Three Wishes Vineyard

2008 Vintage Closes its Curtains on a Cold Sunset…Finally !

2008-04-28T05:51:00Z

Apparently the final juice was 20be (degrees alcohol) and had to be given the hose treatment prior to ferment to get it back to an acceptable 15%..! If this is true..well Tassie went the other way !! Large crops of grapes on the vine in late march didnt take too well to the heatwave..Tassie didnt quite cop the same intensity of heat but Three Wishes clocked up a few in the old centrury and one controversial measurement of 38C ! This all one week prior to harvest, just when vines were shedding leaf and grapes are especially prone to Sun damage… We wipped our chard and Pinot of in two days, back to back picks, and they both look superb, but the Riesling seemed to just shut down ..Not two weeks prior my winemaker confirmed what I had already though..the Rielsing block looked superb, healthy canopy and disease free fruit..almost bankable ! I did a quick phone around and it seems other vineyards in the Tamar had the same trouble in the weeks following EAster through to mid may. The sugar levels just didnt seem to move at all..normally we can count on one Be per week..but we got one in 3 weeks ! Why ? Probably better left to someone more qualified than myself..but I think the vines went into survival mode with the cold snap (after such a stressfull two weeks of hot weather), heavy leaf senesence, saving their sugars for vegetative growth (trunk, canes, leaves) rather than for future drinkers ! Anyway well see...A quick few words of summary for 2008 : Uneventful spring this year (no severe frosts like 2007 or Western front style rains and mud as in 2006 !), calm flowering (hence good crop levels), some disease pressure in december leading to a small powdery Mildew outbreak that was nipped in the bud (pardon the pun !), and a slow steady, dry summer ripening period from late january until late march..when it started going haywire...last highlight WASPS !! Everywhere, we lost 30% plus of our Rielsing this year to the nasty little turds..ah yes, they are all gods creatures (?). The long wait, big nest numbers, throw in wild bees and possums...and whats left is for you and me !

Understandably its going to be different challenges every year...just hang in there for the ride and roll with the punches (and it gives me different tangible things to reflect on when Im drinking the profits in future years ! )
Adios AMigos Peter

Photo Gallery Finally Updated…Daily Cellar Door Sales Close for 2008..Some wines sold out…

2008-04-02T09:48:00Z

We are selling wines for other local East Tamar Vineyards..East Arm and Hinton Bay, as well as our wines. They are also high quality boutique wines from our area get in touch if you want more information. We have now officially sold out of our Gold Medal Award winning 06 Rielsing..which interestingly is still available at a few boutique retail outliets in Launceston, and the Artisan Gallery on the West Tamar if you want to source it. We have only a few cases left of our 06 Pinot (9 to be precise )! which will be needed for direct cellars door operations over the next two months so it is also officially sold out (ex cellar door !). We are looking closely at selling both the 06 Landbridge Pinot and 06 Chardonnay into Melbourne this winter, but they are fantastic wines and have their best years ahead of them so let me know if you are interested in ordering . We plan to start selling our 07 Rielsing in April, followed by our 07 Pinot and Chardonnay later in the year. Ill stand by my call that the 07 vintage, across the board, is our best yet ! Next blog will be an update on the 2008 vintage, thankfully we picked our thin skinned varieties such as Pinot and Chard early before easter when the weather snapped..and boy has it snapped ! The poor old Rielsing is still out hanging...but its hardy enough to weather the storm ! More to follow, cheers Peter

2006 Vintage Mailout Details

2008-01-13T04:06:01Z

2006 Riesling -One of 3 Gold Medal winners at the Tasmanian Wine Show in 2007. 93/100 by James Halliday who outlined 10plus years cellaring potential. A most complex but pleasing wine, with heaps of character and potential. Has been sold in most of Launceston’s top restaurants, and by the glass in ARIA Restaurant in Sydney...(Winner of Australia’s best Restaurant Wine List last year). Hurry, not much left ! 10% Discount for cases (A$25.00 per bottle as part of a dozen)

2006 Chardonnay -Just released, not shown in any wine shows yet. More in the chablis style than an Aussie chard, delicate, complex with confectionary stone and citrus fruit and savoury overtones. Great served chilled on a summers day or an even better wine paired with food. Funky nose from wild yeat fermentation, will continue to develop the “stink” with a few more years in bottle..my guess is this one will cellar for 5-10 years no problem. (A$20 per bottle as part of a dozen).

2006 Landbridge Pinot -The best selling wine at our cellar door. Earthy, savoury sweet pinot fruit on the nose with a silky smooth palate of spicy plumb, cherry and red fruit. Has power but finesse and will continue to develop . Bronze Medal Winner at Hobart International Wine Show (just missed a Silver by half a point !) ...did well compared to many Tassie Pinot’s from this vintage. (A$20.00 per bottle as part of a dozen).

2006 Three Wishes Pinot -Very limited supply, being shown in Tassie Wine Show this week. Big bold and complex (as usual !), the wine has spicy, perfumed aromas of violet, betroot and red fruits, with a dark colour and great consistency of palate. Starting to develop “the funk” on the nose with earthy, barnyard overtones..should continue to develop with time-drink now or put down for 2-10 years. (A$35.00 per bottle).

Order via e-mail, please send your order and address. I will confirm price and get in touch for payment details (we can take orders via email or phone using credit card facilities) or we can send you direct debit details if you prefer. Have a great new year, and dont forget our 07 Vintage is the best we have made yet..to be released late 2008 (see Blog -Vintage Update for 2007 “From the Winery").

Adios Amigos Peter

2007 Vintage –Update and comments from the Winery !

2007-12-05T19:14:01Z

Early vintage woe and peril (frost, bush fires -see previous Blog ) led to a long and drought stricken, but largely uneventful 2007 vintage (we however did have golf ball size hail stones land within a few hundred meters of the vineyard on boxing day, the same storm trashed my uncles garden across the road !). Yields from our 3 hectare vineyard were predictably low at harvest after frost, poor fruit set and no rain during veraison (ripening period), but were on average better than I originally expected.

The final count was 4 tonnes of Pinot, 4 tonnes of Riesling, and 2.5 tonnes of Chardonnay. All things being equal...our vineyard should be yielding double these amounts within the next 4 years (all things being equal….a big statement in Tassie Viticulture !). If our cloud has a silver lining, its that the quality of our fruit was superb. Its an early call, but Id say tasting all three wines will be our best yet ! For a start, our 07 Riesling just won a high silver medal at the Royal Hobart International Wine Show (late November 2007), placing 5th overall in the open class…beating hundreds of other Rieslings, including many of Australia and New Zealand’s best !! You can check out the competition on “catalogue of results” –class 1 (page 1) : http://www.hobartshowground.com.au/wineshow/results.html - Thanks Guy Wagner (our Riesling and Pinot Winemaker) and Go Tassie !!

Im very pleased with the barrel work and ferment techniques on the 2007 Chardonnay by our new Chardonnay wine maker Rebecca Wilson (Chardonnay Queen ! previously head winemaker at Capel Vale Margaret River), and its shaping up to be a very complex, funky wine with plenty of generous fruit on the palate. The 2007 Pinot is looking so good, its probably all going into the Three Wishes Label (same as the 2005 vintage)..sorry Landbridge !!

What makes me proud is this vintage quality has been achieved with a chemical spray program which was virtually organic...we had only one non organic pesticide this 2007 vintage (out of a recommended spray program of dozens of chemicals) and no insecticides...we have 3 years to go to get to 100% organic …although weeds could be our downfall here without some serious mulching or re-sowing of clover…

The key feature of the 2007 vintage for TWV was the fruit looked to be ready to harvest in the first week of march, sending us into a panic! I understand other vineyards were also staring down the barrel of April vintage at such time. TWV have progressively picked earlier each vintage (mid April in 04,first week of April in 05, third week of march in 06) so this wasn’t unexpected, but first week of march would have broken all records for Tassie table wine ! Luckily for us, the vines probably due to extreme water stress, shut down and took an extra month to get over the line..which gave us our two month ripening/veraison time (seems to be the average). This point is an important one to stress...all our past 4 vintages have had approximately 2 months of ripening time, regardless of vintage variation. Without this long ripening period, the wines could fail to achieve their cool climate complexities (I must stress this theory is sometimes contentious !). To give you an idea, wines from very hot climates, can take just a few weeks from veraison (beginning of ripening-water and sugar accumulation in the berries) to vintage.....and these wines are often at the low (read cheap !) end of the flavor and complexity spectrum.

Disease pressure: Other vineyards in the North East Tasmanian region had extreme powdery mildew stress, but apart from a small flare up in the riesling, we remained largely unaffected. We had some early botrytis pressure in the Riesling, but favorable weather and hungry wasps cleaned this up before it could get set !\

Other points of interest -low to medium bird pressure, strong European wasp pressure (but this went in our favor this year as wasps feed on the point of least resistance on the berry skin...so the botrytis mould was the perfect path to some concentrated sugar accumulation !). \par
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2007 Pinot - Picked at around 13.5be (equivalent alcohol level) in the first week of April (note nearly 3 weeks later than 2006), it has similar “red fruit” driven qualities to our 05 pinot, but also some of the earthy, savory characters of the 2006 vintage. With time on good oak, it should develop the luscious spicy qualities of our earlier pinot’s. Bunch size was bigger than 04/05, berries were bigger than 05 on average, but the berries were more fresh (firm) and less raisin (ie dried/shriveled) than in 06

Chardonnay -A good mix of fruit flavors across the block, from citrus to stone fruit. Picked at around 13.2be, this was higher than 05 (12.7) and lower than 06 (14.0be). Early barrel characters are superb, ranging from Peach Melba, nectarine to lemon sherbet and grapefruit. Although at an early stage, this wine is shaping up to be a very “un Tasmanian” chardonnay ! Picked at the end of the first week of April, this was two weeks later than 2006 (and similar to 2005) ! \par
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Riesling - We agonised about picking this fruit early, but decided to “let it hang” longer than previous years. The canopy size was generally smaller than the green and wet 06 vintage, and the crop level was higher...so it was always going to be more of a wait. We picked at 12.5be (versus 13.5 be in 06 and 11.5be in 05) at the beginning of the second week of April (3 weeks later than 2006 !) and the wine appears at this early stage to have more fruit intensity on the palate, but perhaps less aromatic qualities than the 2006 Gold medal winner. Over to you Guy Wagner to get this spruced up for early bottling !!

Please get in touch if you have any questions or would like more information from TWV on this blog.

Three Wishes gets a Straight Flush at Tassie Wine show !

2007-02-10T01:46:00Z

Wine shows are serious business for small boutique vineyards, especially new businesses like us, who are trying to get their name and brand established. In fact, as a wine grower, if you were granted three wishes, one might very well be winning gold medals and trophies in your first three wine shows ! Last weeks 2007 Tasmanian wine show was another pleasant surprise for Three Wishes Vineyard. Following on from a gold medal in our first release Pinot from last years show, we were fortunate enough to win a gold medal again this year, but surprisingly in our 2006 Riesling. I hadn’t thought much about this wine winning a gold medal …. not for any reason except that it was rushed from the winery and I havent really spent any time getting to know it (read –I haven’t drunk much of it yet !!). Its big, aromatic and spicy on the nose (similar to our 05 Riesling) with a long, powerful palate of tropical fruit and Muscat, lime. In fact, it is very similar to our 05 but its up a few notches in intensity !

Although we didn’t get a royal flush of gold medals across our other varieties this year, we did get in fact get a flush ! Our 05 Chardonnay, just starting to develop some real character, won a silver (narrowly missing out on a gold) in its first show, and our 05 Pinot won a Bronze medal. Not a surprise to those who love this wine, it needs some time to develop some secondary flavours and complexity. The local wine writer here in Tassie visited our cellar door last week, and said drinking our 05 Pinot is “like sitting on a velvet couch”!! It has silky smooth tannins with big raspberry and plumb fruit, it just needs some earthiness and gamey overtones, which most frequently come with bottle age in Pinot ( a 1 YEAR OLD Pinot is just a baby !)..and keep in mind Halliday wrote this wine is a 10 year Pinot !. Any way, for those interested, Ill send out an e-mail when the 06 Riesling is ready for sale (probably mid/late 2007). Be sure to sign-up to our mailing list if you want such updates.

Adios

Check our more images from the show in our gallery - click here

Earth, Wind, and Fire

2007-01-30T01:29:00Z

Flowering time in the vineyard is one of the most dangerous times of any vintage. Flowers bloom, and then set to fruit…which ripens and eventually makes its way to the fermenter to make wine (well for grapes at least !). Flowering time in the Tamar Valley is usually around latish november, through to early December on a cooler year. Tassie can be a bitch of a place around flowering time ! Windy, wet and cool on bad years, windy, hot and dry on good years…but always windy. Grape vine flowers don’t like strong winds in case you hadn’t guessed! The 2007 vintage started after the driest winter in living memory, during the driest spring on record, with late 5 frosts in the last 2 weeks of October-one night we had snow and -4C at the bottom of the vineyard, major bush fires within a few kilometers of the farm, gale force winds day in day out during our flowering window, and hail the size of golf balls on Christmas day ! So how have we fared so far ?

Answering that question depends on your view on quality versus quantity ! We seem to have lost 50% of our crop (volume) in the Pinot and Chardonnay, with major “collure” –bunch shatter and “hen and chicken” (small and big berries). The Riesling, which flowers and sets later, seems to be ok. Was it the drought(EARTH), wind, the days of thick smoke (FIRE), …or something else ? Often its lack of micronutrients in soils, especially on dryer years. No sign of any deficiencies in the grape leaves though….so ? Bloody frost !! No visible signs of damage after the horrendous frosts (unlike many other vineyards which lost the lot), but given Three Wishes was quite advanced in late October (shoots over 60cm with 5-6 leaves and visible inflorescences –ie flower/fruit parts) the super cold caused cell destruction at a time of maximum cell division...ie when the vines were growing most quickly…a proverbial kick in the nuts ! Yes, the sexual parts of vines are delicate too ! Anyway, its been bloody hot and dry all year, so touch wood with low disease pressure going into vintage we should have a bumper year…one that should rival Tassie’s best ever (2005). My guess is it’s also shaping up to be a nasty year again for bird damage, with 500 or more starlings making frequent guests to the vineyard regularly, European wasps, and given shattered flower parts still in bunches…a bad year for bunch rots. Heres hoping we have something left ! Get on our mailing list if you’re not already…and stay tuned !

Adios, Peter

Welcome to the Three Wishes Vineyard Blog

2006-12-07T20:35:00Z

I am not yet wise, nor am I old, so I’ve had to borrow a few lines for an introduction to this blog site from someone who was. The classic Greek philosopher Epicurus, much loved in food and wine circles for his challenge to individuals to indulge in nature and its bounty, was believed to have summarized a three step path to happiness in life. He said to be truly happy, one must firstly chose a life of self sufficiency over one of accumulating wealth and power, with special emphasis on the pleasures that relatively simple things can bring in life...such as herbs, gardens...food, wine.... “The wealth required by nature is limited and easy to procure, but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity”. Secondly, he said an individual should try to surround themselves with loved ones and close friends as much as is possible, and lastly one must have regular time out for quiet self contemplation and philosophy. Epicurus ???? Vineyards ????

His words, to me at least, have been an anthem to “downshifting” or “sea change”, and are proving music to the most recent chapter in my life. Belive me, I get plenty of time out for contemplation when working on my vines ! Epicurus may have helped get me here, but this existence would be dull indeed if life was bounded by cold philosophy alone ! As Keats once said “...philosophy will clip an angels wings, conquer all mysteries by rule and line, empty the haunted air, and gnome mine unweave a rainbow “ !! As any small passionate vineyard owner would tell you, without some sort of belief in the “magic” and “mysticism” of mother nature it would all be rather dull, and possibly unbearable…

But trust me, its hard work, and not all romance. I believe you do reap what you sow in life, so owning and running a vineyard successfully is a complicated brew of discipline, hard work , persistence ,awareness and solid scientific and financial analysis...as much as it is from wanting to hope and believe in beauty and mystery. Do I have these skills ? Its very early days for me so time will tell...in fact, why don’t you observe and tell me ?

Watch my blog, send me your words, and tie yourself to my beautiful “piece of the earth”, and walk a path that is pretty well forgotten in our society now...I hope you enjoy the journey ...

Peter Whish-Wilson - Three Wishes Vineyard