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Vintage report Bein
Merlot 2007
:
April/May
2008: composing of the final wine and bottling
towards the end of the barrel
maturation phase, we always have the difficult task to compose the final cuvee
from the various batches - the wines from the barrels from different cooperages
and wood types, first-fill and older barrels, and from the various corners of
our vineyard. In addition we have to evaluate whether we should complement the
wine with Cabernet, which we would source from neighbouring farms.
After countless trials and blind tastings, we eventually decided for our
flagship Merlot to include all our first and second fill barrels, balanced with
6% Cabernet franc and 7% Cabernet Sauvignon, though this year complemented as
well with some wine from our third fill barrels, which contributes with its
prominently fresher fruit and softer texture.
The Wine was bottled on the 8th of May 2008 and will now be allowed
to develop further for another year in our maturation cellar.
April 2007 till March 2008: barrel maturation
as soon as the wine had finished alcoholic fermentation, i.e. by end of March,
it went directly into barrels, where malolactic fermentation set in without
delay. Five weeks later, the wine was racked for the first time, followed by two
more rackings every three to four month. During this process, the wine is
siphoned from the lees and the barrels cleaned and sulphured, which promotes the
healthy development of the young wine.
After intensive evaluation, we complemented our Merlot already in November with
some Cabernet Sauvignon. After this the wine back into the barrels for another
four month, so that it can “marry” calmly and mature to perfection, before
we do our final assessment for our ultimate cuvee.
January-
March 2007: ripening and harvest
Like every year we spent a lot of time
in the vineyard during December and January: removing about 50% of the crop, as
well as all the shoulders and tips of the remaining bunches, leaving only the
very best berries for the harvest. And again, we put up bird-nets in order to
avoid damage to our precious crop.
As reported, the growing season was almost ideal till January. Warm days, cool
nights, perfect for color development. But at begin of February, a heat wave
arrived, and even on our cool slope the vines suffered, despite our additional
irrigation. The sugars developed only slowly, and many bunches of the younger
vines dried out completely. Then, mid February, we had some heavy rain, which
caused some Botrytis; so good sorting of the fruit at harvest was absolutely
imperative this year. Eventually we started harvesting only on the 16th
of March. But being patient was well worth it: our sugar levels are not
exorbitantly high and the acidity comparatively low; still the fruit had
excellent colour and superbly ripe tannins.
Again we produced some Pink Merlot from the "bleeding" juice of our
Merlot, which was then treated like a top-notch white wine and slowly
cool-fermented over 14 days.
December
2006: summer
Unusually vigorous growth lets us spend uncountable hours with canopy
management, and lots of suckering, tipping, leaf and lateral removal and
eventually topping and leaf plucking was necessary to keep the canopy in good
shape. It seems as if the untimely thunderstorms in November not only brought
more moisture than usual, but also more nutrients in form of nitrates, formed
from oxygen and nitrogen in the air by lightning, and eventually washed in by
the rain.
On the other side, the crop is plentiful, and we can generously cut out
excessive and inferior bunches during the “green harvest”, including all the
low quality bunches formed as a result of millerandage. During the “green
harvest”, which we always perform in December when the fruit is still easy to
manipulate, we reduce the crop to the optimum mass. At the same time, we
manicure and arrange each bunch to its ideal size and position, in order to
create best possible conditions for the ripening phase – lots of tedious
handwork, but worth every hour of it!
November
2006: flowering
despite the cold period during September, flowering started with begin of
November, i.e. at the same time as last year. But cold, wet and windy weather
conditions with thunderstorms came up just during the main flowering period and
disturbed this important stage, causing weaker berry set and millerandage.
September/October
2006: Spring
Beautiful and warm weather with temperatures around 25-27 degree C during the
first week of September, which initiated a timely budding. But again, the cold
weather came back for two weeks and impeded even development, and suckering had
to be done in three passages. Luckily, the weather turned nice towards the end
of the months and allowed the vines to catch up.
August 2006: Winter
Uff – at last a good Cape winter, with plenty of
rain and enough cold units, creating ideal preconditions for a successful new
grape season. The soils are saturated with moisture, the dams are mostly full,
and particularly Theewaterskloof dam, which provides our irrigation water, is
over 80% full, i.e. no restrictions are to be expected for the coming season,
for the first time again since 2002!
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