Vineyard news – Two Hills in winter

August 21, 2007

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Victorian winter and Two Hills Vineyard

I would like to bring you up to date on some recent developments. The dry season seams to be over in our neck of the wood. When we arrived at Two Hills Vineyard our small dam was full and the larger “irrigation” dam was slowly collecting runoff water from the surrounding hills. However, when I was digging out some blackberry roots I quickly discovered that the ground was still rather dry. Only about the first 5 cm of soil showed some moisture but below there were hardly any to find; not quite dry as a bone but still too dry. We will need much more rain in order to refill the ground.

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The un-pruned vines

Another exciting news is, that we are extending our vineyard. We are in the process of planting 1 ½ acres of Chardonnay (clone P 58). The posts are almost in. Peter Thwaites could not finish the job because it was too boggy. The spacing is 3 meter between the rows and 6 meter between the panels. Pro panel we will plant 4 vines (1.5 m per vine). We have 20 new rows of different length but about 1200 vines should find a new home at Two Hills Vineyard. We have to be patient though. Experience suggests that we will have to wait another four to six years before we can drink the first drop from this site.

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The new Chardonnay block in the making

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Sauvignon Blanc

July 10, 2007

My morning newspaper, the International Herald Tribune, carried the other day an article summarising the tasting of 25 Sauvignon Blanc wines from New Zealand. Sauvignon Blanc is one of my most favourite white wines. The results were interesting. Only about 10 of the 25 wines found the approval of the tasting panel (it was a New York Times event of the dining section). For the judges, the tasting was a disappointment. They were looking for the bold, pungent refreshing SB but found that too many wines were dull, too sweet or simply wishy-washy or as Eric Asimov put it “commercially inoffensive”. My favourite SB from New Zealand, Cloudy Bay came up third (behind “Villa Maria” in number one position), described as “quieter than the top wines” but still “bold, zesty and delicious”. In my bottle shop in Jakarta it retailed for 40 US$ the bottle last week. Gone are the days when I had to pay only 18 US$ for this most delicious white.

Mr. Asimov is of the opinion that many producers have decided to push quantity at the expense of quality and that they are over cropping (too high yields per acre). I learned something else from the article: that in New Zealand wine producers are allowed to add sugar or acid to make up for “green” (not fully ripened) grapes, as we say. In Australia, we are not allowed to engage in this technique or should I say “manipulation”. Next time in the bottle shop it will be much easier for me to walk away from the dear SB from Marlborough and turn to some cool climate Sauvignon Blanc of Australian provenance. I might be enticed to make some Two Hills Sauvignon Blanc again in 2008. Kinloch Wines (www.kinlochwines.com.au) Sauvignon Blanc of 2006 is sold out, as I learn from their website. Guess who provided some of the fruit for this most delicious wine from the Upper Goulburn River (www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au)?

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The top 100 Wineries in Germany

June 14, 2007

Today, I visited the website of the winery Adolf Schick (Jugenheim/Rheinhessen) which I had visited with a group of Indonesian politicians some years ago. The visit and the tasting was a great adventure, because Mr. Schick was so enthusiastic about his wines and his family business with a tradition of winemaking going back to 1590!

Our Indonesian guests were very impressed and so was I. Well, as an Australian boutique vineyard vintner I find a family business going back to 1590 very remarkable. At that time kangaroos were hopping through the forests where today, Two Hills Vineyard is located, I guess.

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Weingut Adolf Schick in the heart of Jugenheim

The winery is located in the village of Jugenheim, a very charming place, which I know from own experience. The family does not only produce high quality wines, it also owns the Hotel Weedenhof. The hotel’s restaurant is very good too. We had lunch there. The vineyard consists of 9.8 ha planted with the Burgundy varieties, Chardonnay, Rieling, Kerner, Portugieser and Dornfelder. Needless to mention that the wines won many local and national awards. The wines are very reasonably priced and you will find a wide range of different products including grape juice. All my Indonesian friends all bought some bottles of it.

As in previous years, the Weingut Adolf Schick (www.weingutschickjugenheim.de) was also in 2006 ranked (by the DLG, the German Agricultural Society) among the 100 best wineries in Germany (rank 47). Only 12 wineries from Rheinhessen can be found in the top 100. From my home region, the Mosel, 11 wineries made it into the list (www.wein.de), and only one of them came from Trier (Weingut Deutschherrenhof). I loaded down the list to plan my next excursion to German wineries when I will be visiting again in September. Happy tastings ahead of me, I guess.

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Wine Industry in Crisis

May 17, 2007

Today I received information from the Upper Goulburn Wine Growers Association, of whichTwo Hills Vineyard is also a member, about the current problems in the North-East Victorian wine industry. As you all know, the 2007 vintage was volumewise much smaller than earlier vintages. In fact the crushed tonnage was 65% less than average. Because of the adverse conditions (late frosts among them) in 2007, the tonnage projections for the 2008 vintage are about 50% of normal times. This has a far reaching impact on the region, the councils, growers, wineries, consumers, tourists and the people in rural Victoria’s North-East. The livelihood of many producers, wine grape growers as well as wine processors, is threatened.

The Victorian Wine Industry Association has come up with a hands-on training program for those affected. This modular program looks at four main areas:

1. Vineyard Management
2. Business Sustainability
3. Market Development
4. Winery Tourism

For a boutique vineyard such as Two Hills all of these are very important. I am particularly interested in the possibility of future wine grape sales online. As an absentee owner, I appreciate more information about potential sales, demand and prices. Of course this year we had no problem in selling our fruit. Just that we did not have enough of them, and that’s made 2007 a bad year so far, the volume was just no there. It was good news for the receiving wineries, they got first class fruit from Two Hills. The online sales mechanism is most likely to be housed atwww.winesofvictoria.com.au

I also expect that I will have good use for the planned benchmarking guide for small wine businesses and the standardised Gross Margin Calculator. Though we are already exporting some wine, I hope to benefit from the country specific export market guide kit. If anybody of my readers knows any reliable importer, for instance in Germany but also elsewhere, please let me know. Our volumes at Two Hills Vineyard are small. Our single site vineyard does not allow blending with other fruit, which makes the special character of our products. Moreover, ‘exciting to drink a wine every year, for instance Merlot, from the same location and it always tastes different: one tastes the specific year, its climate, the soil….

I am an unlikely beneficiary of the training itself. Have I told you that we have booked our flights to Australia and that we will be in Glenburn from 11 July till 15 August? Come and visit us and have a glass of Two Hills wine.

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Lunching together with family and friends

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2004 Two Hills Merlot and its DIAM cork

February 20, 2007

Many of our customers might have wondered why we changed from a natural cork as used for the 2001 vintage to one which looks like a compound, glued together closure. Well, let me share with you some of the information which brought us to this change.

Wine industry experts estimated that each year about 200 million bottles of wine worldwide are having a moldy smell coming from defective cork contaminated with Trichloroanisole (TCA). The financial losses to the industry are enormous. If one assumes than on average about 9% of the bottles are contaminated, then any method able to reduce these losses is highly welcome especially by small producers or boutique vineyards such as Two Hills. A French closure company, Sabaté of Oeneo, has developed a new closure, the DIAM cork, which guarantees a 100% cork taint free closure of wine bottles. These corks also offer near perfect seals and no random cork oxidation or leaks.

How is the DIAM cork made?
The procedure is similar to the technique used to produce decaffeinated coffee. The cork is reduced to cork flour, and then washed with carbon dioxide where the TCA is removed. After that the flour is reconstituted and held together by the same polymer that contact lenses are made from. Independent research, for instance by the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI; www.awri.com.au), has confirmed that DIAM corks are exceptional in preserving freshness by avoiding oxidation. In 2004 Oeneo Closures has won an international award, the Gold Medal Trophy of Vinitech in Bordeaux, for technical innovation.

We at Two Hills Vineyard had basically three options: (1). buy more expensive conventional cork, (2) put the wine under screw caps and (3) experiment with DIAM cork. I could not bring myself to put red wine under a screw cap. I might be called a romantic by I enjoy opening a bottle with a traditional opener. For white wines, I hold a different view. I am willing to sacrifice the same romantic notion for a guaranteed cork free taste of the wine. I am not so sure about Riesling though, especially those Riesling wines which benefit from aging. In such a case I would be willing to invest in more expensive conventional corks, I guess. This is of course not logical but rather arbitrary, I know. Alas we do not have Riesling grapes at Two Hills so that I do not have to make this decision. But for aromatic wines such as Sauvignon Blanc of which I am especially fond off, I readily accept the screw cap.

In the end we decided to give DIAM a chance. I hope that our customers will be satisfied with this explanation and continue to enjoy the exceptional quality of our wines. For those of you who want to know more about closures, please visit www.winestate.com.au or put DIAM in your search engine.

2004 Two Hills Merlot

2004 Two Hills Merlot bottles shortly before consumption on our terrace in Glenburn

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Murrindindi

February 15, 2007

What is “Murrindindi”, you might ask? This is a location in central Victoria along the Murrindindi River. It is also the name of the shire where Two Hills Vineyard is located (www.murrindindi.vic.gov.au).

According to Wikipedia the Woiwurrung people lived in these parts of the Upper Goulburn when the first white settlers arrived in 1837. In the Woiwurrung language Murrindindi means “living in the mountains” and indeed this part of the Upper Goulburn Wine Region (www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au) is quite hilly and mountainous. It was all covered by forests.

There has never been a Murrindindi town. The first settlers (squatters as they are called in Australia) cleared the forests and farming and timber became the main industries in this region. A short lived gold rush began in 1868.

Murrindindi

Mountain view in Murrindindi

Although most of the area was deforested by the early 20th century, systematic protection and re-planting of trees has occurred and today the eastern part of the Melba Highway from Glenburn to Yea is in some parts quite densely forested again with Mountain Ash and other gum varieties.

Tourism is on the rise (www.murrindinditourism.com.au). Accommodation is easily available. There are good opportunities for trail riding, fishing, trail biking, and bush walking, specially along the Wilhelmina Falls and along the Murrindindi River.

Also the wine industry has made Murrindindi its home. Since the late 1980ies and the early 1990ies some vineyards were established in the Murrindindi area. In comparison with my native Mosel River, this might seem a rather short history of wine production. Indeed, vintners and winemaker here are true pioneers. There are fours vineyards in the vicinity:

▪ Penbro Estate
▪ Murrindindi Vineyards
▪ Yea Valley Vineyards and
▪ Two Hills Vineyard

All are members of the Upper Goulburn Wine Growers Association but only Penbro Estate has a website (www.penbroestate.com.au). There cellar door used to be the Glenburn Pub in Glenburn. Murrindindi Vineyard’s cellar door is at Marmelades Café in Yea, a small country town about 25 km to the north along the Melba Highway.

Whereas the Celtic Treverer had hundreds of years of site and varietals’ selection opportunities, so that today a rich and extensive knowledge base exists in the Mosel wine industry with well established vineyards and wineries.

The vintners in Murrindindi had only a couple of years of trial and error and are still searching.

We at Two Hills had to pull all our Cabernet grapes out because they would not ripen in the cool and harsh climate with its short autumns. They were replaced with Pinot Noir.

Last year was our first but promising Pinot vintage. The variety seems to be better suited to our conditions then the long ripening Cabernet. We plan to extend our vineyard and plant 0.4 ha of Chardonnay this year.

Vineyard in Murrindindi

Vineyard in Murrindindi

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Two Hills Merlot

February 11, 2007

It was the perfect day for a Merlot. Actually any day is good for Merlot but in the tropics one has to be careful with alcohol of any kind. Nevertheless, we had to do some tasting today. 2001 was our first Merlot vintage. Nobody wanted to buy the fruit. This is why I decided to make all of it into wine. Alan Johns of Yering Farm (www.yeringfarm.com.au) did this for us.

All our wines are hand crafted. They come from a single site vineyard, Two Hills Vineyard in Glenburn, and are hand picked. The fruit was fermented in traditional open fermenters and aged in old French barriques to preserve the Merlot’s elegance and finesse. At 12.8 % alcohol it is not too “heavy”. It is medium bodied, dry with a good acidity and a long finish. Its subtle flavours of ripe forest fruit and its firm tannins give the wine a fine balance.

The Merlot Block

Two Hills Vineyard – Merlot Block, single site (3 1/2/ acres)

We do not have many bottles left of the 2001 vintage here in Jakarta, and in fact not many are left on our vineyard either. It has matured in the bottle and some of our friends like it better then the lighter more elegant 2004 vintage. 2001 was a warm year with a golden autumn to ripen the fruit in perfect conditions. Timo Mayer, our friend and winemaker at Gembrook Hill (www.gembrookhill.com.au), described it as an “umpf” wine, rich and heavy whereas the 2004 Merlot vintage is elegant with great finesse. Anyhow, we enjoyed the drop today far from the place where it was grown. It reduces the homesickness we feel from time to time.

If you want a bottle or two please call in the bottle shop of the Old England Hotel in Heidelberg/Melbourne (www.oldenglandhotel.com.au) and ask for Two Hills Merlot. If you are in Germany please contact Dr. Ulrich Hillejan (ulrich.hillejan@s-h-r.de). Zum Wohl. Salute.

Product Range THW

2001 and 2002 Sauvignon Blanc and 2001 Merlot vintages of Two Hills Vineyard

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The Upper Goulburn Wine Region

February 1, 2007

Today, after all these Mosel meals, I want to take you back to Australia and write about the wine region in which our vineyard is located: the Upper Goulburn Wine Region. I also would like to inform you a little bit about the activities of the Upper Goulburn Winegrowers Association (UGWA; www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au).

The Upper Goulburn is located in central Victoria. The region derives its name from the Goulburn River which is one of the main features of the area. It is a cool-climate grape growing area setting it apart from most other parts of Victorian. The region has only recently been classified in the geographic indication system. Grapes, however, have been grown in this part of Victoria for almost 40 years. In comparison to the Mosel this is indeed a very young wine region.

The Geographic Indications Committee of the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation (AWBC; www.awbc.com.au) determines wine zones, regions, sub-regions and their boundaries. The system was introduced after lengthy negotiations with the European Union which did not accept Australian wines unless it complied with European regulations. The Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Act of 1980 was amended in 1993 to accommodate those requirements.

Map of the Victorian Wine Regions

Wine Regions of Victoria Map Dark blue formerly Central Victorian High Country and now divided in Strathbogie Ranges and Upper Goulburn Wine Region (www.wineaustralia.com/australia

The region is very diverse in terms of altitude, climate, temperature, rainfall, and soils. Site selection is of ultimate importance. Rainfall varies from 700 to 1400 mm. Some vineyards even rise to the snowline at 800 m. Many locations are ideally suited for sparkling wine production consisting of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. Aromatic varieties such as Riesling, Gewuerztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc can be found but also Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Shiraz. (www.greatwinecapitals.com/melbourne/mel_reg_centralvictorianhighcountry.html)

The Upper Goulburn is very picturesque and one of the gems of Victoria. It extends from Tallarook in the west to Mansfield, Lake Eildon and further north Lake Nillacootie. Regional centres like Yea, Alexandra and Eildon are located in the region. Mount Buller and its skiing slopes, the lakes, the small rivers and the high planes are a premium destination for national and international tourism.

Mount Buller

Mount Buller with snow cap

Two Hills Vineyard can be found at the most southern edge of the region on the way to Yarra Glen. Today there are about 25 wine labels and more than 30 vineyards in the region. Recently a branding workshop has identified the key characteristics of the region which include:

● high diversity of vineyards and wines
● climate very suitable for premium cool climate grapes and wines
● aromatic whites/sparkling wines and elegant reds
● hand picked and hand crafted grapes/wines
● family owned businesses
● environmentally aware producers
● low environmental footprint
● shared experience between producers and customers
● good infrastructure
● unknown – Victoria’s secret

From these few words it is clear where you have to spend your next holidays: in Central Victoria. See you there (www.visitvictoria.com/wineries).

Two Hills Vineyard

Two Hills Vineyard

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Of Droughts and Bushfires

January 12, 2007

Today, I climbed from the heavans and my meetings with the celtic gods (remember Sucellus?) down to earth again. And a hot earth it is. From The Age (www.theage.com.au) I learned about the progress of the bushfires in Victoria. 950.000 ha of forest have already burnt down, which according to The Age is almost as large as Jamaica (it has a bobsled team). Mt Buller where it burns is only about two hours away from our vineyard in Glenburn.

Some years ago I went skiing with my friend, Timo Meyer, Australian of Swabian origin, and his and our children for a day of racing down the hills. Timo is a vintner and a very sought after winemaker at Gembrook Hill Vineyard (www.gembrookhill.com.au). He is famous for his very fine palate. Timo made our second vintage of Sauvignon Blanc which in the end got us the bronze medal at the Singapore Wine Show. He has also his own vineyard at a very steep slope which is called “Bloody Hill”. His wines can be bought at Yarra Valley Dairy (www.yvd.com.au).

The picture below has been taken by Andrew de la Rue and it shows the fire raging near Mt. Bulller village.

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We are suffering under the drought for some years already. Because of the higher altitude of our vineyard loaction in Glenburn, we normally receive sufficient rain. Years ago we enlarged the old dam and built a new 13 megalitre storage. This kept us going. It did not rain much this winter (June to August on the southern hemisphere). I have never seen our big dam as low as in July/August 2006. Margit and I, we are of course a bit scared that some fires might break out in the nearby forests. Many of the fires are deliberatly lit by arsonists, others are ignited by lightning. The temperatures are high at the moment and together with the strong northerly winds, they make firefighting dangerous.

It has been a strange year so far. First, many vineyards were hit by two waves of late frost which destroyed in some places all the fruit at the vines. We at Two Hills were lucky. According to Steve Sadlier our friend, who manages our vineyard, we lost about 20% of the Sauvignon Blanc, 60% of the Pinot and about 40-50% of the Merlot. Some vineyards in the neighbourhood lost up to 60-70 % of their fruit, others lost everything. As a consequence the Victorian wine industry is suffering tremendous damages. Demand for fruit is strong. If we had only more of it. The old agricultural law prevails, that the economic value of a bumper harvest is usually lower then the one of a meager year. The frost damage will have lasting effects. Also the 2008 harvest will be lower because of the frost damage last year. Second, comes the drought and the fires. If Kinglake National Park start to burn, we will be in trouble.

Below some pictures of Two Hills in winter 2006. Isn’t the place beautiful?

Winter on Two Hills 1

Two Hills Vineyard

Winter on Two Hills 2

Winter on Two Hills 3

Sauvignon Blanc in winter

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From the Old to the New World: My Vineyard in Glenburn, Victoria

January 10, 2007

Today I want to take you to a small place in Central Victoria Glenburn, between Yarra Glen and Yea, about one hour northeast of the capital city of Melbourne. From there we drive about 5 km up north and turn right into Two Hills Road, a gravel road which will lead us to our vineyard.

The vineyard
Our vineyard facing north

It’s all grazing land here surrounded by gum forests of the national park. Most residents are retirees; many are weekenders. The vineyard is located on the right hand side on a 50 acres block (about 21 ha). It consists of about 1 ha Sauvignon Blanc (planted in 1996), 1 ha of Pinot Noir (planted in 2002) and 1.3 ha of Merlot (planted in 1997). The rest of the land is grassland with some small patches of gum trees and a small forest. A small river, Katy’s Creek, builds the boundary on one side.

Second Hill

Two Hills Vineyard towards our second dam

In 2001 we had our first vintage. Our Sauvignon Blanc of 2002 even won us a bronze medal at the Singapore Wine Show.The wines are available in Melbourne at the Old England Hotel in Heidelberg (bottle shop; www.oldenglandhotel.com.au), at the Berry Cafe in Dixons Creek (on the way from Yarra Glen to Yea) and in the Alexandra supermarket chain. In Germany my friend Dr Ulrich Hillejan (Gesellschaft fuer Unternehmensentwicklung mbH, www.s-h-r.de) sells our Merlot to other friends and family. At the moment we have only Merlot 2004 for sale. All the other wines have sold out which is of course good news for the producer and bad news for the consumer. 2006 was our most successful year so far. We had a good harvest (after a complete loss in 2005 due to adverse weather conditions), sold all our grapes, and most of our wines. The 2006 vintage of Merlot is ripening in French and American oak and will be bottled in March 2007.
We are selling most of the fruit to other wineries. Living abroad is not very conducive to wine marketing. Another friend, Steve Sadlier of Vineadvice from Yarra Glen, takes care of the vineyard management. He is our viticulturist. Our wines are made by another friend, Alan Johns, owner and winemaker of Yering Farm Wines (please visit their website at: www.yeringfarm.com.au).

The wine region is called the Upper Goulburn Wine Region Victoria (formerly Central Victorian High Country) and is promoted by various organisations among them the Upper Goulburn Winegrowers Association of which we are also a member (please visit their website: www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au). I took the map from this website. Unfortunately, it’s not up to date (we are not yet listed as members for instance) but it gives some idea of the location.
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