Misha's Vineyard

Misha’s update on the recent launch of Misha’s Vineyard Wines in China

Shanghai is the largest city (by population) in China and in fact it’s the largest in the world – and it just became one of my top 3 favourite cities! Misha’s Vineyard wines are now distributed in China through Jebsen Fine Wines – our distribution partner in both Hong Kong and China. Jebsen have the most fabulous teams and they are a company with amazing links into the greater China market having initially started in 1895 as a shipping agency that quickly developed into a trading company. Now the Jebsen Group are a leading marketing and distribution organization for luxury brands and across China representing such brands as Porsche, Bosch, Raymond Weil and Pentax. The wine division also represents leading brands including Frescobaldi, Robert Mondavi, and Laurent-Perrier champagne along with many others, so it’s a great privilege that they are our partner in this important and fast-growing market.

After a day of training the Jebsen Fine Wine team in our wines and visiting some of the most luxurious boutique hotels in Shanghai to introduce them to Misha’s Vineyard wines in order to get them listed in all the right places, we held our first wine dinner on the 1st November in a private dining room at the luxurious JW Marriott Hotel at Tomorrow Square. We had 25 guests, comprised of both customers and trade guests invited to attend the sumptuous dinner. We even had some friends from the US who happened to be visiting Shanghai at the time join us for the dinner. (It was great to see you Colleen!). It was a really fun night and we enjoyed the most spectacular views over Shanghai.

In Shanghai, we already have wines listed at M on the Bund, the House of Roosevelt, a few more amazing places with many more hotels about to list our wines. Andy and I look forward to spending more time in this fabulous city and are planning to do education on New Zealand wine with our winemaker Olly as this is a market with plenty of money to spend but just a little more convincing that New Zealand wine is a good alternative to French wine which still dominates the market of course!

Here’s the menu from our special Shanghai dinner.

Raspberry Sangria Sorbet, Lemongrass Jelly and Amaebi with Lime

Green Tea Smoked Bay Oyster and Chanterelles Mushrooms
Misha’s Vineyard Lyric Riesling 2010

Bamboo Clam “a la Plancha “with Citrus Fruits on Spiced Leek Compote
Misha’s Vineyard The Starlet Sauvignon Blanc 2009

Confit Black Cod in Sichuan Pepper, Tomatoes and Fennel with Provencal Olives
Misha’s Vineyard Dress Circle Pinot Gris 2010
Misha’s Vineyard The Gallery Gewurztraminer 2010

Grilled Wagyu Beef Strip loin and Potato in different Textures
Misha’s Vineyard The High Note Pinot Noir 2008
Misha’s Vineyard Verismo Pinot Noir 2008 (Reserve)

Bitter Chocolate Soufflé and Ice Cream with Truffle

Thanks to the wonderful Jebsen team including Sarah, Christine, Stephen, Thomas, Ken, Ryan, Vivian, and Ken for making our first visit so successful. See you all soon!

Tags: Andy Wilkinson, central otago pinot, Central Otago Pinot Noir, Jebsen Fine Wines, JW Marriott, Misha Wilkinson, Misha's Vineyard Wines, mishas vineyard, Sauvignon Blanc, The High Note, Wine Distributor

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A Blanc Check

With another harvest completed in New Zealand and an ever-increasing volume of Sauvignon Blanc, is it a case of too much of a good thing?

In the May issue of Wine Business Magazine, Misha talks to some key figures in the New Zealand wine industry, including Neal Ibbotson from Saint Clair, one of the country’s biggest Sauvignon Blanc producers and Clive Weston from Negociants New Zealand, on their view of the delicate balance of supply versus demand. With increasing production the question is whether New Zealand still has room for growth with its signature variety.

To read the full article download the PDF version below.

A Blanc Check – Download PDF

To subscribe to WBM – click here

Tags: Misha, Misha Wilkinson, mishas vineyard, Negociants, Saint Clair, Sauvignon Blanc, WBM, Wine Business Monthly

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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

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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

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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

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On the 22nd February, following an all-day company strategy meeting, we had a ‘Tapas and Tasting’ at The Lazy Dog in Queensberry – which is our virtual cellar door!

This was the first time that Dean and Diana (owners of The Lazy Dog) had held a ‘wine dinner’ and we were a little worried about getting a crowd on a Monday night. We didn’t need to worry, the dinner sold out and we had a waiting list and we’re already planning to do another one!

Dean did a superb job in preparing 8 courses which were perfectly matched with the 8 wines we presented during the evening. Diana called the menu a “Taste Sensations” menu matching the antipasto plate to our off-dry Lyric Riesling, the hot-smoked salmon to our medium-dry Limelight Riesling (which was a sublime combination), and the Kassler Pork loin and Risotto with our Dress Circle Pinot Gris.

Following that the spicy Mussels were served with The Gallery Gewurztraminer, Baked Camembert with the Audition ’07 Pinot Noir, and then Lamb Cutlets with The High Note ’08 Pinot Noir. In addition to all of that, we started the evening with a Sauvignon Blanc and some rosemary garlic bread and finished the evening with Dean’s home preserved apricots and a choice of Gewürtz or Riesling. Absolutely no one went home hungry!

Thanks to everyone who came to our wine dinner and a big thanks to The Lazy Dog for their enthusiasm and support of Misha’s Vineyard.

Tags: Gewurztraminer, Limelight Riesling, Lyric, Misha Wilkinson, Olly Masters, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, The Gallery, The High Note, The Lazy Dog

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An update from Rich Williams
Hi all – just a quick update on the vineyard. It’s amazing what a few days of warm weather can do – the vines now look the Springboks, according Robin, because they’re bright green and real winners! But I would have to disagree – I don’t think they’re quite as green as the Springboks, though their bent over tips do resemble the same sorry look!

Their bent tips are a consequence of the winds over the last few days but the good news is that they have regained their taper again. We have been working hard on the young vines (2007 plantings) in the house block but our efforts to ‘shoot thin’ has been hampered due to these severe winds. We’ve had to give that added protection to the “young girls” cushioning the blows with help of tape-gun in hand. The wind has also been whistling around the windbreaks, knocking tips and shoots against wires but thankfully not too much damage. Previous to that we had three days of hot calm weather which sent the vines off on a rip roaring pace. From an early start the Sauvignon Blanc has now stalled a bit. We’ll wait and see how it develops bunch-wise before shoot thinning there.

All in all, it’s been a busy time with Steve and I working pretty hard on the vineyard. We will be joined by two more of our newly-hired permanent crew next week so that will make a difference and mid-month we’ll get a bigger crew in to help with the rest of the shoot thinning.

Work is well underway on the old stone hut in the top block. It is looking more and more like a ruins every day! Steve Holmes and his trainee stonemason crew from Otago Polytech are doing a great job. Rich. (Enjoy the pics from Robin).

Tags: Miners Hut, mishas vineyard, Rich Williams, Robin Dicey, Sauvignon Blanc, Spring Vines

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