Newsletter May 2009 Note from the Winemaker
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“LIFE IS BETTER WITH A GLASS OF GOOD WINE IN YOUR HAND AND A FEW MORE IN THE CELLAR.” NEWSLETTER MAY 2009 NOTE FROM THE WINEMAKER Times are tough. I think everyone must be Two weeks of mild and overcast weather acutely aware of what he or she is spending followed in late March delaying the beginning “I COULD NOT money on and what they consider essential. of the red harvest. As usual we began with For the wine consumer the choice of wines our small quantity of zinfandel and have HELP BUT FEEL available has never been greater, so for a followed with shiraz, merlot and finally winery to excel they must focus on quality and cabernet sauvignon, with the occasional AN EXTREME value while providing a distinctly different sangiovese and petit verdot thrown in to keep and memorable experience every time one things interesting. SENSE OF of their wines is consumed. Here at Cape As I write this it is still early days and crops Mentelle we pride ourselves in doing just that. on reds, although a touch late to ripen and OPTIMISM ABOUT We wondered what the 2009 vintage would a smaller than average yield, look to have bring late last year amongst the thick winter great potential. Cabernet, I think, will be the OUR VINTAGE, swells, strong winds and persistent rains of star of the 2009 vintage and one to look out the South West. We had a very dry October for. I know the team in the winery were keen A PLEASANT and a very wet November, somewhat in to see us harvest the old vine material at the contrast to much of South Eastern Australia, front of the winery and we all look forward REPRIEVE FROM which experienced a very dry winter and to care-taking the wine over the next three spring. Our vintage looked promising and years until we release it. By then we will have THE ECONOMIC with the considerable investment made in our seen all the other 2009 wines released from vineyards over the last five years beginning Cape Mentelle and Margaret River and, upon GLOOM THAT to show, I could not help but feel an extreme reflection on the vintage to date,I think it will sense of optimism about our vintage, a be highly regarded across the board. FIllED THE pleasant reprieve from the economic gloom I will drink to that. that filled the papers. PAPERS.” Cheers, Rob We began harvesting a week later than usual in the third week of February with the first of ROB MANN our hand picked chardonnay. The following four weeks saw the steady ripening and harvesting of all of our whites in perfect conditions. The grapes looked stunning and showed the best natural acidity I’ve seen in 14 years of winemaking. 2 SEEN AT UPCOMING CELLAR WINE TIP EVENTS DOOR #001 What’s your name? Letting wine ‘breathe’ Jean and Marshall Letting a wine breathe means Where are you from? deliberately exposing a wine to air Goulburn, NSW - this helps to start the exchange of wine and air molecules and What made you visit in doing so impacts on the Cape Mentelle? wine’s flavour and heightens its We’ve always loved the wine. aromas. The best way to get a Still have a few at home – wine breathing is to decant it cooking slowly! from the bottle. Wine decanters What’s your favourite thing are specially designed to expose about Margaret River? large amounts of wine to the air. Apart from the wine? Well… Decanting provides the greatest it must be the beaches and the benefit to red wines, helping restaurants, both are fantastic. the older reds ‘awaken’ from If you could only drink one their cellar-bound slumber or thing for the rest of your life encouraging younger reds to what would it be? settle down and show their softer It would be a wine. He says side. Opinions vary on how far in Henschke, and for me…any advance of drinking you should really good cabernet – Cape decant and generally depend on the Mentelle is right up there. wine’s age and variety. As a general rule an hour should be plenty. 30 June 2009 What was your best ever wine experience? Bécasse Cape Mentelle Dinner, The day we met Don Ditter at a hosted by Robert Mann at Bécasse, Sydney Penfolds Wine Clinic and Tasting 2009 Sydney Morning Herald Chef of the Year, Justin North will create in Canberra. Also the many a sumptuous, four course menu to showcase wines from Cape Mentelle, occasions we have lost Sunday including the award winning Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. afternoons with our friends Commencing at 7pm, tickets $120 per person. sampling all our favourite drops. For reservations please call (02) 9283 3440 www.becasse.com.au 25 August 2009 Meet the Winemaker Dinner at Glass Brasserie, hosted by Cape Mentelle Chief Winemaker, Robert Mann A five course degustation menu designed by LukeM angan, matched to Cape Mentelle wines. Commencing at 6.30pm, tickets $160 per person. Glass Brasserie, Hilton Hotel, Sydney NSW For reservations please contact Glass Brasserie Events Manager, Sara Lincolne on (02) 9265 6068 or [email protected]. www.glassbrasserie.com.au/specialevents.html 3 THAT FATEFUL WINE BY CAMPBELL MATTINSON “I LEARNED SOMETHING THAT NIGHT AND I’ll NEVER SHAKE IT: WINE, WHEN IT’S REAllY GOOD, ISN’T LIKE OTHER DRINKS. THIS WAS MY FRESH- OYSTER-PLUCKED- AND-SHUCKED- IN-A-FRENCH-BAY MOMENT.” It hit me. A wine. At a restaurant at the All about me money floated like confidence And more: this wine had a juiciness and a casino in Melbourne. It was a night when and booze, really good booze came and came straightforward deliciousness, like a lot of the alcohol flowed like stupidity at a football like the bar was a wave-machine of wine. wines, and yet it made me want to slow down club and something in me changed, forever, Swig. Swallow. and think on it – rather than to consume at the sip and the taste and the sensation of Another kaboom. Fire and fine wine. it at a rate of knots. This was a different one particular wine. I drank it, and as I did so experience. A wine can’t talk – I wasn’t that it was like I was being bitten by Dracula or a I’d been a journalist, that night, for ten years, far gone – but this wine seemed to have werewolf or a malaria-carrying mosquito. and a wine, wine cooler or scotch-and-Coke something to say. And despite all the noise drinker for the bulk of them. I had enjoyed That wine – it made something go funny in and fire and smells of the restaurant – it made these drinks, and the effect they had – but me want to listen. me. Like falling in love. I suddenly wanted none of them had said anything special to me; to be on intimate, personal, intense terms they were about the moment and that was that. A decade on. My life is thoroughly swamped with all the most beautiful wines that I could in wine, and has been for years – I’m often afford – or could wangle to drink. Looking at But I learned something that night and asked whether I ever get tired of the stuff. It what that journey has cost me – I wish I was a I’ll never shake it: wine, when it’s really would be easy to answer, yes. And I am tired lawyer. The person who poured me that wine good, isn’t like other drinks. This was my of wines that don’t have anything to say. But I has cost me a fortune. I should sue the bugger. fresh-oyster-plucked-and-shucked-in-a- think back on that wine and so many of those French-bay moment. My white-truffles-in-a- But – that fateful wine. that have followed, and try to answer – except Florence-trattoria revelation. Wine might be that there are all these wines muttering about I drank it. I drank some more. grape juice flavoured with oak – but it can their season and variety and where they were It was dark in the restaurant and the wine was be more than that. grown, and it’s hard to get a word in edge-wise. dark too, and I’d only been drinking casually This wine at the casino was proof. It was Campbell Mattinson is the author of ‘The until this wine was served – nonchalant raise different to other wines, in a way that didn’t of the glass, hardly even look at it, sip, stop, Big Red Wine Book’ (Hardie Grant $24.95) make sense. It was strong and dark, and yet and co-author of winefront.com.au drink more – and BOOM! the bulk of it felt smooth and light, like a I held the glass (suddenly, it would’ve taken really big guy who can run really fast. It was a crow bar to wrench it from my grip) and chewy, too – yes, chewy – because it was looked out the big glass windows, out towards mouth-puckering and dry, and when you the Yarra River. The casino’s fire-balls roared. swallowed it the flavours and even the feel of the wine seemed to be still there in your mouth; I could still chew on them. A drink that you could chew? It hardly made sense. 4 A CLOSE SHAVE CAPE CAPTION FOR A GOOD CAUSE COMPETITION The impact of the Victorian bush fires resonated far beyond the hundreds they displaced and devastated.