 |
|---|
         |
 |
NOVEMBER ARTICLES
5 Trophies in a month
Our new winemaker
NSW top 40 success
Winemakers Diary
Why Pinot Gris?
November News and Views
5 trophies won in the last month
It was an extremely satisfying month for Printhie. It began with the Trophy for Best Riesling (2007 Riesling) at the NSW Small Winemakers Wine Show. A strong performance at the National Cool Climate Wine Show resulted in a haul of five medals. The following week Printhie Wines triumphed at the Orange Wine Show being awarded four Trophies including Best Merlot (2006 Merlot), Best Cabernet Sauvignon (2006 Cabernet Sauvignon), Best Red Wine of Show (2006 Merlot) and Most Successful Exhibitor. The 2006 Shiraz Cabernet also picked up a Gold Medal and Printhie just missed out on collecting a fifth trophy for the show.
 |
Drew Tuckwell appointed winemaker at Printhie
Drew began the path to winemaking in 1993, working as a cellar rat (vintage cellar worker) at the famous Brokenwood estate in the Hunter Valley. He had so much fun he backed up for the 1994 vintage. Completely hooked on winemaking by this stage, he gave up his career as a graphic designer. Drew took to the life of a ‘vintage gypsy’ and embarked on the right of passage of all Australian winemakers by travelling to Europe for work. After the 1995 vintage in Chianti Classico in Tuscany, he returned for a vintage at Brown Brothers down in north-eastern Victoria. In 1996 he headed back to Tuscany for another vintage before getting very serious about his career aspirations and deciding to go to the University of Adelaide for his formal Oenology qualifications. After four years in Adelaide and vintage work with Wirra Wirra Vineyard in McLaren Vale, he settled in Mudgee NSW to fulfil an ambition to play with the emerging Italian varieties in the region where they were first planted in Australia. After seven very successful years in Mudgee with the likes of Sangiovese, Barbera and Pinot Grigio, as well as the more traditional varieties such as Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet, Drew has moved to Printhie and is excited to have joined such an enthusiastic and quality driven family-owned wine producer.
Drew is also a contributing writer for the respected consumer magazine Gourmet Traveller WINE, is a wine show judge and was awarded the 1999 Negociants Australia Working With Wine Fellowship. He has travelled extensively throughout Europe, California and Australia visiting important wine producers. His favourite hobby is wine, he regrets not being able to earn millions as a professional sportsman and his two children have made the term ‘spare time’ redundant.
|
NSW Wine Awards Top 40 Success
November finished on another high with the 2004 Swift Family Heritage Cabernet Shiraz making it into the NSW Wine Awards Top 40, with a further two wines (2004 Swift Family Heritage Cabernet Sauvignon & 2006 Shiraz Cabernet) making it into the Top 120. This made Printhie Wines the most successful wine brand from the Orange region in the NSW Wine Awards for 2007.
|
The winemakers diary - November 2007
Well, departing winemaker Robert Black has certainly laid down the challenge to me as he walks out of the Printhie winery door. Having just earned the Riesling Trophy at the 2007 Small Winemakers Wine Show and then the Merlot Trophy, Cabernet Trophy, Best Red Wine of Show Trophy and Most Successful Exhibitor Trophy at the 2007 Orange Wine Show, Robert has certainly gone out in style and we wish him well in his next venture.
However, I am absolutely thrilled to have joined Printhie Wines and am really excited about the wines currently in the winery and the plans for the 2008 vintage. Speaking of which we are currently blending the 2007 vintage Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and red wines for bottling around Christmas time. Naturally, with the drought, warm weather and early harvest the vineyard produced lovely ripeness while retaining distinctive regional character. In fact, some growers that we source fruit from that are situated higher on the slopes of Mt Canobolas had a relatively wet vintage with cooler temperatures and this has resulted in some beautiful fruit expression in wines such as the Pinot Noir, the previously mentioned Riesling and some of the Merlot. In all, the 2007 vintage has already produced some exciting wine releases and there are more to follow.
The new growing season has started well. There was more winter rain this year than last, which gave the vines a better start and Dave and Ed tell me that there is as much canopy now than the vines had all season last year. There has been good follow up rain in the last two weeks which will keep the vines going for a while. The vines look happy and appear to be intent on setting decent yields. So as long as we avoid any late frost, hail and excessive effects of the ever present drought, we are very excited about the possibilities for great wines from the 2008 vintage (fingers crossed – twice over!).
Cheers
Drew Tuckwell
Winemaker
|
Where and why - Pinot Gris / Grigio
It is not really clear where Pinot Gris originated. In Italy where it is know as Pinot Grigio it is grown extensively throughout the Veneto and Friuli in the far north-east of the country. In France, it is most extensively grown in Alsace, in the north-east of that country, a long way from Italy but very close to Germany. But let’s assume its French as Pinot Gris is a mutation of Pinot Noir, a variety whose roots are very firmly found in central France.
Stylistically, Pinot Gris is riper, richer in fruit and texture, more viscous and full-bodied on the palate. Pinot Grigio, is usually an earlier picked style showing less aromatic fruit, more minerality, has a firmer acid palate structure and is light and refreshing.
This variety, by whichever name you choose to call it, has exploded in popularity despite being virtually unknown to many wine consumers just 5 years ago. While the styles produced as explained above are not exclusive to either region, the differentiation in name tends to be a good indicator of the style that Australian wine producers are attempting to achieve. At Printhie, the 2007 Pinot Gris is the third release of this wine. We are deliberately pursuing the richer fruit, more viscous mouthfeel style. We have found that to produce this style it is an evolutionary process. It requires a little bit of winery trickery, with varying degrees of juice solids retained, old barrel fermentation, yeast lees stirring and getting the acid balance just right. You tend to use some of the same techniques that are employed for chardonnay but without new oak and with a variety that has less strongly flavoured fruit. So in 2008 we will continue on out quest to develop this style of wine that will be at the pinnacle for both its quality and its great value. In the meantime, check out the newly released 2007 version.
And what about the grey (gris/grigio)? Well the colour of the skins are not white, nor are they red but they do develop a distinctive colour that really sits somewhere between grey and ruby. They are very pretty berries. When you crush and press the grapes in the winery the juice is initially very bright green like any normal white variety. However, the more that you press the skins they start to leak out an onion-skin pale pink colour that by the end of the press cycle can look almost like rosé wine. As a winemaker you have to be very careful about colour extraction, especially if you don’t want any pink tinge in the final wine. However, it is perfectly acceptable for the wine to have that pink tinge and many winemakers deliberately do so.
|
|
Wines | Orders | Vineyards | Winery | Cellar | Region | Where to buy | Contact Us
Reviews | Photos | Events | Sidetrack
