wide range of tropical and berry flavours from the early stages of juice and ferments. The most frustrating part is now waiting until late 2011 or early 2012 before the Pinot Noir from this vintage gets released!

Tags: central otago, Gewurztraminer, Harvest, mishas vineyard, Olly Masters, Pinot Gris, pinot noir, Riesling

Comments Off

Just over a month ago Rich Williams, our vineyard manager, sent in a photo of the development of various clones around the vineyard. (see 10th March blog). The response was quite overwhelming with many comments coming to us on how informative this was and how many of our blog followers would be interested in seeing later development just before we harvested.

Below is the same set of grape clones from 10th April. It really does give a wonderful perspective of the ripening process. We are now about 30% through our harvest and really excited about the quality of this year’s vintage.
Thanks to Rich for taking the time to get these samples together and do the expert photography!

Tags: central otago, central otago pinot, Gewurztraminer, Limelight Riesling, misha's, mishas vineyard, Pinot Gris, Rich Williams, Riesling

Comments Off

On Tuesday 13th we started harvest on Misha’s Vineyard. The season has been a mixed one with cold and wet conditions in the early months slowing the early stages of development and providing a natural reduction in yield, but a warm dry finish to the season has produced some great results. Vineyards across Central Otago are reporting very good quality fruit and are looking forward to a great 2010 vintage.

Our harvest crew – from New Zealand, Germany and France – started with the Gewurztraminer which has shown wonderful flavours develop over the past few weeks. The Gewurztraminer has been our favourite “tasting” grape with its hints of musk, turkish delight and lychee. We also have taken the Sauvignon Blanc from the aptly named “Ski Slope” section of the vineyard which has an amazing variation on both colour and flavour from the sunny side – with darker and more tropical fruit – to the lighter coloured and more traditional flavours of gooseberry in the fruit on the shaded side of the vines.
The flavour profile of our 2009 Sauvignon Blanc has produced a wonderfully vibrant wine with complexity, elegance and structure which we are confident will be repeated this year.
This year we are working with a smaller crew and picking across a longer period of harvest days. The results should produce a wonderful array of flavours with perfectly ripe fruit meeting our winemakers exacting standards being selected for the daily bin quota.
The crew were certainly looking forward to a lighter day on Thursday after working the Ski Slope for the Sauvignon Blanc, and the clone 6 Pinot Noir (leaving some shelter cloth protected rows for another day) for two days. We picked downhill then drove the crew back to the top but working on the steep slope is hard, and the bucket runners earned their breaks.
The Pinot Noir clone 6, lakefront clone 667 and a section of clone 5 from the Top Block is now in the winery and beginning the process of producing an exceptional vintage.

We will be back to the field on Monday to continue with the Pinot Noir in Olly’s selected sections.

Tags: central otago, Gewurztraminer, Misha, mishas vineyard, Olly Masters

Comments Off

An update from Vineyard Manager Rich Williams

Ripening has progressed solidly in the last month and we are just a couple of days from harvest.

Now that the vineyard has been covered by bird nets and all our green thinning has been completed, we have been enjoying a quiet spell for a change. This gives us the opportunity to clean bins and prepare for the pick. Once we start bringing in fruit, it will be non-stop and so everything must be organised and ready to go. Workers for harvest have been recruited and I am looking forward to working alongside the team chosen to work with us through the harvest weeks.

Andy and Misha are here in Central Otago now to ensure things go smoothly and there are no unripe bunches picked – our quality control team!

It is always a tedious wait for the Vineyard Manager and team until that call comes from the Winemaker to start picking. I am on the edge of my seat waiting for those mysterious flavours to arrive and we continue to send off samples to the winery to test for brix and acids. So far the numbers are looking good enough for us to make a start next week. There is not a lot of work we can do now to increase quality and we have thrown everything at the vines to achieve a high standard this year. It is now up to Mother Nature finish off the ripening process.

I am really happy with how things have progressed lately and it’s hard to imagine that the vineyard season will be over soon and we can start again with the next one. So far the season to date has recorded 1061 Growing Degree Days (GDD) which is slightly higher than last year and slightly less than 2008. March was a real cracker a provided just over 200 of those GDD’s. Already though the temperatures are feeling a bit cooler and the foliage is showing signs of Autumn. It is a reassuring feeling once all the fruit has been taken off and sent to the winery to be processed and then Olly can work his magic!

Tags: central otago, central otago pinot, Gewurztraminer, Harvest, misha's, mishas vineyard, Rich Williams

Comments Off