2014 Vintage it's on!
Vintage week 1
Vintage 2014 has started in earnest at Forrest wines.
The winery and vineyard teams have been working hard the last few weeks getting ready for the fruit to arrive, some big jobs such as laying concrete pads making more room in the winery for receiving fruit and completing barrel work, this is important as our focus on Pinot Noir continues; moving fermenting tanks to new positions; and installing a generator as a safety measure after the recent earthquakes, to ensure we are sustainable at any time. Plus generally cleaning the place up.
One major concern to report on, the vintage was threatened at the weekend by the tail of Cyclone Luisi, but great news, it disappeared with a wimper rather than a roar, so we were all good to go as planned after some rain fall, but no 120km winds. Marlborough’s protection from indifferent weather conditions by some of the protecting landscape came to our aide again.
John Forrest made the call a month ago that this would be the week to begin and he was proved correct, the initial harvest we will be bringing in Sauvignon Blanc from our vineyards near the winery on the Wairau valley floor, the soils comprise of stones and alluvial soils and the majority of the crop will be destined for our second tier wines.
Friday will see the premium fruit for the famous The Doctors’ Riesling coming into the winery, we are always super happy as a team to see this arriving for another year.
Monday will be our first handpicks, chardonnay and our premium Pinot Noir from the clay based soils of the Southern Valley hills, from the vineyard that last year received the award for best Marlborough Pinot Noir at the IWC challenge in London for the John Forrest Collection. This should be an early highlight. , The whole company will also help with the first hand pick of the year at the Gibson Creek Vineyard and then have a classic Kiwi BBQ afterwards, with some good wine and friends to see in the harvest.
We will keep you updated as time goes on over the coming weeks with how things are going and introduce you to this years crew and winemakers visiting us from overseas.