2020 no numbers game
Like bookmakers and accountants, winemakers seem to have unlimited capacity for storing numbers in their heads. Ghost Rock's Justin Arnold can regale you with all manner of detail if you want to chew over a wine's technical merits.
Measurements of Brix, TA, pH, grams of residual sugar – you name it – he can quote them, chapter and verse. In fact, Arnold does it with such ease you might think winemaking is just a matter of numbers and measurements.
That's not so, he insists, drawing a sample of 2020 Pinot Noir from one of many French oak barriques that hold this year's precious harvest. You need to grow great grapes if you aspire to making quality wines.
Arnold says Tasmania's cool, damp 2020 vintage was among the toughest he's experienced. He and Ghost Rock co-owner Alicia Peardon operate six vineyards - 27ha of vines - at Northdown, just five minutes from Devonport Airport in North West Tasmania.
"We normally begin our sparkling wine harvest in the last week of March," Arnold explains.
"Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for table wine then start coming into the winery around the end of the first week in April. We usually pick through week 2 and week 3 and we're mostly done. This year, we needed every bit of April sunshine to get our fruit over the line. Our last day of vintage was May 5."
Testing grape samples and keeping accurate records play critical roles in enabling a winemaker to practise their craft. But they're really only bit players in the drama that becomes a vineyard's vintage story.
Arnold has a Masters degree in Wine Technology and Viticulture from the University of Melbourne. His winemaking experiences span three continents and more than a dozen years.
"We do our winemaking by assessment, not by prescription," he adds with a broad grin.
Arnold took over the company reins from his parents Colin and Cate Arnold in July 2017.
"You never get two vintages exactly the same, " he continues.
"But from a consumer's point of view, we're still expected to maintain our quality and wine styles from one year to the next. Achieving consistency in fruit quality in the vineyard is the key to it all. It allows for more consistency in the quality of the wines we can create in the winery."
Arnold believes the first signs of vintage challenges were evident before Ghost Rock's vines broke bud last spring. Rainfall data from the Bureau of Meteorology reveal that in 2019 Northdown received little more than 60 percent of its average rainfall between January 1 to October 31. Persistent windy weather then impeded shoot growth and reduced fruit set across almost all blocks of early ripening varieties.
The new year brought cooler than average summer temperatures and well above average rainfall during February, March and April.
"We thought this was going to be a year that would really test us," Arnold says.
"It did. But we're delighted to find our vineyards stood up to the challenges. Regardless of the year, we always do a lot in the vineyard to maximise the strengths of the region and minimise its weaknesses. We're cooler and later here than most other regions of the State, so when we planted we made vine selections that favoured early ripening.
"We also manage our vineyards intensively. For example, we always leaf-pluck early – earlier than most vineyards – in order to really open up the canopy and get plenty of sunlight into our vines. That allows us to effectively start the ripening process slightly ahead of schedule. We know we're always going to be among the last vineyards in the State to finish harvesting."
With somewhere around 10-12 weeks of winery mollycoddling behind them, Ghost Rock's 2020 Pinot Noirs now look particularly impressive as they make their way through their oak maturation phase. In late spring, Arnold will begin a busy schedule of barrel tastings with assistant winemaker Sierra Blair to determine the ultimate destination of each small parcel of wine.
"We'll keep each batch in its own barrel until January," Arnold says.
"That's when we decide which parcels will become single vineyard wines, which will become our flagship estate wine, and which will go to our early-drinking Supernatural label. We treat every batch as a potential $55 bottle of wine. Only a small amount will eventually make the grade, but we're still intent on not cutting corners, on not being cheap with our use of oak or our other winemaking inputs.
"Equally important, we're not being cheap with our viticultural inputs. Each vineyard gets its opportunity to shine. Selections that rise to the top get there on merit. As much as we might like to see certain parcels of fruit from our oldest vines make it to single vineyard status, that can't happen unless they're really worth celebrating."
First published 17 July 2020: tasmaniantimes.com