Mark Hoddy in Oz - a visit to Penfolds

Penfolds

A rather overcast start to a Monday morning but I was certainly looking forward to the visit at Penfolds iconic Magill Estate, now situated on the east side of the city of Adelaide. The historic estate has now been engulfed into the eastern suburbs and sits alone like a stronghold of times passed. 

It was here that the now-infamous Grange was born and some of the parcels that go to the blend are still made here today. 

The estate is old and charming and the 170-year-old winery still does around a 200-ton crush. The estate is undergoing a number of refurbishments and wasn't looking its best for my visit.

Although Penfolds is now owned by the giant Treasury Wine Estates I still love the blends that Penfolds continue to make. It has been a while since I have tasted a Penfolds line up in one go and was not disappointed this time either, here are a few of the standouts:

• Pinot Gris 2014 Adelaide Hills: fragrant yellow melon hint of fresh green herbs, zesty palate and long lime finish, good weight. 
• Chardonnay Adelaide Hills 2012 Reserve Bin 12A: reductive hints, lots of peach, full palate, creamy oak, vanilla, nutty, lovely acidity, long, long finish! A really good wine, top of their game here.
• Pinot Noir Adelaide Hills 2013: lots of Pinot character, fresh cherries, light green herbs, nice weight and ripeness, blackberry and forest fruit on palate. It's nice to see a weightiefuller style of Pinot Noir. 
•  Kalima Bin 28 Shiraz 2008: great herbal and blackcurrant nose, full bodied, lovely fruit. So fresh with a long blackcurrant finish. Very together and more to go. Great value for money and has aged beautifully. This blend has been used since 1959 and I can see why it continues to delight. 
• Magill Estate 2011 Shiraz: very peppery, herbal green tea, peppermint, lavender, good acidity, blue berry and cherry, followed by dark plum and some raisin. Lovely wine from the 2.4ha city vineyard! 
• Cellar Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2010: only available at the Magill cellar door at $200, made from the Penfolds Block 42 in the Barossa Valley. An explosive nose of sweet Creme de Casis, super charged herbs and tight searing green pepper undertones. Beautiful structure and velvet tannins, long and luscious finish.

It is always nice to taste Grange I have been fortunate to enjoy a number of vintages but it is always better in Australia and of course at its spiritual home Magill Estate a first for me. 

A bottle of the 2009 Grange – a blend of four regions comprising McLaren Vale, Barossa, Clare Valley and Magill Estate – was opened in front of me and cork I might add (first time I have seen an Australian use a corkscrew since I have been here!) was popped. A quick swirl and intense blackberry, ripe plum, rum and raisin, dark chocolate, green herbs, garrigue and peppermint aromas opened up. On the palate more liquorice, fennel, dense blackcurrant, violets, barrel spice, big but lovely tannins, black fig, white pepper with a lovely freshness. A very nice wine but $785 :(

I finished the tasting with some fortified, the Father Grand Tawny 10yr showed almonds, coffee, caramel, dried apricots and a lemon lift. The Grandfather 20yr had wafts of iodine, caramel and a nice alcohol heat, coffee with a rum and raisin finish. 

I had a great time at Penfolds. I enjoyed the wines and I hope that the blends and winemaking continue to be so good for the future.

Mark Hoddy in Oz - A Visitor in the Cellar

The winery was hugely busy throughout harvest but amongst the organised chaos this little bearded dragon was spotted in the winery. We took him back to the safety of the vineyard but not until he had a full tour of the cellars and met everyone!

Mark Hoddy in Oz - A Compressed Harvest

My word, what a vintage it has been here in McLaren Vale! 2015 has seen remarkable weather here in South Australia starting with a mild winter, a cool spring and start to the growing season and a good dry, warm summer.  However there have been some extraordinary heat waves or heat blasts as they are saying over here with 2-3 days of intense 40+°C heat, comparable to a microwave being turned on full for three minutes at a time. This has accelerated the ripening in bursts and along with the near perfect growing season has created a phenomenon rarely, if not ever seen here in South Australia. 2015 is being labelled as ‘a compressed harvest’. 

Normally the harvest here in the Vale starts in March and runs for 7-8 weeks starting logically with whites on the lower slopes, then the reds on the flats followed by the whites then reds in the hills. This ‘normal’ cycle has been turned upside down and almost everything, regardless of grape varietal, has ripened at the same time!! We have picked Cabernet before Chardonnay, Shiraz the same day as Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling whilst harvesting old vine Grenache … just crazy.  Added to this the harvest was 2 weeks early and the earliest on record!  

The result?  Complete mayhem and a logistical nightmare in the field and in the winery.  The early date caught cellars by surprise and they lacked the extra vintage help that would mostly be arriving (including myself) from overseas for the start of harvest. But the most incredible thing was that an 8-week harvest was completed in just 4 weeks with the same volume of grapes, the same man hours in both the cellar and vineyard, hence ‘A Compressed Harvest’!  The risk however was that grapes at optimum ripeness and ready to pick couldn’t be harvested, no harvesters available and even if they were the wineries were full to the brim!

Full tanks

Extra vats were being rented and old vats being cleaned up for ferment use, it seemed every vessel in McLaren Vale that could hold liquid was being used!! Unfortunately, some of the grapes on the vine started to shrivel into over ripeness and many winemakers struggled and sadly, some potentially high-quality grapes were lost. 

I landed after a 25hr non-stop journey from France at 2pm on the Friday and hurled myself into the thick of harvest the following morning at 6am. I was soon at the ferment tasting bench where we had to get through over a hundred ferments to decide the next 12 hours’ work schedule. This was then repeated 12 hours later to organise the nightshift jobs.

At the tasting bench

I have never experienced anything quite like it, but after 30-odd days straight and 20hrs a day of ‘organised chaos’ it was over. Quite a blur, but I do think the simple sandwich is vastly underrated!

Overall the harvest was a triumph and quality was superb from vine to wine. 2015 is certainly an exceptional vintage and one to ear-mark for its release in 2016.

Nikki at RedHeads - last day

Last day – a busy one ... what did I expect!

My last day helping Dan at RedHeads : (

I could tell as soon as I arrived, Dan had big plans for the day. He was buzzing around already. Nice to meet his Dad, Ralph, popped up from Riverina, Dan's home. Ralph is a winemaker too. See if you can spot him in the picture down the page.

Ebb and flow, pattern and rhythm
I've come to understand a few things over the last two weeks. There's a certain pattern and rhythm and logic to everything that goes on in the winery at vintage. Receive (or fetch) the grapes, destem them and get them into vat, plunge and let them ferment in their own good time. Drain the juice, press the rest, get all the batch of wine into tank. Then, for the majority, pump it into barrel. This is, of course, simplified and takes some weeks.

Short on pump capacity, Dan said we'd need to collect the
wine from the basket press in a bucket and carry it to tank
– call these wines handcrafted? You bet!

If you're not careful, you get a blockage ... not enough tanks, need quickly to get onto cleaning the barrels and filling them, to clear some tank space, so you can drain and press.

We were very pleased to have extra hands for cleaning the barrels
and filling them – Mark Hoddy from Bordeaux's Le Chai

Well, today we did it all! Plunging, it's as normal as breathing and coffee in the morning. Clear the cake from the press. Clean some barrels and fill them, six in total today. Two new, as well – a French and an American – to hold the gorgeous Dogs of the Barossa Shiraz. Powerful stuff. As you fill the new barrels, they do give off an awesome toasty, vanilla and oak aroma.

You have to watch the level of the wine rising very carefully as
you fill the barrel ... here, it's Dan busy at the task,
and can you spot Dan's dad behind him?

And I thought, just before I left, I'd empty out another large coffin container. Well, it was my favourite-smelling fermentation vat – the chunky Durif, black-as-your-hat, smelt very dark, chocolaty and spicy. They couldn't keep me out!

Looks small, I can assure you it wasn't.
There's a certain satisfaction in getting it done.
90 minutes roundabout, not bad! Smelt great

I popped out to the Elderton winery (top wine is the world-famous Command) straight after, luckily looking in a mirror first as my face was smeared with wine splashes – a bit of a sight. And no, I didn't bother taking a picture of that!

Hey Dan. It's been a really great two weeks. Thanks for putting up with me. Hope I was more help than hindrance and that the rest of the vintage goes really well. I look forward to tasting the finished wines.

And also that you get a day off soon!

Nikki at RedHeads - bathing in it is good for you

Bathing in it is good for you, and Le Chai's Mark lends a hand

As I bucketed out my third coffin container (I found out they hold about 2.5 tonnes of fruit – sounds a lot to me!) this morning – smelt nice, so I wasn't complaining – Mark H, winemaker from Bordeaux, came up and said "in Bordeaux, in Smith Haut Lafite to be precise, they pay a lot of money to bathe in this stuff" ... that is the grape juice and skins etc. And I was getting it for free! And I wasn't bathing in it either, by the way!

Having enjoyed such a warm, sunny weekend, today's very cold (about 9°) temperatures were a bit of a shock. Much more like home. Oh : (

Good to have another professional in the
building – Mark H from Le Chai, Bordeaux

However, it's been great today to have Mark Hoddy from our Bordeaux winemaking headquarters, Le Chai au Quai, assisting at RedHeads. It really helped us get through the pressing.

Mark H and Dan talking shop

And that was lucky as the afternoon involved a bomb over in the Ute to the McLaren Vale, to do a quick tasting. I was keen to take another look at the McLaren – I haven't been there for 20 years. Prettier, more hilly than the Barossa, with the vines on slopes. Altogether it has smaller feel.

 

The boys checking out the Cabernet grapes at Jeff Erkhart's vineyard

On the way we stopped at the Erkhart vineyard from which Dan is hoping to pick up some Cabernet. And the berries were still tiny and nowhere near ripe. It's flipping cold too, until the weekend they say, so not much prospect of that this side of Easter.

 

The Cabernet berries were
very small and only 12° baume

Dan and Mark tasting some McLaren wines

No chance of scenic shots .... Dan was driving fast. I could have got a shot of Hahnsdorf town as we stopped there – silly me. It's extremely Germanic in every way. No surprise as the first settlers were from there. Of course, we had to sample a stein of beer.

Only one day to go : (