Introduction

For this flight we tasted six Seresin ‘Leah’ Pinot Noirs from the 2005 – 2010 vintages. The purpose of the flight was to examine seasonal variation and ageing characteristics of wine. All the wines were made almost identically by winemaker Clive Dougall, who believes that wines should be an expression of time and place, and achieves this through minimalist intervention winemaking

Seresin Leah Pinot Noir – 2005

This wine had lots of tertiary aroma character as could be expected of a wine that has aged elegantly. The nose was a little closed, indicative of a loss of aroma over time but brie, coffee and earthen notes with a hint of bret were all pleasant and well rounded. The acids and alcohol stood out on this wine, perhaps indicating that fruit flavours had diminished and the balance was thrown off a little, but may have been a result of a cool ripening season leading to grapes being slightly overripe but with high acid at harvest.

Seresin Leah Pinot Noir – 2006

This wine seemed to have fared worse than the 2005 during ageing, with a less lifted nose and flatter palate. Fruit character was evident as cherry syrup and jam, making this more of a ‘plonk’, reminiscent of warm climate reds. The warm summer in 2006 may have over ripened the fruit flavours while leaving less structured phenolics. This meant that the wine was very drinkable, but hadn’t aged elegantly like the 05.

Seresin Leah Pinot Noir – 2007

The 2007 was my clear favourite of the flight having aged wonderfully with beautiful primary and tertiary characters balanced with acids and alcohol. The poor fruit-set was natural yield limiting influence and the calm summer allowed phenolics to ripen in-sync with sugars, creating wonderfully balanced fruit. It was the intensity of flavour that won me over with this wine, primary fruit flavours had carried through ageing beautifully and tertiary flavours gave complexity and intrigue to this long lasting and sumptuous wine.

Seresin Leah Pinot Noir – 2008

High yields from warm weather at fruit-set, and a warm summer likely led to these grapes lacking concentration and the resultant wine proved this. Primary fruit character was lost almost entirely behind hot alcohol and an acidic finish. The wine was linear and dilute, which leads me to believe that these grapes were picked after the rains in early April.

Seresin Leah Pinot Noir – 2009

The vintage for this year was tricky, high yields required fruit thinning to ripen grapes in the cool summer – but from the rather disjointed flavours I’m of the impression that fruit ripened unevenly, leaving some fruit stemmy and phenolically unripe. Caramel and dusty aromas, along with barnyard and mushroom flavours indicate that tertiary characters have developed a little prematurely in this wine.

Seresin Leah Pinot Noir – 2010

This wine was a difficult one, good concentration of flavour was let down by poor integration and lack of phenolic structure. Fruit characters were lacking but I believe that this wine would open up with time, allowing primary aromas to balance a complex array of flavours just waiting to burst forth. Proclaimed as one of Marlborough’s exceptional vintages I would have expected more from this wine, although it is still very young and perhaps need time to settle into itself.

Overall Impressions

Comparing the vintage reports from Marlborough with my tasting notes provided great insight into these wines. While aging characters are somewhat predictable, knowing about the phonological development of grapes throughout the growing season helped me understand why certain characters were more or less dominant in each year and helped identify what was due to the season and what was due to ageing. While subtle winemaking differences are likely, the fruit expression as determined by the growing season was clearly the main factor influencing the quality of each wine.

From a winemaking perspective also, this flight has demonstrated the importance of understanding the effect that weather and climate has on grape development, such that winemaking decisions can be targeted at producing the highest quality wine possible each vintage.

The wines in this flight also highlight the importance of balancing phenolic ripeness with physiological ripeness, which stresses the importance of choosing when to harvest and demonstrates how weather events at harvest time can hugely impact on final wine quality.

The post Seresin ‘Leah’ Pinot Noir Vertical Tasting – 2005 – 2010 appeared first on New Zealand Wine Tours.

Introduction

The Riesling challenge was initiated in 2010 to exemplify the influence winemakers have in processing grapes into wine. The challenge was taken up by 12 leading New Zealand winemakers, who each received 4 tonnes of identical grapes, picked on the same day, from the same site (Mud House Glasnevin Rd block, Waipara) and distributed evenly from each part of the vineyard. Each winemaker was then charged with creating the best Riesling they could from the grapes provided (The_Riesling_Challenge 2010).

Seven of the twelve wines were tasted in the flight, which was led by Simon McGeorge from Waipara Hills, who provided winemaking notes and tasting notes for each of the wines.

Paul Bourgeois Riesling Challenge Riesling 2010

This wine was the most lifted of the flight, most likely because it had the lowest residual sugar and highest alcohol, which helped to bring out the aroma. The palate was quite linear and a touch hot from the acid, with crisp apple flavour on the front and a candy aftertaste. These factors are likely due to excessive fining leaving flat and compartmentalised flavours.

Mike Brown Riesling Challenge Riesling 2010

The defining feature of this wine was the lack of phenolic structure. This is a direct result of only utilising free run juice for the final blend and consequently having an unbalanced wine. The acids were sharp as would be expected from free run juice, but surprisingly the high acid didn’t carry the flavours through the palate, which dropped off after the mid-palate. The upfront flavours were pleasant and complex enough to make this a pleasant and easy wine to drink.

Patrick Mateman Riesling Challenge Riesling 2010

This wine was exceptionally easy to drink but had little in the way of interesting flavours. Patrick used the most technical and elaborate techniques to make this wine, including three separate ferments, multiple rackings, acid adjustment and protein fining, and as a result has stripped all character from the wine, leaving it boring but easy on the palate. Acids were at the higher end of the spectrum, but all other metrics were decidedly mid-of-the-range, leading to the conclusion that he made this wine ‘by the book’.

Simon McGeorge Riesling Challenge Riesling 2010

I found this wine bland and boring. Simon was the only winemaker in the flight to fine the must with a casein agent prior to fermentation, which will have helped remove most solids from the juice, leaving a somewhat linear and un-complex wine. The addition of the sweet wine seems to have added only sugar to the mix, resulting in a closed nose with vinous qualities. Additionally, storing the wine for a month at 0^oC may have prevented any secondary or tertiary characters developing post ferment.

Matt Dicey Riesling Challenge Riesling 2010

A slightly higher residual sugar led to lower perception of acids in this wine. The wine had a slight bitterness and strong phenolic structure, most likely from not separating the free run juice from the press cut. As a result he had to add acid to balance phenolics, although a good overall balance was achieved as a result. The winemaking style was not outstanding in any way and neither was the wine.

Larry McKenna Riesling Challenge Riesling 2010

This wine was my favourite of the flight because it had the best balance and yummiest flavours. The wine had the second highest RS of the flight and the lowest alcohol, a style popular for German Rieslings. The light pressing limited phenolic pickup and halting the ferment early left sufficient sugar to balance the high acids nicely. Hints of wet concrete on the nose are indicative of H₂S, which may have come from disulphides being reduced in the low redox conditions under screwcap.

Matt Donaldson Riesling Challenge Riesling 2010

Great concentration of floral, citrus, honey and pear flavours made the wine rich and luscious. With the highest TA of the flight the acids pulled through the high RS to give length and hints of phenolics gave excellent structure. The phenolic pickup likely came from the time taken to freeze the grapes prior to crushing, because he only took free run juice for the fermentation. Personally I found this wine was too sweet for a table wine, and not sweet enough for a dessert wine, and I felt that more acids would have helped cut through the sickly sweetness better.

Overall Impressions

Each of these wines was different but all had undertones of the same varietal composition. The expression of the grapes in these wines was unavoidable and though each wine was different, all had similar aroma and flavour descriptors of pear, honey and apples.

I found this tasting most interesting because it demonstrated the actual effects on flavour, aroma and mouth feel of a variety of winemaking decisions and highlighted some definite do’s and do not’s. Particularly interesting was that all winemakers chose gentle pressing or only free run cuts to avoid phenolic pickup which is undesirable in Riesling. This choice will have also maximised acid intensity to help carry the flavour through the varying degrees of residual sugar.

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I once met a man who insisted that to truly taste something you must completely remove all sensory stimulants from your immediate environment – including and especially all smells. His philosophy is sound – when you are tasting something, your perception is influenced by an exhausting list of variables – temperature, colours, your personal frame of reference, your life experiences, sounds, smells, knowledge of wine, your mood, how much sleep you’ve had, the weather, humidity and so on ad-infinitum.

But with all these variables, many of which cannot be controlled easily if at all, it is nigh on impossible to actually taste anything without your subconscious getting in the way. So what we return to is simply this – we are imperfect tasters, period.

There are however a few things you can do to help the wine work its way through the fog to your taste buds.

1) Taste all wine at room temperature – too warm and fresh fruit aroma is dulled, too cold and the volatiles will not react with the air to give off any aroma.
2) Volatilise the aroma compounds – shake it up, swirl it round or generally give it a good slosh about to help the aroma leap from the wine to the air above it in the glass.
3) Take a sip – not a gulp, not a guzzle, don’t swallow it right away and don’t take too little. You need enough to coat your mouth, and no more.
4) Maximise the contact area and aromas in your mouth – suck air through the wine in your mouth, slosh it around to contact all the surface area of your mouth and hold it for a good 20 seconds.
5) Spit out the majority, swallowing only a tiny amount – a small amount ingested will not get you drunk, and dull your senses.
6) Repeat as many times as you like, with 20-30 second intervals in-between each sip to allow your taste buds to recover each time.

This method is pretty well accepted as the ‘right’ way to taste wine, and most cellar doors will encourage this with small tasting quantities, neutral environments and easily accessible spittoons.

And that’s it – as for what you taste, how you describe it and what you enjoy/hate – that is up to you. Keep an open mind and don’t taste on an empty stomach. Be generous with your love and sparing with your distain.

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