There are many romantic notions about wine making and while many hold true others only hint at the hard work and effort that goes into crafting a memorable wine. Winemaking is a relatively ancient craft and one that historically follows the changing of the seasons and it is in these spring months where the task of tasting many of the wines begins as we carefully evaluate our work and start to assemble our blends.
One important element in many wines is the use of new oak in a blend. Balance is key in creating a harmonious wine and the judicious use of oak is a useful tool in attaining that balance. Now is the time that winemakers are evaluating their new oak purchases in preparation for ordering oak for the next season, the expense aside, it is often a daunting task to decide what oak best suits your wine.
To help us make the decision we often place the same wine into different types of oak so we can best evaluate what is working well for us. We decide which cooper has a style that suits our wines, the choice of forest, the length of time the oak has been seasoned for prior to construction, how the barrel has been toasted and on it goes, the variables are enormous, we question whether a barrel suits Merlot or is it better used in Syrah, do we want more spice or more char, sweetness or density?
At Man O' War we use predominantly French oak, we select which forests work well for us and the tightness of the grain of the wood, we work with the cooper as to which level of toast we prefer and we apply different barrels to different varieties that help us best achieve balance in our wine - the key to new oak is to look on it as the frame that supports the work of art, it is not the artwork itself!
In addition to tasting barrels now is often a good time to give ourselves a preview of how the overall blends are shaping up. For us we are looking at Chardonnay, Syrah and the most complex of all blends, our Bordeaux style wine.
Now it may sound like the best job in the world wandering around the cellar, glass in hand tasting exquisite wines, the lighting is often moody, music is filtering through from the background and the excitement of tasting the new seasons wine is palpable.
In truth tasting wines to construct a blend often involves military like discipline and organisation, in a brightly lit quiet room, one lacking in distractions and interruptions.
Firstly all the wines have been kept in their separate parcels since harvest began, for the Bordeaux blend we have 40 parcels. Each barrel within the parcel is sampled so we have an accurate representation of each; we have 300 barrels to sample. Each wine is then labelled and sorted by variety, we have 5; Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon. We then mask each bottle so we have no preconceived notions about a particular batch to cloud our judgement and we begin to taste. Each wine is tasted blind and accurate notes are written about each. The wines are then unmasked, some surprise us and others we nod knowingly pleased with their performance.
Then the skill of blending all the variables into a harmonious wine begins, measuring cylinders and pipettes appear and we slosh measured amounts of each wine back and forth until beakers of wine are scattered across the table, options are produced and passed into judgement. It’s suddenly 5 o'clock and we realise we have been tasting since 9 o'clock that morning, weary we begin to tidy up, arrange our precious notes and scrawls of percentages that make up the blend and head home, mentally drained and knowing that we have come very close to the blend but it will take many more sessions until we are completely satisfied.
