The first 2010 vintage wines are now in the bottle, and will soon be released. The red wines are in barrels, settling down for a bit of maturation. Our winemaker, Anthony de Jager, gave us his thoughts on the harvest and his first impressions of what to expect from this year’s wines.
This was originally posted on our blog.
Most wine farms and wine producers tend to put together a harvest report around this time of the year and these are always extremely positive. Somewhat strange in my opinion, given the differences year to year. Following on from his initial thoughts on the harvest in a previous post, I got a few honest thoughts from Anthony de Jager, our Fairview winemaker, now that the wines are all in the cellar. The last batch of grapes for the harvest was Shiraz, and was received on the 20th of March. Overall, we harvested more grapes than previous years. This was due to combination of our recent plantings starting to come into full production, balanced by some reduced yields in certain wind affected vineyards.
Challenges for 2010
There were a number of challenges this vintage. Firstly there were high winds in the vineyards during October which damaged the vines during fruit set. This lowered the potential yield of the vines. This means that we would be getting fewer bunches per vine and we needed to adjust the way we were farming the vineyards.
Secondly, intermittent rain well into November made it difficult for the the vineyard team to get their preventative spraying routines quite right. This caused some sporadic outbreaks of downy mildew, damaging the fruit at some sites.
Then there was a bit of a heatwave. After a reasonably slow and delayed start to the harvest, we were fortunate that the white grapes were all in the cellar before the heatwave started. Extreme heat spikes are expected during this time of the year, but this surge in temperature continued for more than eight days, which is very unusual. It was a juggling act to make sufficient space in the cellar. It was also a strategic challenge to balance the intake of over-ripe fruit with under-ripe fruit to offset the higher sugar levels in some varietals.
But on the positive side
The unseasonal, late rain was very beneficial to our dryland vineyards. This saw the unirrigated vines through the drier part of the vintage.
Whereas heatwaves have previously been a really big problem (especially in a warmer area like Paarl) the fact that we source grapes from a range of vineyards, in different areas, counted in our favour this year. Given the extreme heat we were able to spread the harvest over a longer period and control the intake of grapes so that we were still able to get fruit at the correct ripeness.
Another point to mention is the recovery period after the heatwave, especially in Stellenbosch and Darling. The sugar levels had an opportunity to stabilise before harvesting and the fruit arrived at the cellar in excellent condition. We are very positive about this recovery phase.
Wine varietal overview
To be honest, across the board, all the varieties are looking good, with nothing standing out as performing best or worst. Given the weather conditions during the early part of the harvest, the white varieties have shown very well so far, with Sauvignon Blanc looking particularly good. It is, however, still too early to really gauge the effect of the heatwave on the mid to late season grapes. The red varieties will only show their real worth once fermentation has been completed and the wines have settled in barrel. But looking at the quality of the grapes that we brought into the cellar, I think that there will be some excellent Shiraz from 2010.
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