pruning time

I see the ute as it weaves up the long drive way through the crisp morning air; the sun is low but the sky clear, promising us another beautiful Winter's day.

I pour the water into the plunger and the women are at the door, ready to share morning coffee before a day among the vines.

It's pruning time and that means for us, having friends each morning for coffee, checking in on the state of the pruning gear, extra jobs that may need to be done as well as just a general morning catch up, slow and steady as the day opens up. We treasure our pruners; their hard work, their skill and their knowledge that they bring to our vines.

The vineyard is looking stripped back and barren after the riotous Summer growth and the Harvest bounty. During the pruning season the vines are pulled into line even more; cut back to one or two canes, the prunings pulled out and the rest tied down until they resemble neat, ordered rows, pausing in the quietness of Winter.

The vineyard reflects this back to us, reminding us to pause and rest while the sun is still fairly low in the sky.

The pruners finish their coffee.

It's time. We hug, wish each other a good day and they go out the front door, secateurs in hand, and head down into the vineyard.

Harvest 2013, it's all about friends!

Anna and Gareth, early morning picking

Here at Partington's vineyard, picking is all about friends. They come from everywhere, some are neighbors, some family, some even came from Europe!

That's what make this moment unique... We celebrate what the vineyard gives us, and this year was very special.

The grapes were absolutely fantastic, perfect ripeness, flavor, tannins, color, brix, everything was balanced and on time, so we were quite excited and you could only see smiles around the place...

Gareth "happy as", loaded, driving up to the winery

But harvest is not only about picking grapes, it's also a great opportunity to catch up, sharing wine, food, laughs, one of these moments when the time seems to have stopped and enjoyment is everything.

Lunch time after a long morning of picking grapes

With the grapes we brought into the winery, the winemaking team was pretty excited, because it's the perfect opportunity to try different styles and experiment different winemaking methods.

This year we worked some vats under "maceration carbonique", or a mix of whole bunches and de-stemmed bunches, another with only whole berries, it was good fun and great results!

Plunging our vats during the ferments, everyday, morning and evening...

After some weeks of caring from morning to night for our vats, following the ferments, tasting, plunging, controlling the temperature, we ended up pressing beautiful "juices", very close to finished wines already, we were pretty amazed by their elegance... it was time to gently move it into barrels...

Pressing off the Pinot Noir vats before moving the wine into barrels.

Time for us to have a rest after these weeks of long days of work but it's also time for the vines to have a rest, as we go further in autumn, the leaves will change color turning yellow, orange, red and finally fall, blown by the wind. 

Samples of Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, show me your Brix!

Our Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc hand crushed for Brix levels

Getting closer to the harvest means that we need to regularly control the ripeness of the fruits. Here, following our wine philosophy, we make it simple. We walk down to the vineyard (yes, the vineyard is on the house land, so we really live in the vineyard ), to pick  bunches from different raws.

On the way we eat lots of berries, chew seeds, and comments everything, about fruit flavor, sweetness, acidity, ripeness of the seeds, thickness of the skin, etc.. everything that makes the grapes being ripe or not.

Then we come up to the winery, crush our mini-harvest and simply use our hydrometer that gives us our Brix level (degrees Brix) that indicates the sugar content in the grape juice and gives us an approximate level of the volume of alcohol of the future wine.

Pinot Noir 18,7°Brix  -  Sauvignon Blanc 19,4°Brix 

 As we planned, from the reading of these samples and according to the biodynamic calendar, we'll start harvesting on a fruit day, on saturday the 23rd of March. We should reach perfect ripeness for the most advance of our grapes at this stage, and so we are organizing people, snips, bins, and making the winery ready to get some fruits! The excitement is taking over here as this vintage let us believe that it's gonna be fantastic!

Amazing day at TasteNelson Festival !

Jean at Partintgon Organic Wines stall

Thanks a lot to all of you who came to have a good wine time at our stall on the  TasteNelsonFestival yesterday!

Anna and myself had a fantastic day pouring Partington Organic Wines to everyone coming to visit us, and we've been pretty busy as people were coming, asking for :

- "I'd like some of your delicious Chardonnay my friend told me that I have to try!" 

or,

-"I'd like to try your Pinot Noir 2008. 

(me) : Sure, and why the 2008?

- A friend of mine just told me that it was very nice"

It was just very pleasant for us to talk about our passion, what we do in an Organic Vineyard, how we make our wine, why being Organic makes a difference, why working with wild yeast is important to give your wine a unique style, what means expression of Terroir!

We also had the visit of french sommelier (from alsace) and "vigneron" (from Sancerre) with a friend from Germany and we had a very interesting tasting, they enjoyed a lot the wines and were very happy to find this kind of "boutique artisan organic winery" at the festival.

Anyway, people seemed pretty interested in our wines and we had very enjoyable chats, that made our day, so a big THANK you!

Getting ready for the TasteNelson Festival this saturday!

Labeling some Rose 2011

Our selection of wines for the TasteNelsonFestival 

Time to get ready for the TasteNelsonFestival this saturday 2nd of March...it's gonna be full of joy, music, local food, beers and wines...

We're getting ready labeling some bottles as you'll be able to purchase some onsite, and we'll present you, exclusively, a taste of our Pinot Noir 2009... It's a very enjoyable wine, so come to visit our stall and we'll talk about it together!

See you on saturday!

Late afternoon in the vineyard...

Chardonnay

Hmmmmm.... its a real pleasure to walk along the raws, see , smell and listen life around the vines, with so beautiful and healthy fruits.

Thanks to an accurate fruit thinning, our grapes are safe, and they can ripe gently enjoying sunny days and cool nights... Sweet as!

Arthur Ranges in the back...

Sarau Festival, smiles, wines and sun!

Anna, welcoming people with a beautiful smile for beautiful wines...

What a day! 

Thank you so much to the Sarau Festival volunteers for the organization, and thanks a lot to everyone who came up to our stall and enjoy our wines! It's been a pleasure meeting you and we had a very good time talking and sharing wine with you!

We really enjoyed your company and wish to see you soon around a glass of Partington Organic Wine!

Nets on, watch out birds!

Good job! 

Not the most enjoyable when the nets get caught on your hat, your boots etc... Anyway, it`s done, grapes are safe, now we keep an eye on the fruits, do a little thinning to keep only the best bunches and tidy up the vines for veraison...so watch out birds, we'll be here!

Welcome to our vineyard's blog!

You'll find here what`s going on at Partington's Organic vineyard and winery in Upper Moutere, New Zealand. 

Enjoy and please, don`t hesitate to leave a comment if you feel like doing it, we want this blog to be alive and it`s gonna happen with you, 

Thanks, and see you very soon!