Warm, dry Autumn boosts expectations

Dear Rentavine.co.uk Club member,

You will soon be receiving our Christmas GreenVine Newsletter by post along with our Special Christmas Wine List. There are a couple of special mixed case offers on our website which do not appear on the mailing. We now have a state of the art shopping system on the website so do give it a try. We have not yet got the system to automatically deduct members discounts but this will be done manually here in the office.

Vineyard Manager's Report

"At last the culmination of the year's labours! Due to the poor early summer, the harvest did not start until mid October but then began in earnest. Fantastic autumn weather led to high hopes of a good yield and we were not disappointed. We had our hands on one of the best quality harvests for years which should produce an outstanding vintage. Get your bottles next year!

Rapid Picking the order of the day

The harvest itself lasted about 2 weeks, which was a testament to the speed and efficiency of the workers! Collected in approximate order of readiness, the grapes were simply snipped off the vine and put into plastic crates. As the crates were filled, they were left under the vine rows and at the end of the day, I drove the tractor up and down the rows and loaded the crates onto a trailer. Once all on board, they were whisked back to the winery and pressed to extract maximum juice and flavour.

Many people helped out during the cold, frosty spell, including relatives, friends and even colleagues from Bonterra vineyard, California (Fetzer). Except for the numerous nicks on fingers and aching backs, an enjoyable time was had by all. If you can make it, why not come and help next year!!!

by

Peter Scott (Vineyard Manager)

WINES AT REST ON LEES

By Roy Cook (Wine maker)

It is many years since English wine growers have harvested such exceptionally ripe, mould-free grapes. Here at Sedlescombe our grape sugar levels were almost as high as in 1989 - the best vintage of the past 25 years.

High sugar levels usually mean high quality wine - providing of course that the wine-maker performs his craft correctly and does not make errors like last year when we lost the Chardonnay late picked 'noble rot' due to bacterial infection. This year I have the help of a wine studies student, Juri, from South Africa, and we are intent on looking after this particular vintage with great care and attention!

On arrival in the winery the white grapes destined for still white wine wines are passed through rollers which squash and split the berries and remove some of the stalks. This pulp is left to stand overnight for "skin contact" which improves both the bouquet of the finished wines and helps to extract maximum amount of juice during pressing. An enzyme is added at this stage to maximize the extraction rate.

We load the press manually, using buckets to avoid mashing of the fruit which happens if it is pumped or transferred using augers. Minimum mashing means fewer harsh tannins in the wine. Gentle pressing takes about 2 hours. As the juice runs from the press we add bentonite clay which settles out along with other particles during the few hours that the juice is left to stand and clear. This is then pumped off the sediment into a fermentation vat leaving the grape sludge sediment and bentonite behind. Bentonite acts to remove any protein in the juice which could cause hazes in the wine later. Next a proprietary brand of non-genetically modified yeast is added and fermentation starts.

For red wines yeast is added to the pulp immediately after crushing and fermentation takes place "on the pulp". This is necessary in order to extract the colour from the skins. After 10-21 days on the pulp (depending on the amount of tannin required) the red wine juice is pressed and pumped into vats.

For Sparkling Wines we practise the traditional 'champagne' method which involves "whole bunch" pressing. This means the grape bunches are loaded straight from the picking crates into the press without any pre-crushing. The idea here is to reduce harsh tannins to the absolute minimum. Sparkling wines do not require tannin. This is why we only use the juice from the low pressure pressings for juice extraction for sparkling wines. When the press is pressing hard, lots of tannins are being extracted and this juice goes for still wine production where it is less noticeable.

After the harvest is over and all the wines are bubbling away in their fermentation vats, the next operation is chapitalization - i.e. topping up the natural sugar levels with bought-in organic sugar. This year we only needed about a third of the amount we usually use due to the above average levels of natural sugar in the fruit. This operation was carried out in early November.

Throughout fermentation, Juri, took regular weekly readings of specific gravity (sugar levels), acidity, pH, and temperature of all the wines. During fermentation sugar decreases as it is turned into alcohol, acid decreases and temperature is increased.

Last week as the fermentation neared its end, we topped up all the vats to exclude any air contact with wine. From now on enemy number one is 'oxidation'. We want to produce fresh, bright, youthful wines with fine aromas, not dull, brown flat sherry-like wines , which is the result if wine becomes oxidized.

Just before Christmas, the young wines will get 'racked' off the spent yeast sediment and get an addition of sulphur-dioxide to prevent oxidation. It is at that stage that we'll be able to taste how the wines are developing. (There has to be some perks to being a wine-maker!)

More about that in the next newsletter. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Vineyard team!

PS Our New Year's resolution, apart from looking after our nice new wines, is to make sure we get these newsletters out more frequently in 2003. Thanks for your patience during 2002.