Grape harvest shows promise
2005-04-28
THE past grape harvest in the Boland has been a difficult time.
“Ideally,” says JC Bekker, the Senior Winemaker at Boschendal, “one wants a long, cool summer in which the grapes ripen slowly. This allows the flavour to develop in tandem with the sugar content.
“If you get one of the prolonged hot spells that we have experienced in recent years, sugar content will rise fast and you might be forced to pick earlier than you want to - before the flavour has had a chance to develop fully.”
The harvest at Boschendal was completed on 28 March, with just over 4,000 tons collected in eleven weeks by a team of 130 pickers backed up by 80 permanent staff.
It had, says Bekker, been an “unusual” summer in which a whole variety of weather conditions occurred - a long hot period, a rain filled week in which over 100mm fell, followed by two cool weeks.
Overall summers are experienced in which the average temperatures are higher than usual, almost certainly because of global warming. The year 1998, 2000 and 2001, he says, all had very hot, dry late summers with temperatures rising as high as 38°C.
Despite the varying climatic conditions of early 2005, Bekker is cautious, but definitely optimistic about this year’s harvest.
When it rained, he says, possible fungal growth was controlled by spraying - and then the rainfalls of January enabled them to hold back picking for a further week - which was of great benefit to the flavour.
This year’s bumper white wine crop will enable Boschendal to increase its Sauvignon Blanc output (for which demand has always exceeded supply) and to improve further its popular sophisticated Chardonnay.
It will also probably result in a better than ever Jean Le Long Sauvignon Blanc vintage.
The quality of many of the red wine vintages, including a promising new Shiraz, have been boosted by the gentle hand stemming - picking all the grapes by hand rather than by machine.
“The Shiraz,” says Bekker, “could become one of four or five of Boschendal’s most special projects and those which we create in very limited numbers for a particularly discerning market.”
Says Rolanie Lotz, senior winemaker of Simonsvlei: “What a compact harvesting we had”.
“We started harvesting on 18 January and finished on 23 March. Cabernet and Shiraz were the last cultivars to be taken in.
“The quality of the grapes were good – with a good sugar, pH and acid balance – which of course is great and needed for the making of good wine.
“The first few months of 2005 were much warmer and drier than the average, possibly part of the reason for our white wines to have a rather tropical nose instead of the grassiness we are used to.
“It is still early days, but we expect much fuller wines with very good balance.”
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