| Posted: 03.06.2009 | ||||||||
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The spring of 2008 was the wettest experienced in years, with over 200mm recorded per month during the months of September and November. Budbreak was delayed in both the vineyards and in the orchards as temperature in the spring and early summer were unusually cool, even by Elgin standards.
The wet conditions eventually gave way to an abnormally dry summer, with ideal conditions for the harvest in a season where grapes matured 10-14 days later than normal.
The lack of precipitation over the ripening period meant less pressure from botrytis and other fungal diseases, and grape quality was the best in years.
Elgin was extremely fortunate to have escaped the devastating mountain fires that raged across the Hottentots Holland mountains for 35 days continuously during February and early March. There will always be a fire risk attached to farming our mountain vineyards, which last suffered fire damage during early October 2005. This summer the fires were bought under control in the adjoining Nuweberg Mountains before they could reach our own Groenlandberg Mountain. Nevertheless, it was touch and go and, a strong north-wester at the wrong moment would have been enough to seal our fate!
Harvest this year commenced with Pinot Noir at the end of February and finished with Petit Verdot in early April. In between these two dates there was some pressure on the cellar as the harvest of the white varietals (Sauvignon, Semillon and Chardonnay) almost overlapped with the Bordeaux Blend varietals (Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon).
Winemaker, Pieter Visser also occupied himself with an experimental Shiraz from the maiden crop of this variety, co-fermented with a small proportion of Viognier. We were excited to see that the optimum harvest dates for these two cultivars synchronised almost perfectly which is obviously what is required for a co-ferment.
The balance of the Viognier crop was left to ripen after the stalks had been pinched, and we now eagerly await the results of our first experimental natural dessert wine. The later could prove to be a welcome addition to pour at our wine and food pairing dinners!
The fruit orchards on Oak Valley came to the party producing a record crop of apples and pears and we exceeded 40 000 bins (17 000 tons) for the first time in the history of the farm. Quality, as in the case of the grapes, was excellent and a far smaller proportion of the crop than normal was delivered to our juice plant. Sunburn is traditionally the highest culling factor in apples and the above result underlines the relative coolness of the 2008/2009 growing season.
This observation had to be tempered partially on the 5th March when Sally Easton MW, who was in South Africa to research an article on cool climate wines for the Drinks Business magazine in the UK, was driven up to our mountain vineyards in the middle of the worst heat wave of the summer. She was shocked to see a temperature reading of 41ºc on the gauge of my 4x4, but a subsequent reference to the climate recorder station at the mountain site happily proved that the car's gauge was faulty. The actual temperature that afternoon was a relatively modest 35ºc!
At Oak Valley Flowers, our brand new state of the art greenhouse, purpose-built for the production of Alstroemeria (otherwise known as the Inca Lily) came into production for the first time in December and the quality of the flowers is truly world class.
The plantmaterial cost alone for the first phase of establishment was just under R1m, so there is a lot at stake in seeing the project home! In addition, royalties are paid to the Dutch breeders annually for every square metre under production. With this expansion we now have 16 hectares of a range of different cut flowers making us by far the largest producers outside of Gauteng.
The first Wagyu (Kobe beef) calves will be one year old this September and are doing exceptionally well under our growing conditions. As a result of the initial success, we have imported another batch of embryos from Australia and these will be implanted into our own host cows in June. We now have the nucleus for a herd of stud animals going forward.
Although, this by its very nature is a long term project, we are now confident of an opportunity for success. Encouragingly, imported Wagyu steaks have recently made their debut on a couple of high-end restaurant menus at R750 for 200 grams!
Also new at Oak Valley is a free range piggery which will produce pigs fed on the acorns gathered from under the 4000 plus ancient oak trees which give the farm its name. Free range pigs are a challenge as the fencing in their paddocks has to be specially anchored to prevent them from escaping into our fruit orchards, where they would cause complete mayhem. Our pigs are living in absolute luxury, as two representatives from Compassion in World Farming confirmed, after their visit to Oak Valley in February.
We are preparing for the release of our new vintage wines and this is much needed as both our 2007 Pinot Noir and 2007 Chardonnay have been sold out for some time now.
Since our first bottling in 2005 we have in store the prospect of a reasonable volume of Pinot which will exceed 1000 x 6 bottle cases for the first time ever. This will give us the opportunity of reaching a wider group of Pinophiles than we were able to with our previous limited stock.
The first steps have been taken towards the building of our own cellar and the necessary environmental approvals are presently being sought. We conducted a formal site selection exercise in May, and the options were narrowed back to a stunning view site close to all the required infrastructure essential for the success of the project.
In the meanwhile, we have made a start with the acquisition of cellar equipment, including a new Bucher press, which Pieter Visser will use in the interim in his winemaking at the neighbouring Paul Cluver cellar. Ours will not be the big bang approach to cellar developing as we plan to implement the project in phases over time. Like so many things in life, you only get one opportunity to do it right and our aim is to get it right the first time!
Anthony Rawbone-Viljoen
11th may 2009
