Highlands Road Wine Estate

Those of you who have been following my tweets are up to date with my ramblings, and will know that we have just returned from a month long 'holiday' with the family in the UK, where between much relaxation (not), I did a few tastings. What I haven't told you is of the success they were.

Our agent in UK, Ben with his new wife Susan on their wedding day - it all happens when you have our wines, they were both confirmed singles before they met us. Now look at them! We wish them all the very best in the future, and just hope that their honeymoons (yes, note the 's') come to an end soon, so that we can sell some more wine!!!!

2010 has been a harvest that is really hard to describe. First of all, let me say that I don't think will go down in the annuls of history as being one of the best, but there have been some shining lights though. It has been a vintage with some of the strangest weather patterns that I have encountered - is this a sign of things to come with global warming? We had very late winter rains and cold weather that influenced bud break, flowering and fruit set, especially in the plums. We have had strange weather during the ripening period - incredibly hot days one day and rain the next, thus hindering the ripening process, and in-between gale-force winds, that at times were blowing whole bunches off the vines.

Despite all this though, we did manage to successfully pick our Sauvignon Blanc, and have made some nice wine out of it, so much so, that we will more than likely be releasing our 'free run' style Sauvignon Blanc this year - after a break of a year because we weren't 100% happy with the quality last year.


Those of you who follow me on twitter will no doubt have got the message about the cellar being stacked to maximum capacity for the rest of the season, it seemed that this year everything else ripened at about the same time. Usually we are able to process one wine before the next comes in. This year, at one point we were literally climbing over tanks, as there was just no space left. Easter became a nightmare, as this is when we chocka's with reds, and it was taking 3 of us nearly 8 hours just to complete the pump-overs, and this had to be done every day! It has thankfully all slowed down now, all the reds have been pressed and put to bed for a while and it is time to start working on the Sauvignon Blanc again.

This year saw the release of our maiden Pinot Noir 2008, which has been a huge success story for us. We decided to sell it only from the tasting room, and has sold so well that we only have a few cases left. It is a style of Pinot Noir that is more typical of the cool climate - an elegant softness without those strawberry jam characteristics. It was aged for 14 months in French oak barrels, then 6 months in bottle prior to release. It is ready to drink now, but will definitely go the distance in the bottle. We have priced this wine at R120/bottle, and can be ordered directly from the farm.

On the marketing front, we have some exciting things coming up. If the airports manage to open, we start with Vinordic in Sweden tomorrow. This is very exciting as it is our first foray into Sweden. We have, through 'We Sell Wine', been doing very well with our sales there, and now is our chance to go and meet the people buying the wine, and hopefully find a few more who like it!


May sees us head off to Natal for a series of tastings and shows, which should be great fun. Starting with a tasting at Princes Grant Lodge for a 'Travelling Fairway Feast', then onto the Midlands for a show with Parklane Spar, Midlands Fine Wines festival at the Lions River Polo Club, and finishing with a tasting at Michaelhouse. 


Later in the year we have a few plans, but do not want to give too much away at the moment, suffice to say that if nothing else it will be original! Then it is the turn of the Good Food and Wine Show in JHB, which is always good fun.


On a sad note, we have had to say goodbye to Molly who is returning to America to complete her studies. It has been a great 6 months with her, and those of you who have met her, will no doubt agree that a more like-able and fun-loving person will be hard to find. We all wish her the best with her studies, and hope to see her back here soon. At the same time, Sue has joined us. She will be looking after the JHB sales and marketing and we are very excited to have her on board. Again, a fun-loving and free-spirited person, who, I am sure, will be an asset to HRE, so look out for her on her rounds, or at the local shows.


Summer Sundowners have come to an end for the winter, and will begin again in spring. We have had some great musicians and great relaxed evenings of music, wine and snacks. Last Friday was the best one yet, with a group of four, one from South Africa, two members who spend half the year here, and half in the UK, and the last one who happened to be in S.A on holiday! It was great, and what was even better was that they were happy to take wine as payment!


The next blog will probably be from Natal, but keep following me on twitter!

It's been a while, harvest has been hectic, but there is a break in the grapes coming in, so I thought I would update my blog quickly. 


Whilst waiting for the press to squeeze the grapes, there is a lot of waiting around time - up to 3 hours sometimes - when there isn't alot to do except think, especially in the middle of the night - Monzi, as you will by now no doubt know well! During one of these sessions, sitting on my rocking chair, watching the juice dripping out of the press, I got thinking about the amount of wine we produced. This thought progressed into wondering how many glasses of potential wine there was in the press, and then by natural progression, how many glasses of wine we will produce on our farm.


The answer I came up with is that there are 1,066,400 glasses of Highlands Road Wine out in our vineyards.


Here's how I arrived at the answer:
There are 10 hectares of planted vineyards on Highlands Road Estate
There are 2666 vines per Ha, therefore 26660 vines in total
There are approximately 40 bunches of grapes per vine,
Which equates to 1,066,400 bunches of grapes 
It takes, on average, 4 bunches of grapes to make a bottle of wine.
There are about 4 large glasses of wine in a bottle, or 1 bunch per glass
Therefore 1,066,400 glasses of wine!


I told you I had some time on my hands!


Out of interest, here's some more stats - 
There are approximately 75 berries on a bunch
There are about 624975 berries per ton
There are about 11250 berries per picking box
We can fit about 2025000 berries in the press
The pressing cycle takes 90 minutes to squeeze the juice, therefore we are processing a berry every 0.000026 seconds

As mentioned in a previous blog, I do a lot of contract winemaking in our cellar. This year, Charles and Zelda have finally fulfilled one of their life-long ambitions and have delivered their first grapes for their champagne venture - Methode Cap Classique in South Africa!


The Pinot Meurnier was the first of their grapes to arrive yesterday, which were put into the cold room and pressed this morning. Together with their consultant - Nicholas Follet from France, we pressed them this morning

Its always great to see the excitement and enthusiasm from the first timers, especially with such a daunting time ahead! May it go very well for them!


We have also taken on another project with new clients, who are as excited with their first grapes coming in, and from what started out as a small project of about 3 tons of grapes, has grown to a much more sizable project of about 40 tons! So watch this space. I tasted their grapes yesterday, wow, we're going to make some nice wines from them, especially the Sauvignon Blanc.


The wine industry never ceases to amaze me, I am sure it is the romance associated with it, seen from the outside - trust me it's not nearly as romantic when you're unloading two hundred 20 kilo fruit crates on your own or cleaning tanks till mid-night. But if you can stick out the first few years, the rewards can be amazing. It is always so satisfying thinking about all those people enjoying the fruits of your labour at any particular time, and it is for this reason the the 'lifers' stick to it and the others move on. There really isn't a lot of money to be made in this industry, especially in South Africa, and especially the boutique producers, so it must be about the passion.


So hats off to all you boutique winers, you all do a great job, and without your wares, the world would be a duller place!


To end off, we have been aerial baiting for flies this week- 

I bet my fly spray is bigger than yours!

Isn't it amazing how quickly it all catches up with you. This weekend my meandering thoughts were with the up coming labeling - something that has been plaguing me a bit, as the cellar is choca's with unlabelled wine and no space to move, when I get a rude awakening from my neighbour, informing me that his MCC grapes will be arriving for processing next week! Just so you understand, we do a lot of contract wine making here, we utilise about 30% of the cellar for ourselves, and I make other peoples wine in the rest of the cellar. I have 9 clients, with wines ranging from 4 barrels up to 40 000 liters.


I have a new client this year, Charles, who is a new grower, and is harvesting his first grapes this year. He has done a bit of a JP Colmant, and is producing the three champagne grape varieties for the production of MCC only. Much excitement emanating from his farm (just above mine), harvest planning, visits from Champagne experts, checkinf with me to make sure the cellar is still here, etc. 


And this brings me to the gist of this blog. I wasn't even contemplating picking grapes for at least a month - I had forgotten about these grapes, and all of a sudden it is time to don those dreadful old clothes that have become synonymous with my wine making, and make me look like a scarecrow or vagrant, and start climbing into the tanks - yes, I can still fit into them! All of a sudden the mood changes on the farm, there is an air of anticipation as we await the arrival of the new harvest. There is nervous excitement from the vineyard owners, groans from the staff at the thought  of all those late nights, and the physical effort required - everything is done by hand, the animated chatter from the office staff and customers in the tasting room wanting to catch a glimpse of the process. And of course then there's the winemaker, pretending to look cool, calm and relaxed. Go inside my head to see the truth! The cogs - those that haven't worn smooth are spinning ten to the dozen, trying to remember how did it last year, have we bought all the chemicals, what do I say to the proud new owner if I am not happy with the grapes, etc.


But before all that I have a couple of other little tasks to complete. Namely the cold stabilisation of 60 00 liters of wine over the next two days, the bottling of those self same wines over 4 days this week and next, and the potential start of the laetitia plum picking. forecast to start at around the same time as Charles' grapes! It does put the pressure on at this time of year, but the adrenalin induced excitement seems to always get us through.


On the first plums, it seem that they all went through okay, and are being devoured, as I write this, by members of the Middle Eastern fraternity, possibly even Brett, with whom I have recently made contact after 23 years, but that is for another time.   

Wow, what a Christmas and New Year its been on the farm. We had planned to close for a few days over Christmas and new year - we needed a break, but non of that, apart from Christmas day itself, we have been open for business. And boy has it been busy. We have had two excellent mentions in lifestyle magazines, one in Getaway in December, and one in Country Life in January, and we are certainly seeing a large increase in volume of traffic from both. The deli has been packed, poor Mary has hardly stopped cooking for a month - apart from the normal deli fayre, her glazed hams are becoming uber-famous, and have been running out of the doors leading up to Christmas. Two hams have even found their way to the UK!! 

And so the time has come for Santa to start waxing the skids, giving the reindeer the once over, and knocking the elves back into shape. For me, it's time to reflect on another year of this young business and to decide on the direction for the next year. All in all, things seem to have gone according to plan, our sales figures are on, or around where they should be, even though the economy has hit us hard, as it has for everyone else. I think that we will have to do less of the big expensive shows, and concentrate on the smaller ones, which I enjoy so much more anyway. 


The farm is looking spectacular at the moment, we have finished suckering the Sauvignon Blanc, and the vineyards is looking like a very well groomed series of hedges. The younger vines have all reached the cordon wire, and we have started training the future cordon arms along the wires. Bob has come up with an ingenious method of attaching the shoots to the wire, instead of buying the clips that are very expensive, he has invented a machine to make pigtails out of old plastic irrigation wire. It works a treat! We should get a lovely crop of Sauvignon Blanc this year, for their second crop 

The plums, particularly the Fortunes are also looking great, and really beginning to size and colour now. It looks like the plum harvest will be around the second week in January, about a week later than usual. The very exciting news regarding the plums is that, for the first time, we will be opening up a few rows for people to come and pick for themselves, as they do up in Ceres with the cherries. My plan is to do just a couple of rows this year, and if it works, we will do more next year. We will leave the plums on the trees a little longer to ripen, so it will probably be the end of January/beginning of February when we have our plum harvest festival.


We have just finished bottling the 2009 wines, all are looking great, and am very excited about releasing the Sauvignon Blanc towards the end of February. We are well into sales of the 2008 Sauvignon Blanc at the moment. It has just started to really open up now and is tasting really good. The 2007, of which we have just sold out, is tasting absolutely sublime at the moment, so if any of you have a few bottles left, try some with your Christmas turkey, I guarantee it will be a magic partner to the dinner - I know what I am having with mine!


The maiden vintage of our 2008 Pinot Noir has been bottle aging for almost six months now, and is about to finally be wheeled out, I am very happy with it, but with only 200 cases available, don't think it will last very long!


Otherwise, the Rose, and the Ruadh (shiraz/Merlot) continue to be as popular as ever, those summer sundowners just don't seem to be the same without a glass of Rose!


Otherwise it is business as usual on the farm, the deli and tasting room are open over the festive season, except for Christmas day and New Years day, so pop on down, if you are around, and join us for a bite to eat and some wine on one of the deck surrounding the dam and soak up some of the awesome views. Bring the kids, theres load to do what with swimming, kayaking and fly fishing.


From all of us here at Highlands Road Estate, we wish you all a blessed Christmas, and a very prosperous new year. Have a great one, and please drive responsibly.


Justin

After Michael Fridjhons article on his thoughts on Sauvignon Blanc first appeared a few weeks ago, my partner in the business, Michael, was asked a few questions by Neil Pendock (Pendock Uncorked). Click here for the full article.