Amietta Diary

Vintage – the hottest March on record (Mar-April 08); The best Shiraz from Geelong

Vintage
Although vintage started out as a somewhat ‘normal’ harvest - with the different varieties ripening 7-10 days apart – we ended up having the hottest March ever recorded in the Geelong region, which dramatically shortened the ripening time for the later varieties. We picked Chardonnay on the 3rd of March, Riesling on the 13th, Shiraz on the 19th, Lagrein on the 20th and Cabernet on the 22nd. The last variety to come off will be the Carmenère, which needs plenty of ‘hang time’ to develop full flavour. With the good rains in November and December, the vines had good canopies to protect the fruit from excessive heat and plenty of leaves to allow even ripening and full flavour development. The yields were right in our preferred zone of 1.5 to 2 tonnes per acre and the fruit was perhaps the best quality we’ve seen. All the varieties show intense flavour, good acid retention and (for the reds) great colour. The Gods have been kind.
The best Shiraz from the Geelong region?
In late March we had dinner with our trade distributor (Sarah Andrew of Selador Wines) and two of the directors of a fine wine retail group in Melbourne, both of whom have very sophisticated and very selective palates. One of these gentlemen expressed the view that the Amietta 2005 Shiraz is by far the best Shiraz that he’s tasted from the Geelong region. Needless to say, they are stocking the wine in their stores! We were very flattered by such a big call, but can take little of the credit. Our Shiraz, and in fact, all of our wines are what they are because we have a world class vineyard site that produces grapes of extraordinary character and depth. Our task as winemakers is to allow the vineyard characters (or terroir) to show through in the wines. If you would like to try (or re-try) the Amietta 2005 Shiraz the wine is still available at selected restaurants and retail outlets and of course, can be obtained directly from the winery. See the Buy Wine page for details.

Summer planting; German approaches to Riesling (Nov 07- February 08)

Summer planting
As we’ve seen over recent years, budburst arrived a couple of weeks earlier than the historical average, further reinforcing the reality of climate change and warmer, drier winters in our part of the world. By the time The Mighty Cats (Geelong Footy Club) had won the long-hoped-for AFL Premiership in September 2007, there was significant shoot growth on the vines and a long list of jobs in the vineyard. Despite the forecast for a hot dry summer, we decided to go ahead with a somewhat optimistic plan to grub out and replace about 1500 under-performing vines (about 2 acres). Oh and fix some trellises. And upgrade the irrigation in those areas. In early November when we were sweating in the vineyard on 36° days and the ground was rock-hard and dry, the phrase “seemed like a good idea at the time” did keep coming to mind. Fortunately, the weather Gods were kind and we received unseasonal rain – 3 inches (75 mm) in November and another 3 inches in December. The new plantings survived and have since thrived. And what did we plant? Well, ¾ of an acre of Lagrein, as it grows very well on our Amietta soils and the wine (our Shiraz-Lagrein blend) is a beauty. We planted another acre of Chardonnay (Bernard Clone 95) on the white limestone soil section of the Terrace Block because our tiny supply of White Limestone Chardonnay (1 or 2 barrels each year) sells out almost as soon as it’s released. And we’ve planted a handful of Geisenheim clone Riesling vines in a little patch that was spare – because we are trying to produce enough Riesling so we can put some aside in future years for a ‘mature release’ of 2 or 3 year old wine. Young Amietta Riesling is alluring, but with a bit of age ……. that’s when you really see what the wine has to offer!
German approaches to Riesling
In January, we had a brief holiday in Western Australia and found ourselves in Margaret River tasting and talking wine at Cullens (benchmark Cabernet). There we bumped into a travelling German grapegrower and winemaker, Joachim Mayer who later came to visit Amietta. We spent many days in the vineyard and many late nights (yes, glass in hand) in discussion about whether we might make Amietta Riesling even more delicious by marrying some of the German techniques with what we already do. As a result, we’ve adopted the German technique of late season shoot-tipping, which involves removing the growing tips of the grapevine shoots so that the vine energy is directed into the fruit rather than into the growing tips. Hopefully the result will be more intensely flavoured fruit. During vintage we will also trial some different winemaking techniques which should increase the complexity of the wine.

Secret variety #1 revealed (Sept 07)
As the followers of the Amietta story would know, Amietta is the only vineyard south of the Dividing Range to grow Lagrein, the red grape variety from the Alto Aldige region of northeast Italy, close to the Austrian border. Our Amietta Shiraz-Lagrein is a rich, intense wine that combines earthy/tobacco/mushroom/forest floor characters with the violets, spice and red/black berry characters of Amietta Shiraz. Already, the wine has attracted the attention of influential wine writers and is now only available in limited quantities to our resturant customers. Don't panic - we are still holding stock for our mailing list customers! It's a perfect match with for rich, hearty dishes such as osso bucco, onion and anchovy tart or mushroom risotto.

For quite a while, we've also been working with Secret Variety #1. Now that we feel we understand how produce optimum quality fruit from the variety and also how best to make the wine, we've 'fessed-up'. We were the first in Victoria to plant the 'lost' Bordeaux/Medoc red grape variety Carmenère (sometimes spelled Carmenere). In the 19th Century, the unifying feature of the top Medoc producers was that they had significant plantings of this rather capricious variety (it doesn't set fruit very reliably). Ever wondered what that special and distinctive character in the Amietta Angels' Share blend was? Yes, we confess ...... we've been putting small quantities from the best of our trial batches of Carmenère into the Angels' Share for the last couple of years. With the newly bottled 2006 Angels' Share (for release in winter 2008) we have dropped the Shiraz out of the blend entirely and labeled the wine Amietta 2006 Angels' Share Cabernet-Carmenère. Of course we would say this ....... but ...... it's a cracker! You know how there's a natural synergy between Cabernet and Shiraz in a blend? Well it's nothing compared with the way Cabernet and Carmenère go together. It has a wonderfully intense, taut blackcurrent and violets, with hints of briar, leather and leaf. Very Bordeaux. Very yum!

When will the new releases be available? (August 07)
We often get asked when the new releases will be available. The somewhat Zen answer is always "when the wines are ready". Time is one of the most important ingredients in a quality wine, so we prefer to leave our red wines for about 12 months post-bottling before we release them. Sometimes the wines taste ready before the 12 months are up, and sometimes they need longer. Although we'd released the Amietta 2005 Shiraz-Lagrein after only 8 months in the bottle, we had been waiting for the Amietta 2005 Shiraz and the Amietta 2005 Angels' Share Cabernet-Shiraz to finish "growing up". Now the wait is over. The current releases (2006 Riesling, 2005 Shiraz-Lagrein, 2005 Angels' Share Cabernet-Shiraz and 2005 Shiraz) are all looking absolutely marvellous. They all combine elegance and power; they have beautiful balance and poise. The reds wines show the characteristic vineyard-derived floral/violets; red/black berries; earthy/mineral suite of flavours, while the Riesling is just a crystal clear floral/jasmine/lime/tangy mineral explosion in the mouth. And the Amietta 2005 White Limestone Chardonnay turned a lot of heads on release and sold out in a flash. Apologies if you missed it. To order these wines, just fill and return the order form on the Buy Wine page or email or phone (03-5281-7427). We deliver case lots (12 bottles) free of charge anywhere in Victoria; Sydney delivery is $10/case. For other delivery locations, check the order form or contact us.

Vintage (March-June 07)
Apart from the very low yeilds, which resulted in us processing about 50% less than our average grape volumes, it was a fantastic vintage. The fruit was beautiful, and all the wines pretty much made themselves. Because the weather stayed relatively warm well into June, the wines in barrels finished malolactic fermentation very quickly. This meant that they were microbially stable and secure very early and we could relax and get on with other jobs, such as preparing wines for bottling in late June and starting on the pruning. The wines all show very good varietal character and are very intense. These may be our best batch of wines yet, and tragically, the volumes that will be available for sale will be even more microscopic than usual!