What an interesting and educational evening at the
WSET last week with Montana’s winemaker Patrick
Materman. He took around 20 Diploma student and graduates through Montana’s ICON project.
The project is all about where they want to take their
sauvignon blanc to produce the best wines they possibly can. They appear to be aiming towards the
minerality and ageing potential of a
Sancerre with a New Zealand stamp in terms or aromas and flavours.
They have been separating their wines by style,
terroir and artifact:
- Styles are broadly either fresh, crisp and aperitif or concentrated and more food friendly wines.
- Terroir refers to the vineyards they have in places such as Brancott and Awatere.
- Artifact includes winemaker influences such malo or no malo, thiol development and the use of wood.
Patrick took us through a list of things that influence the aromatics of
sauvignon blanc:
Site, crop load, soil nutrients, crushing and processing dynamics, fermentation temperature and protocols, yeast type (they use 25!), oxidation, nitrogen status of the juice, copper additions. The list appeared endless although the aromas were dominated by a few
compounds.
The really fascinating part of the evening, especially for a technically
appreciative bunch, was to taste our way through ten 2009
sauvignon blancs only one of which Montana had actually bottled which was the
Brancott.
We compared wines which had been
- barrel fermented with wild yeasts
- barrel fermented with man made yeast
- stainless steel fermented
- high thiols
- pressed with a Coquard press
- grapes from the shady side of the vines (they plant E/W rows)
- old vines
- machine harvested
- hand harvested
And do you know what – it is possible to tell the difference between these even although some of the differences are minute. The machine harvested vines from
Brancott had by far and away the most of that typical NZ Marlborough aroma. The use of machine harvesting according to Patrick increases the
thiols as the juice and grape skins remain in contact for just that bit longer than those that are hand harvested thus extracting the
thiols from the skins. Those that had oak treatment had just that bit more weight and texture although no obvious oak influence.
I don’t think we’ll see the outcome of this project until 2012 when we can expect to see a wine in the £20 to £25 price range aimed at the restaurant trade. I wish them luck.
Last Monday was the WSET's awards ceremony in the grand surroundings of London's Guildhall. Around 100 Diploma graduates - including me - got to shake Hugh Johnson's hand when he handed over the certificates. In a brief speech before the ceremony he described the ideal tasting note. The video can be found here
