WHERE THERE'S MUCK THERE'S GRASS

“Where there's muck there's brass” says the old adage. So there may be, but we have found that muck is even more important than brass, more important to a vigneron that is. “What happens to all the muck which comes from a vineyard and winery?” you might well ask. The answer is that at Pegasus Bay we turn this waste into a valuable resource. Clippings from grass between rows and leaves from vines just mulch into the soil and the only things we remove from the vineyard are fruit and wood from pruning. It is traditional in Europe to burn this wood, often to keep warm in winter while pruning, but we cut it into tiny pieces by machine so it ends up rather like bark chips. These are then stored in haystack-like mounds.

Pegasus Bay viticulturist Greg Miller with compost heap.

In the winery we press juice from the grapes, which is fermented into wine. Being a liquid it consists almost entirely of water, although very flavoursome and delicious water! Depending on the type of grape, however, between 55 and 30% is solid material, including stems from bunches, pips, skins and some of the pulp. This is usually dumped. However, for a number of years now we have been turning this into real muck. We combine it with the mulched prunings and turn it into compost. It takes about 18 months to change all this rubbish into proper muck and at that stage it is a crumbly, black material with a consistency similar to dry muesli. The vines, however, find it much more delicious and nutritious than that as it contains not only nutrients they need, but also beneficial micro-organisms. The latter help vines break down and absorb nutrients, a bit like the ones we have in our own bodies which help us digest food. In the end, the only thing we take away is water, or something close to it, which we miraculously turn into wine. It's all about sustainability and Pegasus Bay is an Accredited Sustainable Vineyard.

SHARING THE MAIN DIVIDE

There is something we would like to share with you about the Main Divide. Main Divide wine is made at the Pegasus Bay winery but it is not Pegasus Bay wine. It is made from grapes we have contracted from selected vineyard sites. Pegasus Bay, which is a regionally distinct Canterbury name, lies to the east of the Pegasus Bay vineyard and winery. To the west is the Main Divide, or the Southern Alps, which form the backbone of the South Island and run its entire length. In keeping with this Main Divide wines can come from anywhere in the South Island. They are not a second label to Pegasus Bay but have their own distinct regional entities. In order to emphasise this we are giving Main Divide a distinctive new logo and label. We are also putting out a CD on contemporary New Zealand music entitled The Main Divide and Beyond. The existing Main Divide website at is being upgraded and will also feature a regular newsletter. All this serves to emphasise that Main Divide comes from the Mainland. See you there!

STICKING IT OUT

Each season Pegasus Bay is amongst the latest in Waipara, and probably New Zealand, to pick it’s grapes. That’s because we like ripe flavours. However, with our dessert wines, affectionately known as stickies, we really like to stick it out. We want the grapes to shrink so that the flavours, natural sugars and acids are concentrated. Commonly they develop botrytis, a fungus which grows on the surface and extracts moisture from the fruit, thus aiding the process. It is a slow business and traditionally we have not picked our last grapes until the shortest day or just after. Such a late harvest is almost unheard of, even in Europe.

Riesling for Aria covered with snow.

Leaving the grapes for such a long period involves considerable risk as many are lost by falling on the ground and if the weather is really bad they can go rotten. At best, you can expect to make only about a third of the amount of wine from any vine compared with harvesting earlier and you might end up with none. We nearly got caught out in June 2006 when riesling we had left out for Aria was hit by massive storm. Not only were the bunches covered by snow, but our anti-bird netting bowed under its weight snapping off the posts which support it and the grapevines. We thought our dreams of Aria were all over, but low, when the snow melted the grapes were intact. The bitter cold had preserved them, but we had to harvest them straight away. When you first taste our Snow Aria you will agree it is worth all the pain of sticking it out!

A VISIT FROM BACCHUS

It is not often you have a visit from Bacchus, the God of Wine but we had one recently. Not only did Bacchus invent wine but he made it available to mere mortals like us all. The present day Bacchus is Hugh Johnson, British wine writer, who first popularised wine over 40 years ago. Before then knowledge and appreciation of fine wine, and even wine in general, was restricted to a few connoisseurs and trade people. Behind Hugh’s racy, spell binding writing style was an erudite man with a fantastic palate who imparted his knowledge enthusiastically. It was his book Wine, published in 1966, which first kindled our interest in wine and determined us to become vignerons. If it wasn’t for him we would now probably be growing cabbages in suburbia. Subsequently he has written many books including The World Atlas of Wine, The Story of Wine, The Wine Companion and an annual Pocket Guide to World Wines. Hugh has also been a wine columnist and television personality, as well as writing a number of books on his other love, gardening and trees. If the combination sounds unusual, just remember that grapes vines are plants.

Hugh Johnson signs bottles for the Medical Research Charity Auction.

And what did he think of our wines? It would be presumptuous of us to say but we saw what we thought was a twinkle of delight in his eyes and on occasions heard him mumble “marvellous” and “spiffing”!

MATCHING WINE WITH FOOD

In our award winning Pegasus Bay restaurant we take special pride in carefully matching dishes to suit particular wines, as we want one to enhance the other. To make this work the staff has to embrace the concept, if not each other, wholeheartedly. Just how much they took it to heart became apparent when restaurant and wine marketing manager, Edward Donaldson, married the Maitre’D, Belinda Keys, a couple of years back. We are now delighted to report they have a beautiful son, Denver, a brother for Neo. But our commitment to wine and food matching goes further than this. We have been joined in the kitchen by sous chef Shawn McGowan, while his partner Juliana has taken over as Maitre’D. They came to us from Amisfield Winery in Central Otago.

Left: Belinda, Denver, Neo and Edward. Right: Shawn & Juliana

Throughout the spring and summer we will continue, where-ever possible to match our wines with special food based around locally sourced fresh, seasonal produce. We would love to see you to offer our hospitality but don’t expect too much of our match making powers. Anything we attempt to put together for you is only a suggestion, it’s not compulsory!

When coming for lunch it’s best to book to be certain of a place by telephoning 03 3146869, ext 1, but you can always drop into the tasting room.

WHERE HOUSE?

Question: Where would you house wine? Answer: In a warehouse of course! But, not just any warehouse. That’s right. Wine is virtually unique amongst things edible in that it can not only improve over many years, but can live for decades and beyond. In order to do this it needs to be stored under special conditions, the most important of which relate to temperature and direct light.

There’s not much point growing good grapes, making them into a decent drop and carefully bottling it if it doesn’t reach you, the consumer, in tip top shape. That’s why, some time back, we decided to build ourselves a new state of the art insulated warehouse. Some wineries simply hand storage of their wine over to a warehousing company, arguing that during transport to customers, particularly if exported, wine can be subject to temperatures over which they have no control. True, but we feel that if it doesn’t leave us in top condition, no matter what happens on its way to you, it can’t arrive there at its best.

Hence we patiently saved our cents and eventually cracked open the piggy bank to enable us to take care of your bottles of wine. It can get pretty damned hot in Waipara on a sunny summer’s afternoon and the obvious thing to keep wine cool is air conditioning. We do, however, get cool nights so we have opted for a more eco-friendly system. It senses temperature difference between inside and outside the warehouse. Any time it is cooler outside, air is automatically sucked into the building ensuring it stays nice and cool just by utilising the natural temperature fluctuations during the day and night. In this way we hope to bring you some really hot wines!

FROM THE PRESCRIPTION PAD

Would you like to save yourself money? If so I have a tip for you. Buy wine (preferably off this news-letter’s mail order). What you are going to save may finance this purchase. “Yeah! Pull the other leg” I can hear you say, but it’s official according to a group of Boston medical researchers. They have published a study showing that medical (Medicare) costs of moderate drinkers over 65 years of age were US$2000 lower over 5 years, compared with non-drinkers. Even given the current strength of the Kiwi dollar this is just on NZ$550 per annum. Is it worth the investment? You are the only one that can decide, but according to them it’s an investment in your health.

While we are on this subject, perhaps you have seen a recent book entitled The Wine Diet by Dr Roger Corder, who is professor of experimental therapeutics at the William Harvey Research Institute in London. Although only in his 50’s, the good professor decided it was time to invest in longevity. His quest led him to the mountainous region of central Sardinia, where he found the highest proportion in Europe, of people aged over 100 years. He then trudged off to Madiran, a hilly area in south-west France, where there is also a lot of folks 100 plus. The traditional diets of both regions make the health-giving potential of fast food joints look positively stunning and, for reasons that are not entirely clear, he decided that their secret weapon must be the local wine. In both areas the house tipple is a rough red with hard, grippy tannins. He thinks the magic molecules are procyanidins, which are found in all grapes, particularly in skins and seeds. The amount of this type of tannin not only depends on grape variety but is increased by slow growth and ripening, small berries with lots of seeds, low yields and long contact of wine with skins and pips during fermentation. While we don’t grow the very individual grape varieties native to these regions we can hold our hands up for all of his other prerequisites for longevity.

Anyhow, the Professor prescribes a regular, daily intake of wine, up to 3 glasses for a male and 2 for a female, giving the thumbs down to both binging and days off the elixir. He also goes on to suggest a number of other ways to stock up on procyanidins, including tucking into cranberries and dark chocolate (2.5 squares a day)! His argument is that both contain high procyanidin levels.

Now, while I wouldn’t argue that there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing that moderate wine drinking is good for the health, there are a lot of substances in your favourite bottle other than procyanidins that have been suggested to be the good guys. It is just too simplistic to suggest that procyanidin is the magic bullet and that we should all rush out and start drinking rough reds. In fact, an industry has grown up around the suggestion that red wine, rather than white, is good for your health and that this is due to the formers tannin content. Tannins give red its dry, firm feel in the mouth, as well as being involved in its colour. They are powerful anti-oxidants, which means that they help mop up toxic oxygen containing molecules that are formed in your body’s cells as they make energy. Professor Corder points out that procyanidins have other functions which are probably more important, including improving the function of the lining of blood vessels, which becomes damaged during hardening of arteries. There are, however, non-alcoholic substances in white wine which have been shown to equally improve the function of blood vessel linings and such wines are largely free of tannins and procyanidins. In addition, the only studies which have directly looked at the effect of drinking white wine versus red wine on health have shown they are both equally beneficial.

Finally, The Wine Diet says that in spite of nibbling on the odd bit of chocolate, wine will help you loose weight, not massively or suddenly, but gradually. There is certainly some evidence to support this in recently published studies, which show that rats fed wine in addition to a high caloric diet gain less weight than those on the diet alone.

In case that’s left you feeling confused and with an incipient migraine, let me summarise. There is a mountain of evidence that moderate wine drinkers are healthier than non drinkers and some have hypothesised that this is because of tannins and related compounds in red wines, but this is all theory. The only direct evidence suggests that white wine, which is largely devoid of such substances, is possibly equally effective and that the benefit is not just due to alcohol.

White wine or red wine, which is better for your health? Why don’t we be the judges? While the jury is still out I suggest we re-examine the evidence. Pour us a glass of both!

Cheers, Ivan Donaldson