News from Two Hills Vineyard

January 23, 2008

twohillsinjanuary.jpg

In the back, you can see the two hills which gave the vineyard it’s name.

2008 promises to become our best year ever in the almost 13 years history of Two Hills Vineyard. A new block of Chardonnay has been successfully planted in early December 2007 and with this we will be able to produce on site one more ‘single vineyard wine’ in a couple of years from now, to be precise in about 2013. I will hopefully have retired by then from my work overseas.

chardy-1.jpg

Young Chardonnay plant

chardy-2.jpg

Morning in the Chardonnay

chardy-3.jpg

Chardonnay block

The fruit on the vines of the other three varieties looks really good (as the pictures below show). Despite the already mentioned freak hail storm on December 22nd, the fruit is healthy and in abundance. We expect to harvest about 25 tonnes of fruit from 3.5 ha under vines this year.

Because of the extreme heat we had in early January, vintage time might be earlier than in previous years, maybe in late February; usually it is in the middle or end of March. We in the Upper Goulburn Wine Region (www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au) are usually starting to harvest our grapes later than the colleagues in the Yarra Valley further south.

young-merlot-grapes.jpg

Young Merlot grapes

young-pinot-grapes.jpg

Young Pinot Noir grapes

young-sb-grapes.jpg

Young Sauvignon Blanc grapes

Our old Fiat tractor will be retired in 2008. Because of a generous donation from my mother it can be replaced with a newer model with some more horse power. We will also retire our old Mazda 626 car which is not exactly a useful farm vehicle but which served us well as a means of transport during the short months we spend on the vineyard during the last 12 years.

We will hopefully also get around in sowing one of the front paddocks with a horse loving grass mixture. Then we will have the plot fenced in by Peter Thwaites and turned into a horse paradise where our horse enthusiastic daughters, Lucy and Charlotte, can keep their ponies and other horses when we visit Glenburn.

We have started to irrigate our vines. I hope their will be no large bushfires as in 2007 when extensive smoke tainted many grapes. If the high temperatures persist, the likelihood of fires will rise too.

Finally, we have decided to extend our dwelling on the vineyard. We plan to link the old shed with a new wing to become our house, a proper residence so to speak.

Let us see what 2008 has up its sleeves.

1 Comment | vineyards | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by themanfrommoselriver

Vineyard news – Two Hills in winter

August 21, 2007

thwinter07.jpg

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.

unproonedwines.jpg

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.

postschardonnay.jpg

neblock.jpg

The new Chardonnay block in the making

Leave a Comment » | vineyards | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by themanfrommoselriver

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)?

Leave a Comment » | vineyards, wine regions | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by themanfrommoselriver

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.

picture-384web.jpg

Lunching together with family and friends

Leave a Comment » | general, vineyards | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by themanfrommoselriver

Upper Goulburn Wine Region – Vintage celebrations

April 17, 2007

On Saturday, 28th April, 2007 at Delatite Winery in Mansfield, Victoria, a great new festival will be brought to you by the Upper Goulburn Wine Growers Association (www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au).

Come along and enjoy new and museum vintages of elegant and aromatic cool climate wines.
The region is ideally located for the production of crisp and racy aromatic white and sparkling wines and elegant textural red wines.

The following fruit and wines are grown and made: Riesling, Gewuerztraminer, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Marsanne, Viognier, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Merlot, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Temperanillo.

Taste the flavours of the Upper Goulburn, listen to music from Connie Lansberg, enjoy a balloon flight chill out in the high country!

Showcasing
– A variety of aromatic whites and elegant reds – over 20 labels
– Gourmet food from the region’s best restaurants and cafes
– Regional products – olives, oils, breads, trout
– Art and sculpture
– Vintage cars
– Fun activities for the kids – puppet shows, face painting
– Balloon flights over the Delatite Vineyard
– Musical entertainment (sponsored by Crazy Johns): Jazz n Shiraz featuring Connie Lansberg

picture-077blog.jpg

Two Hills Merlot 2004

Leave a Comment » | food and wine, wine regions | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by themanfrommoselriver

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

1 Comment | food and wine | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by themanfrommoselriver

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

5 Comments | wine regions | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by themanfrommoselriver

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

87 Comments | wine regions | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by themanfrommoselriver

Next Entries »