It’s my Vineyard

Our guests arrive and we have a degustation [tasting] in the cool of the cave. Fred has built a suburb wooden bar area that we sit around and compare our 2005 Regnie with the newly bottled 2006.

Wine should be a partner to food, not take it over, as so many of the heavier ‘hairier’wines do.  

Just as an artist can be trained and learn to observe and record with his pencil what is in front of him, so we have begun to learn to taste and be critical of the wines we are close to.  

There can be a marked vanilla taste to wine and also flavours of ripe bananas and pear drops.

The red fruit flavours are those I prefer, of cherries, blackcurrants and blackberries and raspberries, these are characteristic of our Regnie.

It is partly the type of yeast used in the fermentation process that influences and brings out these subtle flavours. Wine makers will experiment with different ones as a chef might introduce variety in composing a new dish.  The terroir or land is important too, and its situation.  Many of our vines are well placed to capture the sun from all directions.