Joondalup Weekender Community Newspaper [WA] asked Jason Conti to contribute weekly columns on the vintage of 2008 – below are his extracts…
[Title]: ‘OFF THE VINE’ with Jason Conti
[Sub-title]: Early start to picking could pay off
Published: February 14, 2008 p. 28
Joondalup Weekender Community Newspaper
Jason Conti is the winemaker at Paul Conti Wines in Woodvale. In the first of a series of columns for the Weekender, he talks about the beginning of harvest.
Vintage 2008 has begun. We started picking fruit on January 25 which is one of the earliest starts to harvest we’ve ever had.
It is in fact, second only to 2007 when we started on January 19, which interestingly followed one of the latest starts to vintage, February 20, 2006.
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On average, the second week of February marks the beginning of vintage with the Australia Day long-weekend being the last small break before the winery is given a maintenance check.
The press is cleaned and we wait in anticipation for what lies ahead.
All our fruit is hand-harvested which is significantly more costly than mechanical harvesting - and it’s demanding work.
It is far removed from the romantic picture of lying under a grape-laden vine picking fruit with a bottle of rosé waiting for you at the end of the row and lavender wafting past your nose in the idyllic Tuscan countryside.
In reality, it is hot. Dust and dirt stick to your hands, flies with fangs gnaw at your calves, and bee stings are common. We start early, trying to avoid the afternoon heat.
Fortunately, the Carabooda Vineyard, where most of our white grapes are grown, benefits from cool afternoon sea breezes.
White grapes ripen before the reds. Ideally, we try to have the whites picked before the start of the reds.
The timing of picking is crucial and there are many factors that combine and influence the timing to pick.
Firstly, the fruit must have reached a desired ripeness. This can be measured by testing the sugar in the grapes.
Sugar is converted to alcohol during fermentation. The riper the grapes are, the higher the sugar content, and in turn, this creates stronger final alcohol with a greater body of wine.
We are also constantly taste the grapes looking for flavours that indicate varietal freshness and we look at the condition of vines, making sure there are no signs of stress.
We vigilantly monitor the weather and the forecasts – the only reason why I watch the nightly news is for the weather and what Woosha has to say about West Coast.
Will it be hot with scorching easterlies, or high humidity? Mild warm days are ideal. And, of course, is it going to rain….which it did!
Luckily, most of the whites had been picked from Carabooda before the heavy downpour.
We took a punt to pick a little earlier than preferred, but it probably saved our chenin blanc fruit.
Because we hand-harvest, getting pickers on the day you want them can lead to some negotiation.
Contract teams are booked up days and weeks ahead so you have to be able to predict days you are able to harvest and hope the team turns up, the vines are in good condition and you are ready to go. It sometimes helps to have a Plan B if things don’t go quite as planned.
The advantage of hand-harvesting is that you can see the fruit going into the bins and quickly sort out ‘material other than grapes’ [MOG] – damaged fruit, stray vine bits and leaves. This year we also netted some parts of the vineyard because birds can cause huge amounts of damage, particularly in the later ripening reds.
Generally, crop levels have been what we expected even though some damage from extreme early summer heat was evident. As with every vintage, new challenges are faced such as the recent heavy rains.
We plan to harvest again early next week and feel confident fruit will still be in good condition. However, we will have to wait and see…
[Title]: ‘OFF THE VINE’ with Jason Conti
[Sub-title]: Vineyards see red (and white)
Published: February 28, 2008 p.28
Joondalup Weekender Community Newspaper
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J ason Conti is winemaker at Paul Conti Wines in Woodvale. In the second of a series of columns for the Weekender, he talks about what happens after harvest.
Four weeks into vintage and things are just starting to get interesting. Some of the whites have finished fermentation, some are about half way through and we have just begun the reds.
Not only do we now worry about the vagaries of the weather and the pickers, but also the simple logistical problem of how we are going to fit the incoming fruit into the various fermentation tanks.
The winery is slowly filling and it is a constant juggling act – crushing, pressing, fermenting, racking (transferring wine or juice), filling and then emptying tanks.
The smell of fermenting juice still fascinates me – characters such as peach, cut grass or tropical fruits are obvious as you pass by tanks or lift the lids. As in the vineyard, your best analytical tool is your own senses. You taste and smell ferments as they change from a sugary milky looking soup into wine. A cold Coopers Pale Ale when you get home is always a welcome relief and a good palate cleanser.
The reds are treated quite differently to the whites. Unlike the whites, the reds are fermented in contact with the skins, whereas the whites are crushed and drained immediately after harvest.
The colour and the flavour compounds are locked in the skins. Once crushed, the juice and skins are pumped into vats where they must stay in contact with each other during fermentation.
The skins will float to the top forming a thick cap, which needs to be broken up and plunged down, much like coffee in a plunger.
This has to be done three to four times every day for the duration of the ferment. It allows extraction of flavour from the skins and helps maintain a constant even temperature.
Over the period of seven to 10 days, the pinkish, fuchsiacoloured juice becomes darker and deeper in colour, fuller in flavour and higher in alcohol content.
At this early stage, the red wines are showing characteristics that indicate that they are going to age well.
[Title]: ‘OFF THE VINE’ with Jason Conti
[Sub-title]: Last drops keep the pressure on
Published: March 20, 2008 p. 33
Joondalup Weekender Community Newspaper
Jason Conti is winemaker at Paul Conti Wines. Continuing his series of columns for the Weekender, he talks about the pressing process.
The finish line is in sight, but like any long-distance race, it is the last lap that hurts the most.The past few weeks have been spent pressing off the reds – merlot, shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and the exotic Spanish variety, tempranillo.
The grenache will be the last red variety picked this week, and this will mean all of our own fruit has been harvested. The press squeezes the last remaining juice, colour and tannins from the skins. The dark, rich, violetcoloured wine drips through the slats in the press before settling in the tank and then barrel maturation starts. The final pressings give the finished wine backbone and body.
Your hands become stained black from loading the press and your clothes splattered with blood-coloured juice. I have become accustomed to inquisitive stares when I drop into the supermarket on my way home for a pint of milk, as shoppers may assume I’ve just committed some horrific act or done a day’s work at the local abattoir.
A feeling of Groundhog Day was also apparent with the picking of whites again, while in the middle of pressing reds. Consequently, we start from square one all over again as the press, pumps and tanks have to be re-cleaned, sanitised and stains removed.
The crop of white muscat grapes was severely reduced due to the extreme heat over Christmas and New Year. In fact, we seriously considered not picking it at all. However, our Late Harvest is one of our biggest sellers, so we had to attempt to make something from what we could salvage and we are confident the hard work will pay off in the end.
We have also utilised these extremely ripe grapes to make a concentrated, viscous and luscious fortified muscat. So, for those who are patient enough, this wine will be released in 15 years’ time when it has developed its optimum flavours.
[Title]: ‘OFF THE VINE’ with Jason Conti
[Sub-title]: Same taste, but a different label
Published: April 3, 2008 p.24
Joondalup Weekender Community Newspaper
J ason Conti is winemaker at Paul Conti Wines in Woodvale. In the latest of a series of columns for the Weekender, he talks about fortified wines.
Last time I briefly spoke about fortified wines and this year the weather conditions were ideal for making these delicious sweet wines.
Up until the 1970s, fortified production in Australia was our main export wine but this has gradually reduced over the years as table wines have taken precedence. Many factors have contributed to this and one that I would like to address would be the change in labelling laws.
Fortified wines in general fit within the Ports, Muscats and Sherries. These names are now no longer permitted as they refer to specific European regions and production techniques – so do not be surprised if you see the name “Port” removed from Australian labels and replaced with words such as Tawny, Reserve and Vintage to describe a particular style.
We use red and white grapes to produce our fortified wines. Generally, grenache is used to make a red port tawny-style but shiraz is also very popular. The grapes are picked extremely ripe which is easily achieved in Australia.
Fermentation is allowed to begin as normal then about three quarters of the way through fermentation, brandy spirit is added to fermenting juice. This kills the yeast maintaining a high level of unfermented residual sugar increasing the alcoholic content. A precise calculation is made before fermentation so we know when to add the spirit.
The sweet red wine is then allowed to settle, then it is racked into old barrels where it can be left undisturbed for many years except for regular topping up and qualitycontrol (ie a taste).
Generally, vintage ports are a little drier, so they are no longer as popular as the sweeter, richer, tawny styles.
The other very popular styles are liqueur muscats and tokays, where this time white grapes are used.
Don’t be confused when trying to navigate your way through the fortified wine shelf this winter – you may be looking at the same wine with just a different name.
[Title]: ‘OFF THE VINE’ with Jason Conti
[Sub-title]: ’08 harvest at an end
Published: April 17, 2008 p.33
Joondalup Weekender Community Newspaper
Jason Conti is winemaker at Paul Conti Wines in Woodvale. In the latest of a series of columns for the Weekender, he talks about the end of this year’s vintage.
THIS week will be the last small parcel of fruit to be harvested and by early next week, the 2008 vintage will be over. It’s been a long vintage for us because we not only grow our own grapes, but also buy in some fruit from the South-West, which ripens up to a month later than ours.
The frantic pace of the vintage has slowed, but there are still many very important jobs to attend to.
The ferments have finished on most of the reds and the whites, so it’s time to consolidate the smaller batches into bigger blends.
It’s basically a culling process where we identify the best batches for future bottling into our premium brands.
Because the ferments have stopped, they are no longer producing carbon dioxide, which protects the wine from oxidation and potentially being unusable.
All tanks must be full, not ullaged (wine speak for “not full”). Any transfers occur under a cover of CO2 to minimise any oxidation.
The reds now undergoing a secondary natural fermentation, which converts the green hard malic acid to soft buttery lactic acid.
I’ve also taken delivery of some new oak barrels for this year’s wines once they have finished settling.
Oak plays an important part, helping stabilise colour and tannins, rounding off the palate and giving the wine gentle dusty oak flavours – but I’ll talk about oak in further detail another time.
There is no doubt that we have had some extremes in weather during vintage, but I am more than happy with the results and my personal highlights are chenin blanc and chardonnay from our Carabooda vineyard; shiraz from Mariginiup and an outstanding merlot from our south west grower in Pemberton.
[Title] 'OFF THE VINE' with Jason Conti
Published May 29, 2008
Joondalup Weekender Community Newspaper
Jason Conti is winemaker at Paul Conti Wines in Woodvale.
Last week I had a good look at the various 2008 shiraz wines in tank. It was a good time to have a close appraisal of each wine and make any adjustments before they go into oak.
It’s a great exercise because you can see the differences between each batch. We source shiraz from old vines at Mariginiup, younger planting at Carabooda and from a small grower near Manjimup in the South West.
Our Mariginiup vineyard always produces the richest style. You often hear the saying the wine will get better with age and sometimes this is true, but I believe as the vines get older, they produce better wine.
WA has shiraz growing in all its viticultural regions, making the variety very versatile. The region has a great influence on the style produced; the warmer areas produce wines with softness and rich flavours like plums and chocolate. The cooler regions have a more peppery spicy flavour.
The shiraz grown in the Great Southern region near Frankland River have a distinctive white pepper character. We source some shiraz out of Manjimup, which has similar gravelly soils and a cool climate. These vines are only young but can produce good deep soft wine in warmer years like 2008.
The spiritual home of shiraz in Australia is South Australia Barossa Valley. Some of the oldest plantings of shiraz in the world are there. The vines thrive in the deep red clay soils, bitterly cold wet winters and blistering hot summers.
Some of my favourite wine comes from the very small Barossa Valley producers. The ironic thing is that in 1980s, growers were paid to pull out vines.
They were told demand for their warm climate red grapes was over. Full rich styles were a thing of the past.
Today, growers who resisted the vine pull can demand many thousands of dollars per tonne for their old vine fruit and their wines sometimes sell for more than $100 per bottle.
Interestingly, recently I tasted two wines side by side, masked so as not to know the producer, vintage or variety. I guessed they were probably shiraz and I loved them both, particularly the right hand wine. It was big and rich with loads of sweet vanillin oak flavours. The wine on the left was also of exceptional quality, it had a slightly less dense palate and I thought it might be off young vines.
When they were unmasked they were both shiraz from 2002 vintage. The wine on the left was valued at $35 per bottle and the one on the right at $500 per bottle.
The first wine was made from young vines by a winemaker in the Swan Valley, the second by a huge company from the very best vineyard in South Australia. The wines were both excellent but one was not 14 times better than the other was. I did prefer the more expensive wine, but right now, I need to pay this term’s school fees.
[Title] 'OFF THE VINE' with Jason Conti
Published June 19, 2008
Joondalup Weekender Community Newspaper
LAST week we bottled the first of the 2008 unwooded whites, chenin blanc and late harvest fronti.
It’s always a great challenge to have them ready at this early stage, but the public prefer their wines to be fresh and zippy so it’s important to get them bottled early.
With the advent of screw-cap seals, which are preferred as they preserve freshness well, there has been a shift away from traditional cork seals for both white and red wines.
Because cork is a natural product there is always some variation between one cork and another. The major problem is cork-taint, which can make the wine smell and taste flat and have all the character of a wet hessian bag.
Screw caps eliminate this problem. However, they do require that the wines be absolutely free from bad odours as the screw caps may exaggerate them.
Do not feel embarrassed to check a wine in a restaurant even if it is sealed with a screw cap as there may have been a fault in its application which allowed air to seep through the seal.
Another benefit of the screw cap is that white wines age a lot slower and therefore retain their fresh fruitiness longer.
There is still some debate how reds age over time sealed under screw cap and I still prefer to bottle our rich premium reds under cork.
However, I have no hesitation in sealing the earlier drinking reds under screw cap.
This may change as I gain more experience with aged reds. The 2006 Mariginiup Shiraz has been pumped out of oak and will be bottled under cork shortly.