Misha's Vineyard

Establishing a Misha’s Vineyard footprint in key parts of the world is the top priority this year for the sales and marketing department (aka Andy and me!). We have just announced our second distributor in Australia, Estate Wine Distributors. We’re absolutely delighted because Peter Papanikitas has an experienced team who are focussed on the restaurant sector in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, and Cairns. And we have completed our first shipment to South Korea through our agent there and the wine will go into restaurants. We’re happy to have been able appoint seven distributors in seven markets and hoping to increase that number by the end of the year.

We have just spent a week in the UK and attended the New Zealand Summer New Release Tasting at NZ House on the Haymarket. The two consecutive trade tasting days were held in the Penthouse of New Zealand house which had panoramic views across London. It was a spectacular place for a wine tasting and our wines received lots of positive comments. We also met with potential distributors and visited a few great dining spots including The Providores (www.theprovidores.co.uk/ and The Modern Pantry www.themodernpantry.co.uk/)
– and oddly enough they both have NZ-focussed wine lists! Also went to a very fab restaurant that’s casual but cool just near Charring Cross called Terroirs (www.terroirswinebar.com/). I had an amazing dish of braised rabbit on polenta and washed it down with 2007 Barbera ‘Ronco Malo’ produced by Vittorio Bera from Piemonte – fab!

Some really exciting news is that three of our wines have been selected for the 2010 Tri Nations Wine Challenge this year: Misha’s Vineyard Limelight Riesling 2009, Misha’s Vineyard Dress Circle Pinot Gris 2009 and Misha’s Vineyard Verismo Pinot Noir 2008. The latter is our Reserve Pinot which we have just released so it’s very flattering that it’s been chosen as one of the top Pinot Noirs to represent New Zealand competing against the best of Australia and South Africa.

Early in July I’m off to Tokyo for just a few days for the NZ Trade Tasting event at the Ritz Carlton along with some trade activities including a wine tasting at the glamorous Isetan store in Shinjuku which has the most beautiful fine wine section that includes a gated cellar! And then we’re off to the US to attend a fantastic event called the International Pinot Noir Celebration and to hopefully find a distributor for our wines there. Will keep you posted!

Misha

Tags: Estate Wine Distributors, Misha, Misha Wilkinson, mishas vineyard, new zealand wine, Pinot Gris, pinot noir, The Modern Pantry, The Providores, Tri Nations Wine, Verismo, Wine Distributor

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An update from Rich
We have been hard at work ensuring the vines are looking happy and healthy as véraison has been coming on fast in the last few weeks due to a bout of warm sunny weather – finally!

Some of the work done on the vineyard include opening up the canopy on the ‘darker side’ of the Sauvignon Blanc and taking fruit off on the small shoots. We also dropped some weight out of the Abel clone Pinot Noir vines and opened the canopy there as well and moved through the Lakefront block removing any green fruit or green shoulders that we saw.

We’re now in the Top Block of the Pinot Noir and moving the wires up whilst also ensuring the vines are in balance and doing some leaf plucking where necessary to ensure adequate light penetration. We are getting some good consistency in the vineyard véraison is almost finished.

Interestingly, we our two Riesling blocks are showing quite marked differences with one block having bunches that range from small to large and quite advanced, whereas the other block has much smaller bunches but a bigger yield – it’s amazing how different the blocks are given their close proximity.

Highlights over the last few weeks was our visit from Masumoto-san, the President of our distribution company in Japan along with a group of 22 Japanese comprising wine trade and sommeliers – they were quite a fun bunch. We also had Garry King visit from Tonnellerie Saint Martin who provide some of our French oak barrels. We really enjoyed his laid-back style and it is always great to meet people that have a part to play in the production of our wines. It was great to have Eddie and Christine from Rathdowne Cellars in Melbourne come up to the vineyard and sit for an enjoyable tasting of wines in the afternoon sun at Ah Foo’s House. I always enjoy a break from the vineyard work to enjoy some of our wines with customers.

We have said goodbye to our German friends who had been working with us for 6 weeks and sadly Sai has now left our permanent team so we wish him all the best.

My lastest yield estimates look like we’ll have over 100 tonnes of fruit with Pinot Noir about 70% of that total. Now we play the waiting game until harvest. Looking forward to it!

(In this update I have included two charts below to show the difference a week can make on the vineyard in terms of véraison and also what our bunch sizes look like across the vineyard)

Clonal Selection 25th February

Just 10 days after the photo above – the development has been quite outstanding!

Clonal selection 5th March

Tags: Ah Foo, Aprevu, Apurevu, misha's, mishas vineyard, Rathdowne Cellars, Rich Williams, Tonnellerie Saint Martin, Wine Distributor

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