Grasshopper Rock Blog

Pinot Celebration 2012 – Queenstown www.pinotcelebration.co.nz

One of the most exciting Pinot events of the year is nearly here. 26^th-28^th January is Central Otago’s annual Pinot Celebration (Well, annually except when the three yearly NZ Pinot event is on, next in 2013 www.pinotnoir2013.co.nz).

35 leading Central Otago winegrowers gather to enjoy current and past vintages of Pinot Noir with Pinot lovers from NZ, Australia, USA, Asia, UK and anywhere in the world that Pinot Noir lovers live.

These are relaxed, very social and insightful days. Where else can you get to immerse yourself in Pinot with so many world class Pinots and Pinot winegrowers, and world class cuisine?

Where else can you get the chance to taste all five vintages of Grasshopper Rock over two days?

One of this year’s highlights will be the tasting of Pinot Noir from the 2006 vintage of Burgundy. (More on this later)

Grasshopper Rock has been involved in 2008, 2009, 2011 and now 2012. Every celebration is better than the previous as the quality of Central Otago Pinot continues to rise. Often the old vintages at the lunches are highlights and the quality of these wines continues to rise in line with the increasing viticulture and winemaking skills of the time.

For Grasshopper Rock, we will have more vintages on show than ever before. If you are at the Pinot Celebration, check out ever vintage of Grasshopper Rock ever produced at these events:

Friday morning’s Grand Tasting:  2009 and 2010 vintages (first showing of the 2010 vintage)

Friday night Winemaker’s Party:  2008 vintage

Saturday night The Grand Dinner:  2006 and 2007 vintages

There are a number of winery lunches on Friday. Grasshopper Rock will be at Mt Edward winery with Terra Sancta (was Olssens), Burn Cottage and of course Mt Edward. We will have our award winning 2008 vintage with lunch being prepared by Saffron of Arrowtown. It will be a very special lunch.

A Formal Tasting of Burgundies

I am really looking forward to the formal Burgundy tasting on Saturday morning. Six premier cru Pinot. In anticipation I have made a few notes and share these below. The notes are taken directly from Jasper Morris’ excellent book Inside Burgundy published by Berry Bros & Rudd Press. Words in italics are direct quotes with page number for reference. The hectares shown are the size of the vineyard holding for that domaine (also sourced from Jasper Morris). Wine notes are not vintage specific.

Domaine Jean-Marc Boillot, Pommard 1er Cru, Les Rugiens, 2006 (Cote de Beaune)
The most sort- after of the Pommard vineyards-though this hides the fact there is a dramatic difference between the two halves. The lower part is arguably Pommard’s greatest vineyard, with only Clos des Epeneauux otherwise in contention. (0.15 Ha).  P.344.

 It is not clear which part of the vineyard the grapes come from. It will be fascinating to compare Les Rugiens and Clos des Epeneaux

Domaine Comte Armand, Pommard 1er Cru, Clos des Epeneaux, 2006 (Cote de Beaune)
Ownership in the Comte Armand family since 1826. This is not a premier cru in its own right, but a walled clos crossing the border between Grands and Petit Epenot. P. 340 (both premier cru).
 If Pommard can be an elegant wine then Clos de Epeneaux is the vineyard to demonstrate it. (5.25 Ha) P.348.

The following two wines are both Nuits-St-Georges, Les Saint-Georges premier cru. Again, it will be a fascinating comparison not only as a pair but also compared to the other premier cru.

Today most opinion agrees this is the finest (vineyard in Nuits), but perhaps only narrowly when shown alongside   neighbours Cailles and Vaucrains, with competition from the best vineyards at the Vosne end of the village.
This is certainly the fullest and richest of the Nuits premier cru wines.  P.250

Domaine Henri Gouges, Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru, Les Saint-Georges, 2006 
Amazingly dense with extraordinary wealth of fruit. (1.08 Ha) P.258.

Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair, Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru, Les Saint-Georges, 2006 
This is typically a rich succulent wine with blackberry fruit as well as more traditional plums. (2.10 Ha) P 261.

Domaine Amiot Servelles, Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru, Les Amoureuses, 2006 
When young it is almost ludicrously charming, yet it does not age quickly. (0.45 Ha). p182.
Many believe this vineyard should be grand cru and I am particularly looking forward to this wine

 Domaine Sylvie Esmonin, Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru, Clos Saint-Jacques, 2006 
The wines are extremely stylish with typical Gevrey firmness, but displaying a silky elegance. (1.60 Ha) P.151

We will be very privileged to enjoy these wines, all from library stock and usually made in small quantities.

Maybe the tasting will say most about the 2006 vintage which seems to have been a mixed bag in terms of weather. The Cote de Beaune seems to have come off worse with the wet weather and ripening was more of a challenge. Whereas the Cote de Nuits and especially Nuits-St-George achieved much better ripeness (more fruit and structure). This variation may be obvious in the tasting.

As much as I resist it, the last question always on my mind at these tasting is where does Grasshopper Rock Pinot Noir fit in the line up? May be these 2006s are a long way from Grasshopper Rock, but based on past tastings I am always surprised. Most importantly, I will enjoy these wines for what they are.

It is all shaping up to be a great few days. Hope to see you there.

Phil

For me the answer is an emphatic YES.

Great brands have distance from their competitors and it will take more than just making great wine to achieve this. How we grow wine needs to be part of the brand story.

One of the most visible operations in most vineyards is tractors. Tractors for mowing, spraying, leaf plucking, trimming, harvesting and pruning. Some vineyards do all these and more and some do less depending on grape variety, location and economics.

We would like to run our tractors on biodiesel because we care about the environment but our Government’s dithering is stopping us.

It seems unbelievable to me that in this country we have at least one major oil company keen to distribute biodiesel, we have companies trying to differentiate themselves in international markets and the Government can’t make a decision to give biodiesel a long term future.  In the meantime our biodiesel plant capable of producing 20 Million litres per year sits idle.

Biodiesel can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% compared to the fossil fuel version.

To read more see:
New Zealand Food Technology magazine
Ecodiesel’s submission to the Green Growth Advisory Group

To do something positive speak up and show you care.

Phil Handford

Disclosure: Phil Handford is a shareholder and director of Ecodiesel Ltd and Grasshopper Rock. Grasshopper Rock is not a shareholder in Ecodiesel.

Yesterday I had an enjoyable day visiting wine trade customers and prospects.  Yes I know, not everyone stocks our wine and those that didn’t had excuses which I failed to outweigh.(#FAIL)

Here are my insights:

• Not much has change in the past two years. Still heaps of crazy deals on offer as wineries try to clear surplus stocks of wine.
• It is the wineries/distributors who are making the offers – so you can’t blame the retailers.
• Google “$6.99 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc” and you will find plenty of hits, mostly unknown labels and probably questionable quality.
• But, I think there are signs that this is a stage on the maturity continuum from a new to a mature industry.

There are wine brands which are offering heavily discounted wine and in the process damaging their brand. How do we know they are damaging their brand? Just listen to what retailers are saying about those brands. If retailers say some wineries are damaging their brands then the consumer will hear the same. Even if the wineries sees it differently,  the retailer’s perception about brand damage will become reality.

There are definitely a lot more wine brands than two years ago. Many of these labels (brands) are set up just for the purpose clearing wine and usually justified to protect another brand or are set up by opportunists taking advantage of low grape prices.

The real brand damage seems to be isolated to a minority. The 80/20 rule could be applied here. I would suggest 20% of the wineries are causing 80% of the brand destruction.  And the discount pricing by 20% of wineries, is creating problems for the other 80% of wineries who actually want to stay in business for the long term.

It is not easy for wineries to stay in business, but we all need to very clear about our vision, goals, and strategies.  There are many different drivers in the wine business, from the corporate brand who owns many international brands, labels and vineyards to the brand that owns many vineyards around NZ to the single vineyard winery like Grasshopper Rock.  I wonder if some NZ wineries are struggling with understanding where they are headed, especially  the mid-sized wineries who seem to be doing a lot of the brand devaluing.

May be these are the growing pains of an industry becoming more corporatized. An industry which has seen more wine become a commodity and price more important than quality.  It is also a sign of immaturity in the NZ industry. New Zealand cannot compete internationally as a producer of the cheapest wines; too many other countries can do this on a larger scale with lower costs.

In my view the maturity in the NZ wine industry will come when we better value the story of individual vineyards. In future, the family or corporate who can have the most valuable brand/s will own or lease the best vineyards. Many vineyards are too young to know if they will be the premier vineyards but the time will come when it is clear which vineyards most consistently produce quality.

I actually came away from yesterday’s trade visits very encouraged despite the pessimism of some about the general state of the wine industry and a few feeling sorry for me trying to sell wine! I am excited because the awareness is growing that the world-class wines and labels will come from the single vineyard wines. This is where the real stories and brand values  will be built.

This is why we established Grasshopper Rock ten years ago and why we decided to find what we thought was the best Pinot Noir vineyard site in Central Otago to build a great Pinot Noir brand from. To establish a great brand was our vision when we started and it hasn’t changed. All that has changed is that the site is better than we imagined and the industry has gone through a bigger crisis than we imagined.   Aren’t we doing this for the next generation anyway?

When it comes to wine tasting notes it seems some people have no scruples. Have a look at these screen shots. Do you think this was just a misunderstanding between an online retailer and a wine company? I don’t think so, but it is difficult to get the truth so you be the judge. The offending screen shot was taken before the tasting note was wisely deleted by the online retailer after an appropriate phone call.  We are of course quite flattered that someone should want to use a review of our wine for another wine.

Below is the screen shot from Raymond Chan Wine Reviews website.

The shot below is from Winesonline website on 2nd November 2011

What do you think?