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2009 Mollydooker Vintage Report
I read an articled posted on the Mollydooker Winery Website and wanted to share it with our community. I'll be leaving to visit Australia on the 24th of this month and I will be tasting all the 2009 wines from Sarah and Sparky. I'll be creating posts and videos each day to share with Mollydooker lovers from around the world.
I also will be going down to make sure that the core Mollydooker fan can get some special large format bottles and discounts while I'm down there. I was thinking off a special 2009 vintage pre-sell offer to lock in a great allocation of wines. If you like the idea of a pre-sale event, add your comments.
As early report indicate, the 2009 will be highly rated so the early bird will get the worm.
MollyDooker Vintage Report
Sarah says Sparky always raves that the wines which we are about to bottle are the best we have ever made, and she is more restrained and
moderate in her comments. But this year she is so excited that she is
saying it, because they are absolutely stunning, and definitely our best
vintage ever.
2009 was a blessing, after the drought and two weeks of temperatures above 100ºF in vintage 2008. We did have a heat wave in early February of 2009, and some of our neighbors picked in a
hurry in case the sugar levels in the grapes went up as fast as they did
in 2008, but we hung in there, and fortunately the heat wave only
lasted a week.
It was an anxious time and Sparky said that another few days could have put us in a very dangerous position, so when another heat wave was forecast in March, I was right on the ball and phoned him
in the middle of the night, telling him that everyone around us was
picking. The Vale looked like a moon scene with weirdly lit harvesters
chugging up and down the vineyards, and tractors with overflowing
picking bins rushing along the roads.
The heat wave hadn’t arrived, but as the grapes were almost ready, everyone was picking in case it did. I wondered if he thought that we should pick too, but he said “Relax, go
back to bed, if everyone else picks, there will be plenty of water for
us, and we’ll be able to hold the sugar levels until the grapes get the
fruit weight we need.”
And that’s what happened. There was no heat wave, and we had plenty of water to hold the sugar levels where we wanted them. The vines continued to ripen evenly and majestically, and
as the shoots matured, the grapes increased in color and flavor, and
the seeds ripened to give us the lovely silky seductive tannins we look
for.
The last two weeks of the Marquis Vineyard Watering Programme™ are very important. Towards the end of the program the Marquis Fruit Weight™ of the grape juice usually increases by an additional 10% every half week, so two weeks can make
the difference between picking a block at 50% fruit weight (where it
won’t even qualify to go to bottle under the Mollydooker label) and at
90% fruit weight (where it will qualify for Carnival of Love or
Enchanted Path).
We have had two dramatic illustrations of this.
In 2006, a company which we had contracted to purchase the fruit from the block next to ours at Gateway, picked half of our block by mistake (!). After a frantic middle of the night dash to McLaren Vale
by Sparky, we managed to get the fruit, which fortunately had not been
mixed with any other, and made wine with it. We picked the other half of
the block two weeks later, when we thought it was ready. The early
picked section qualified at the Boxer level, the later picked section
qualified for Velvet Glove. Same block, same variety, different length
of time for the watering program to work its magic.
And in 2008, when we were hit with the two week heatwave, and our supplier of recycled water wasn’t able to provide the water we needed, we had to
pick earlier than we wanted, and chose to sell over 500,000L of the
resulting wine as bulk wine, and to make only Leftys (great Leftys,
great value, but tragically no high ends). Even Sparky wasn’t saying it
was a great year that year!
But 2009 was perfect. We picked when we wanted and everything went brilliantly in the winery.
The blending is finished now, and bottling has begun!
saying it, because they are absolutely stunning, and definitely our best
vintage ever.
2009 was a blessing, after the drought and two weeks of temperatures above 100ºF in vintage 2008. We did have a heat wave in early February of 2009, and some of our neighbors picked in a
hurry in case the sugar levels in the grapes went up as fast as they did
in 2008, but we hung in there, and fortunately the heat wave only
lasted a week.
It was an anxious time and Sparky said that another few days could have put us in a very dangerous position, so when another heat wave was forecast in March, I was right on the ball and phoned him
in the middle of the night, telling him that everyone around us was
picking. The Vale looked like a moon scene with weirdly lit harvesters
chugging up and down the vineyards, and tractors with overflowing
picking bins rushing along the roads.
The heat wave hadn’t arrived, but as the grapes were almost ready, everyone was picking in case it did. I wondered if he thought that we should pick too, but he said “Relax, go
back to bed, if everyone else picks, there will be plenty of water for
us, and we’ll be able to hold the sugar levels until the grapes get the
fruit weight we need.”
And that’s what happened. There was no heat wave, and we had plenty of water to hold the sugar levels where we wanted them. The vines continued to ripen evenly and majestically, and
as the shoots matured, the grapes increased in color and flavor, and
the seeds ripened to give us the lovely silky seductive tannins we look
for.
The last two weeks of the Marquis Vineyard Watering Programme™ are very important. Towards the end of the program the Marquis Fruit Weight™ of the grape juice usually increases by an additional 10% every half week, so two weeks can make
the difference between picking a block at 50% fruit weight (where it
won’t even qualify to go to bottle under the Mollydooker label) and at
90% fruit weight (where it will qualify for Carnival of Love or
Enchanted Path).
We have had two dramatic illustrations of this.
In 2006, a company which we had contracted to purchase the fruit from the block next to ours at Gateway, picked half of our block by mistake (!). After a frantic middle of the night dash to McLaren Vale
by Sparky, we managed to get the fruit, which fortunately had not been
mixed with any other, and made wine with it. We picked the other half of
the block two weeks later, when we thought it was ready. The early
picked section qualified at the Boxer level, the later picked section
qualified for Velvet Glove. Same block, same variety, different length
of time for the watering program to work its magic.
And in 2008, when we were hit with the two week heatwave, and our supplier of recycled water wasn’t able to provide the water we needed, we had to
pick earlier than we wanted, and chose to sell over 500,000L of the
resulting wine as bulk wine, and to make only Leftys (great Leftys,
great value, but tragically no high ends). Even Sparky wasn’t saying it
was a great year that year!
But 2009 was perfect. We picked when we wanted and everything went brilliantly in the winery.
The blending is finished now, and bottling has begun!
Comment
-
Comment by Kathryn Wafer on March 16, 2010 at 6:33pm -
Would love to pre order, just let us know when.
-
Comment by Brian Pasch on March 16, 2010 at 9:35am
-
Great Michael. Pass the word and see if we can get a good number of wine lovers in on the pre-order package. If I have enough people interested, we can make this happen.
-
Comment by Michael Breeden on March 16, 2010 at 9:16am -
Amen on the 2009 pre-order - I'm in!
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