"Moderately sweet riesling with pure floral, mineral, lime and wild honey flavours. It is balanced by fine, fruity acidity that develops an exquisite tension and helps drive a lingering finish" 95 pts Bob Campbell/ Gourmet Traveller

Spring is always an exciting time in the vineyard. The vines burst with life and the work of a new vintage begins. Although it happens every year bud burst is always a relief, the winter is over and all the vagaries of a new season begin.

Unlike the goal no two seasons are ever exactly the same. Already the wet spring is impacting on the way we are operating. With the grass groth being phenomenal, our undervine management is struggling to keep up. It also means that we are not yet irrigating the Burkes Bank vineyard, which is positive as we reduce our use of a precious resource ( we never irrigate at Mahana). On the other hand we often use the irrigation system to supply vital nutrients and conditioners to the soil. Foliar feeding of fish and seaweed products directly onto the canopy is our is our alternative means of achieving vine health.

Spring equinox saw us pull up our cow horns of Preparation 500, the first we have produced ourselves. In the past all our biodynamics preparations have been brought from the New Zealand BD association. 500 is the one of the two BD field sprays and is made by burying cow horns filled with fresh cow manure over autumn and winter. After being stirred in water, the preparation is sprayed onto the vineyard in the late afternoon. We use Preparation 500, generally along with a tea made from the cow pat pit compost twice a year, working as a soil inoculum to stimulate the growth of soil micro-organisms and increase earthworm activity.

Summer is just around the corner as I write this, the vineyards are looking healthy and vital, and we look forward to a period of settled weather for flowering and for a few good days fishing!

Cheers Julian

My first month at Woollaston Estates has involved integrating myself with the wines, the vines and the people. Ensconced in the maganificent winery, I've had the pleasure of tasting past vintages of all the wines Woollaston has produced. The Rieslings and Pinot Noir have particularly impressed. They show great purity and elegance and the ability to age gracefully.

The fun but rigorous tasting of almost 200 barriques of Pinot Noir has highlighted the quality of the 2011 harvest. I've inherited quite an array of dense, perfumed wines that exhibit great vibrancy. After the spring equinox the secondary malolactic fermentattions have naturally sprung to life unhurriedly. In our passively cool cellars thay are quite leisurely - often a promising sign that wines will age well.

Although we are more than 3 months away from the start of the 2012 harvest planning has begun in earnest. Familiarising myself with the character and style of wines that each parcel of fruit our vineyard produces is a rewarding enterprise. After all this tasting, we have refined the choice of coopers who produce our barrels for the upcoming harvest. We have plumped for very fine grained French oak with low toasting to complement the youthful exuberance of our Pinot Noirs.

And as always, I've been sharing the odd great bottle of wine with the Woollaston team - one of the most rewarding ways of remaining inspired.

Shane Munn

 

Welcome to the Winter Wine & Vine News. It is hard to miss sculptor Marté Szirmay's Yantra for Mahana at the entrance to the winery! Constructed from 45 tonnes of cor-ten steel... Click here to view our latest Wine & Vine newsletter in full >>>

The Nelson Mail 22 Mar 2011

Woollaston Estates has joined a small but expanding group of organically certified vineyards in Nelson.

The Mahana winegrower, which this year will process about 300 tonnes of grapes, has just achieved full certification for both its 50 hectares of vineyards and its winery, after three years of careful auditing by BioGro NZ.

Last week's pick of Pinot Noir for its sparkling wine base produced the first certified organic grapes to go into its winery.

Company director Philip Woollaston said it was the "exciting culmination" of a long process. "Growing grapes organically involves a certain amount of risk, but the results - better vine health and purer wines - are well worth it. The reason we started doing this is in our assessment of wines around the world, a significant proportion of the best were organic and often biodynamic."

BioGro certification meant that the company could use only certified naturally derived products and no herbicides or synthetic fertiliser, he said, and was now capable of producing wines which meet the organic standards of export markets in the European Community, United States, Canada and some Asian countries, as well as New Zealand.

The external auditing programme provided by BioGro was a "very good way of keeping ourselves honest and an independent yardstick to measure ourselves against".

Vineyard manager Julian Coakley said certification was not the end of the process. "We still have a lot to learn and are improving our methods all the time". Though not a registered biodynamic producer, the company was also using some biodynamic practices and preparations, he said. "I am convinced that working proactively with ecological processes to build rich soil which is full of life is the key to healthy, resilient vines".