Wine of the country

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 10, 22 May 1944, Page 19

Wine of the country

A KORERO Report

While a young New-Zealander was in training for the Navy in England he was invited, with a fellow-Kiwi, to spend a week-end at the home of a wealthy and hospitable Englishman. On his way north in the train the Kiwi read of an historic dinner at which the famous Whitstable oysters had been on the menu and Chablis served with them. The rating knew little of table wines, but this fact stuck in his memory and when at dinner that night Whitstable oysters were served, he remarked to his companion that Chablis was the correct wine to drink with them. Overhearing the remark and thinking that the Kiwi was a connoisseur, his host immediately called for a bottle of Chablis and eagerly sought his guest’s opinion on this and the other wines he ordered for subsequent courses. The New-Zealander was soon out of his depth, but he slowly sipped and gravely complimented his enthusiastic host on the quality and variety of his cellar. Because New-Zealanders are not a wine drinking people, even such a mild deception would have been beyond the powers of most, no matter how adept at talking a line. Names like Sauternes, Chablis, Burgundy, and Hock mean little to us. Although the names have a romantic flavour, these beverage wines, to our palate, have not. Many are often disappointed in champagne, though most are loath to admit it. Dry sherry is not nearly as popular as the sweet variety. Our port, really a sweet red wine, most people find palatable, and our sweet white wines, sherry and Madeira, are

sold, even in normal times in reasonable quantity. But very few New-Zealanders appreciate and drink the dry beverage table wines which we import in no small quantities and which can be made here in our own country. In Europe these wines are drunk with meals in the same way as we drink tea. Table wines are not popular here because the early settlers were not themselves from wine-drinking countries. Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, they brought with them a taste for tea, beer, and whisky. These they have handed down to us. Our taste for wine is yet to be acquired. But many vineyards in the Auckland and Hawke’s Bay areas are producing wine, and though the emphasis is at present on the sweet or dessert types, for which there is a ready market, good table wines can be produced. At Te Kauwhata the Agriculture Department makes wine for retail purposes, and, through an expert instructor, the Department is assisting other winemakers to improve the quality of their wines and so raise, indirectly, the standard of the public taste. This work is not easy, for there are problems peculiar to New Zealand grapes and conditions. There are long-established vineyards situated in unsuitable localities. And there are Legislative restrictions which hamper attempts at improvement. But with the aid of skilled knowledge and scientific experiment, as well as the cooperation of the growers, much can be done to produce a good wine cheaply and encourage its consumption in the home.

Generally speaking, in New Zealand different kinds of grapes are not grown to produce different kinds of wine. There are many thousands of varieties of grapes, and in Europe special grapes are grown to produce special wines. Here, though our varieties are numerous, the grapes are broadly divided into black and white, from which red and white wines are made. Incidentally, we can in some cases make a white wine from a black grape by using only the juice of the grape without the skins. In a red wine the skins are also included in the fermentation to give colour to the wine. These two divisions may again be divided into dry wines, fortified dry wines and fortified sweet wines. Burgundy and claret are dry wines containing little or no sugar and less than 24 per cent, proof spirit. Dry sherry comes within the second class, for though it contains little or no sugar it is fortified with rectified brandy up to 32 per cent, proof spirit. In the third class, and by far the most popular in New Zealand, come port, sweet sherry, and Madeira, all containing up to 10 per cent, of sugar and fortified to 32 per cent, proof spirit. Burgundy, claret, and port are red wines. Sherry and Madeira are white. Also it should be realized that these titles applied to New Zealand wines are really misnomers. The originals are named after the localities on the Continent where they are made, and their New

Zealand counterparts bear to some of them a resemblance in colour only. All of which might seem to indicate that New Zealand wines are not made according to Hoyle, whereas when well made they are an excellent wine of their type. In the case of dry wines the Hawke’s Bay district is capable of producing wines that will stand comparison with French. Grapes need a good soil and a dry climate with low humidity. Rainfall should be light but regular, about in. being the ideal. They

grow from a vine which will usually produce a full crop within four to six years from planting. With care, and provided it escapes the many diseases to which grapes are unfortunately subject, the vine will continue to bear for perhaps a hundred years. The vines are usually planted in rows about 8 ft. apart, with about 6 ft. between each vine. A five-wire fence runs the length of the row, and up this the shoots from main rods of the vine are trained to climb. The grape-vine is ' a natural climber, and skilled pruning is necessary each year in June and July to clear away the wood that carried the crop of the previous season and so confine the vine to the rows. The rods are cut back almost to the trunk and the strongest of the first three shoots used as the main supply line for the next season. Intensive and continuous cultivation with plough, disk, and cultivator is necessary throughout the growing season. Lupins are sometimes grown between every second row and ploughed in to provide humus. Bordeaux mixture and other sprays are liberally used to check pests. In September the vine flowers ; then the grapes appear and fill out into large luscious bunches (if all goes well) by March and April, when they are harvested. This work is done by women and boys, many of them Maoris, at wages of from is. 6d. to is. gd. an hour.

The “ black ” grapes are purple when ripe, with a greyish bloom. They are acidy and generally a little smaller than a table grape. An average yield is three to four tons to the acre. The benzine-boxes into which the grapes are picked are carted up to the cellar and weighed to keep a check on the size of the crop. When there are suffiicient on hand a crushing begins. If a red wine is to be made the grapes are tipped into a “ stripper,” where the stalks are stripped from the grapes by the blades of a large revolving fan. These stalks are pushed out one end of the large cylinder while the “ marc ” — the pulp, the skins, and the pips— fall through a sieve to a sump below. The stalks are stripped off because they contain substances that might harm the wine during fermentation. In the sump quantities of a sulphite solution are added to the marc before it is pumped over to the fermenting-vats. The sulphite kills all bacteria, including the yeast carried on the bloom of the grape. Because it carries its own yeast the grape will ferment without outside assistance, but it is safer to kill this wild yeast which may contain impurities and replace it with a laboratory raised and tested culture.

The large, open, concrete vat to which the marc is pumped is specially acidproofed with a mixture of paraffin wax and resin painted on and burnt in so as to avoid any reaction between the acid in the wine and substances in the concrete. It must always be remem-

bered that wine is a living and delicate liquid—the smallest impurity of germ might sicken and spoil it. In this vat sugar is added to raise the alcoholic content during fermentation, which lasts from perhaps five days in the early, warmer part of the season to about ten days towards the end. During this time the marc ferments violently and, in the case of a red wine, very beautifully. When the agitator, which pumps the bubbling mixture at intervals for two hours a day, is at work the surface of the vat is covered

with a pale-pink foam. In the centre of the vat the agitator is continually drawing up and pouring out into the delicate froth a thick stream of luscious dark-red liquid. When a red wine is being made it is essential to keep the skins immersed in order to give colour to the marc. To do this a large circular head made of wooden slats in the manner of a shower duck-board is submerged a few inches below the surface of the vat. Through a hole in this board the agitator shaft drops down to the bottom of the vat, and in the morning, at midday, and again at night it sucks up the liquid from the depths and pours it out on the surface so that the liquid percolates back through the slats and in doing so comes in contact with the skins and thus extracts the colour. During fermentation the temperature of the marc should be kept between 80 and 85 degrees. Pure grade tannin is added to the fermenting wine during this time because New Zealand grapes are deficient in this ingredient vital to a good wine. It encourages precipitation of foreign particles, guards against secondary fermentation and any flattening of the wine, and, where the wine is too acid, will neutralize this sharpness. When the violent fermentation has quietened and the desired amount of alcohol has been produced (regular tests are taken for temperature and sugar and alcoholic content) the wine is transferred to large wooden maturing or storage

casks. It is pumped through a strainer at the bottom of the vat, leaving behind the skins and sediment, but carrying with it the yeast which has not yet completed its work. The casks, huge oval barrels containing from 500 to 1,500 gallons, are made of Baltic oak. If this wood is not procurable, New Zealand totara is reasonably suitable and is used both for new casks and for repairing old oaken containers. Here the wine will continue to ferment for another two or three weeks, by which time the yeast will have been worked out and will settle to the bottom of the cask. During this final fermentation the casks must be kept brimful to' avoid unnecessary exposure of the wine to the air. In order to allow the escape of gas given off by the fermenting wine and yet protect it from vinegar flies and dirt, a loosely packed bag of sand is placed over the bung-hole. As soon as the fermentation ceases the wine is drawn off into clean casks (a process known as “ racking ”), leaving behind the sediment, or “ lees.” Fortification of the wine with rectified brandy is now necessary to kill any bacteria and stop further fermentation. A sweet wine usually contains 27 to 28 per cent, proof spirit after fermentation ceases, and sufficient spirit is nowadded to bring the wine up to 32 per cent, proof. If the wine is deficient in sugar, small quantities may also be added.

The fortifying spirit is distilled from the “ lees ” remaining after the clear wine has been drawn off or from wine made from poorquality grapes. Only vineyards with a certain acreage are allowed to operate stills. In these the wine is boiled and the volatile alcoholic vapours caught, distilled, and condensed. The wine is not ready to drink. It must mature for another three years while certain chemical and organic changes take place. Wine is a living liquid and, though the casks will be brimful and tightly bunged, it will continue to breathe through the pores in the wood and so mature.

During this ageing process the wine must be drawn off into other casks at regular intervals to free the clear wine from the cloudy wine which settles to the bottom of the cask. This siphoning (racking), which should take place with as little exposure to the air as possible, is done four times the first year, three times the second and twice the third. As the rackings progress there will be a proportionately smaller amount of sediment remaining. After the wine has come of age it will be clear, but not yet “ candle-bright ” as it must be before bottling. This “ bottle-ripe ” condition is attained by the addition of finings to the matured wine to free it from any particles still in suspension. The wine should now produce no further sediment and is ready for bottling. This is done on a rotary filler, after which the bottles are corked, labelled, and crated and are ready for the last operations insertion of the corkscrew and the gurgle into the wine-glass. White wines are made similarly to red, except that the grapes need not be stripped of their stalks before being put through a press which extracts only the juice. This “ must ” can be fermented in the wood immediately, although with large quantities the use of concrete vats is desirable. Both black and white grapes put through this press will produce

"must ” for a white wine. White wine is even more susceptible to disease than red and needs more careful handling. Cleanliness is the essence of wine-making. The cellar itself must be kept spotless, and all pumps and containers and hoses cleansed thoroughly after use. During winemaking operations all cellar equipment and emptied vats are washed and scrubbed each day. The floor is steamsterilized daily, and any spills must be cleaned up immediately.

The larger casks have a door through which a man can crawl to scrub them out thoroughly each time they are emptied. Again before filling they are sterilized by burning sulphur inside the cask. All possible precautions are taken by a wise cellarman with a pride in his wines to preserve these fragile children from unwholesome contacts until they are old enough to look after themselves. Then he can send them out, pure and brighter than a new pin, to what is hoped will soon become a not unappreciative public.

But if any one should imagine that winemaking is as simple a process as has been described, a word of warning is necessary. The merest outline of the work in vineyard and cellar has been given, and many generalizations made to which the experienced winemaker could find innumerable exceptions. In this art, for art it is, there are a thousand and one exceptions to every rule and a thousand and one things to be watched and worried over. Grapes, climates, temperatures, diseases, woods, local conditions, and many more factors

all play an important part in the production of good wines. Modern science has called sachrometers, hydrometers, microscopes, and all the apparatus of the laboratory to the winemaker’s aid. It has made the production of wine more hygienic, more economical, and more certain. But fundamentally the principles applied have not changed in two thousand years. A wise man remembers that neither have the effects of over-indulgence.