Sunday, July 25, 2010

Summerhouse 2010 vintage report



The team at Summerhouse wines in New Zealand have been working hard lately in some pretty cold conditions as well. Here is the latest information they had on the 2010 harvest and other happening around the vineyard.

2010 Harvest News

This years harvest was a fairly relaxed time. We were blessed with fantastic weather so all the fruit was picked and in the winery before the late autumn rain set in. The fermentations have now come to an end and the labour intensive process of lees-stirring has started.
This is Heather and Meric's 12th harvest at Summerhouse. "So to the end of another harvest at Summerhouse" comments Meric. "The cool, slow start to the year was followed by perfect summer and autumn weather conditions that enabled us to pick individual parcels of fruit when they were ready. The fruit was clean, bunch sets were perfect and the yields were spot on. So far 2010 is looking like a fantastic vintage for Marlborough and Summerhouse."
Now we are about a quarter of the way through the long but important process of pruning the vines. We carefully prune the Summerhouse vines to ensure quality and even ripening in next years fruit. 

Wine Making News
We have some new additions to the barrel hall this year - French oak Pungeon barrels. These are the largest barrels we use and hold 500 litres. They will add warm sweet oak flavours to the chardonnay.


We will have a more detailed report on the vintage as soon as they get the chance to jot down a few words.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Antonin Rodet News

For those of you that did not know, Antonin Rodet was purchased by the Boisset group earlier this year and yesterday we met with Eric Remlinger the representative for Hong Kong.

Here is an up-date on what is happening with the already popular label.

Firstly they have made some major changes and purchased a new winery which they believe will make for higher standards and better control of the process. Of course this is also intended to improve the already high standard of the wine.

They did tell us that there are some possibilities of expanding the range and these may happen as early as the 2010 vintage. Sorry but we can't say exactly what they are yet but we will let you know as soon as they are confirmed. Needless to say that they will be  of interest to the HK market place.

They are considering more large format bottling. In particular magnums as the demand for use, especially in wine by the glass scenarios, is increasing all the time.

It looks like they will be around for the IWSF in November and we are talking about having a wine maker visit early next year. Please let us know if you are interested in holding an event.

Overall it was a positive meeting and it left us confident that the new ownership will be working hard to provide a better relationship between you and the Domaine.

To find out more about Antonin Rodet contact your representative:
Lee, Casey or Kiki