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11 weeks from vine to trophy winning wine

The 2009 Printhie Mountain Range Sauvignon Blanc has just been awarded the Trophy for Best Sauvignon Blanc at the Winewise Small Vigneron Awards in Canberra. The judging, held in Canberra on Saturday 4 July, was only 11 weeks after the grapes were harvested from the vine.
We are particularly proud of this result. The high demand for Sauvignon Blanc in the marketplace and the fact that we sold out of the 2008 in just six months, has resulted in some very tight deadlines throughout the winemaking process, It was just seven weeks from vine to bottle, it was released for sale on 1 June and now it has won a trophy – as you would imagine we are thrilled.”

The Orange region is building a very solid reputation for Sauvignon Blanc and is arguably one of only two or three regions in Australia capable of mounting a challenge to the dominance of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. We have worked very hard to source high quality, high altitude fruit to produce a wine that reflects the unique characteristics of the Orange region. With a range of vineyards from 800m to 1,000m in elevation, we are able to get some terrific fruit complexity and wonderful natural acid structure.

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The winemakers diary - July 2009

The cold clear days of winter are here. Sitting at the office tasting bench, the sun is shining, the pruners are pruning, a gentle breeze is blowing and it’s about 2oC. There have been a couple of dustings of snow on top of Mt Canobolas. Yes, it is certainly winter. But it has been a good winter with good rain which bodes well for the start of the growing season in late September.

Winter usually brings a bit of calm to the winemaking office. The work of racking wines, stirring and topping barrels, the odd wine to prepare for bottling can all happen without tight deadlines and long hours. We are back to a nine to five routine and weekends to ourselves. Dylan, the cellar hand plays rugby for Molong, I play old-farts soccer in Orange, Ed hops on the bike and pretends that Mt Canobolas is Mont Ventoux in the Tour de France, Dave dreams of Olympic gold in a yet to be decided upon sport and Jim has a go at being Tiger on the golf course.

There are plenty of other things that keep us busy. There is always wine to sell, promote and distribute both in Australia and overseas. Jim and Ruth have been to Vietnam chasing export opportunities is south-east Asia and at the same time there are opportunities opening up in China and additional states in the USA. There are tastings and dinners to attend, new wines to release and the upcoming Orange @ Bondi festival at the end of August.

We are just putting the finishing touches on the new storage shed at the winery. The winery is so full of stuff at the moment there is no room to swing a cat. Fortunately, most of this stuff (bottled wine, packaging materials, all sorts of bits and pieces) will be moved to the new shed in the next couple of weeks and then the winery will have an unprecedented amount of space for winemaking activities – it will be luxury. The new shed, which is fully insulated and climate controlled, will allow us to store all our bottled wine on-site in ideal conditions. It has made a significant visual impact on the winery/cellar door site, so if you make a return visit in the future you will certainly notice the change.

Cheers
Drew Tuckwell
Winemaker

Wine feature - Chardonnay

Look what the critics are saying about the Printhie 2008 Mountain Range Chardonnay. Paddy Keeler from Melbourne’s Sun-Herald said “Fans of southern Victorian chardonnay – think Geelong, Mornington, Yarra and Macedon will relate easily to the various varietal styles now emerging from Orange in NSW…check out the Printhie Chardonnay, a thoroughly enjoyable expression of the grape…a winner.” Well, we are very happy to be aligned with regions like those that excel at high quality Chardonnay. And Nick Stock in WBM Top100 absolutely nailed the style and the value when he wrote, “Plenty of stone fruit in this cool climate Orange bargain. It trades on purity and direct fruit presence, mixing citrus and peach/nectarine flavours, all threaded together with zesty fresh acidity, and pear flavour to finish. Balanced and ready to enjoy”.

The 2008 Mountain Range Chardonnay was a very deliberate attempt to produce a wine that truly reflects its cool climate origins. It’s a style that is meeting the growing expectations of Chardonnay drinkers – a little more restraint, greater freshness, an emphasis on fruit and increasing interest from underlying complexities. This wine expresses definitive varietal fruit aromas and flavours from a cool season in a cool climate wine region.

Sourced from three high altitude vineyards ranging in elevation from 650m up to 1,050m, the excellent natural acidity retains freshness and provides a structure upon which layers of flavour can be built. The backbone of the blend is tank fermented and unoaked providing clean varietal flavours. Added to the blend are small portions of wine that include new French oak and older oak barrel ferment, wild yeast ferment, partial malolactic ferment, yeast lees stirring and higher solids content in the juice. All these portions add complexity in a subtle way. The resulting wine is fruit dominant but with interesting nuances.

At Printhie we aim to deliver the best value chardonnay for $17 that consumers can buy year-in, year-out but also a wine with regional expression and individual character because, after all, we only source fruit from a single region and we are a relative small, family-owned business.

Such was the quality of the 2008 vintage and Printhie’s belief that Orange can produce some of the best Chardonnay in Australia, we produced our first reserve Chardonnay. It is not far away from being released as the Printhie 2008 Mt Canobolas Collection Chardonnay – keep an eye out for it – we are sure you will be impressed.

After the overwhelming success of Orange Chardonnay in the regional wine show, Printhie is thrilled to have two great wines that we hope you will enjoy and become benchmarks by which the region is judged.

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News and Stuff...

11 weeks from vine to trophy winning wine

The winemakers diary - July 2009

Wine feature - Chardonnay

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