The team at Matua are young and dynamic winemakers and I am
made to feel very welcome as I meet them all over a tasting of early-picked
2013 whites. It is a very small world: chief winemaker Chris Darling and I actually
worked together on the cellar floor at Hardy’s in Perth Australia some 13 years
ago and now here we are together again for the vintage. However, we’re now
running the harvest from the control tower: the tasting room!
If that wasn’t coincident enough, I was told we were
expecting the Babich winemaking consultant any minute. And who should walk in
but James Graham the Kiwi winemaker. I know James ever so well from his yearly
winemaker harvest role in France at Domaine Cousergues in Beziers: the vineyard
home of my white Vent de Folie Vermentino!
James is the consultant winemaker for Babich and used to
work at this very winery before current owners Matua purchased the property. Babich
still have a crush contract here until their new winery is built so we’ll be making
the Babich wines for James too!
James and I have walked many times up and down the rows of
vines in the French Midi, my territory, so it was fantastic to do the same in
his back yard! We went out to have a
look at the Babich Cowslip Vineyard
that’s situated over on the base slopes of the Wither Hills. The Sauvignon Blanc
here is UNBELIEVABLE. The actual grape picked from the vine is explosive
tasting just like New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wine does in the bottle! I must have
eaten about a 100 berries each time thinking “wow it can’t be true, I’ll try
another, it’s true, amazing!” If you want to get an idea of this flavour
sensation get hold of some of our Shingle Peak NZ Sav B; it’s made here by
Matua.
I am on the day shift which is roughly 12 hours, but the
winery runs 24/7. Matua is a big winery and crushes around 25,000 tonnes of
grapes and I’ll be looking after some 3,500 ton of Pinot Noir so it means
careful planning and constant monitoring. My cellar team is led by Italian Lorenzo: a cheeky
chappy, energetic and winery-wise cellar supervisor. He not only fills me in on
all the wine movements and grapes that have arrived but the cellar gossip too!
It’s New Zealand and they’re obsessed with saying “gotta haav yaaa hii veez awn mate”. Roughly
translated that means “for safety, high
visibility clothing must be worn at all times”! So I was issued with my ‘hii
veez’ clothing pretty sharpish.
The rest of the team are Chileans; Rodrigo, Marcello and Eduardo
who speak little English. Luckily my winery Spanish I learnt working for a year
in Chile has come in very handy indeed!
The red winery has open-top fermenters so we can observe the
cap (floating skins) to check visually and give a sniff to check all is ok. There’s
plenty of room to work and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into harvest
and filling these vats!
Tonight the first Pinot Noir is being picked and so yet
another madness of harvest begins!
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