Climate Change
Krinklewood – biodynamic wine tastes of where it is grown
We are sitting in Bowral’s Wild Food Cafe, a great place for a healthy lunch and now also open in Bondi Junction in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.
This place here is licensed and on each table, you’ll find a sign indicating that Wild Food requires ‘wild wines’. Krinklewood from the Hunter Valley in NSW makes biodynamic wines and although many traditional wine makers are not too keen on their rise, the biodynamic wine market is doing just that.
Wild Food offers a Wild Red, 100% Shiraz, which displays lifted berry fruits and is a medium bodied wine with soft tannins. Their Wild White is a Verdelho with a very golden straw look, tropical fruit on the nose and fresh passion fruit on the palate. “We use no pesticides or chemical sprays”, promises Rod Windrim from Krinklewood.
We realise that there is a lot changing in biodynamic wine making, changed since the first days of winemakers planting their vines at full moon and the like. The biodynamic scene in Australia is getting momentum and we will carefully watch their progress.
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Die Weinszene Australiens beschaut mit einer gehoerigen Portion an Misstrauen die Fortschritte der biodynamischen Weinbauern. Im Wild Food Cafe in Bowral treffen wir auf Krinklewood Weine, aus dem grossartigen Hunter Valley – Shiraz und Verdelho – zwei Weine, die man sich merken muss.
Ihr Michael Brecht
A DogRidge Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 for our candlelight dinner at Earth Hour
As a regular reader of downunderwines, you know that we are strong supporters of Earth Hour. Last night saw the third official ‘Earth Hour’ unfold in more than 83 countries with over 1 billion people participating.
While many of its critics point out, that switching your lights off for one hour does not really contribute to the well-being of our planet, many of our friends use this event to make us and particularly our children aware of what we mean by wanting to create a more sustainable future. I am very disappointed that we get 47 developing economies, up from nine last year, taking part, and then having to read that in my country of birth, Germany, there was only one city taking part, being Hamburg.
80 million Germans missed out on an opportunity to take place in an emotional worldwide gathering to show support for action against climate change. There is a great article in one of Germany’s leading weeklys der Spiegel (in German language though).
Candlelight dinner and Earth Hour
Back to the wines: while playing board games with our children at candlelight, we drank a 2004 DogRidge Cabernet Sauvignon. This bottle was a present from winemaker Fred Howard from McLaren Vale, made from vines that were planted in the 1940s. He made this wine together with friend and winemaker Mike Brown from Gemtree Wines. The Cab Sav proves to be a great example of a full bodied red from the McLaren Vale, I do not seem to realise its strong alcohol content of 15%, it is a smooth wine with a sensational length.
I really enjoyed this wine, lots of dark berries fruit and these first few years of ageing make it a great wine to red meat or cheese. I will certainly cellar a few of these bottles to enjoy them even more in 5-10 years time.
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Den gestrigen Abend verbrachten wir bei Kerzenschein und Brett-Spielen mit unseren Kindern. Hierbei hatten wir saemtliche Sicherungen des Hauses ausgeschaltet, es war Zeit fuer Earth Hour. Als inzwischen globales Ereignis wird die Welt fuer 60 Minuten dunkel, in 83 teilnehmenden Laendern haben gestern ungefaer 1 Milliarde Menschen teil genommen.
Schade ist, dass Deutschland nicht oder besser kaum dabei war. Auf der Karte der angemeldeten Staedte sieht man lediglich Hamburg als einzige deutsche Stadt dabei – eine verpasste Chance, wie auch der Spiegel ganz richtig tituliert. Dabei geht es hier weniger um wissentschaftlich bewiesene Einsparmassnahmen waehrend dieser Stunde, es geht nicht um Dogmatik, nein: hier geht es darum weltweit dazu aufzurufen ueber unseren Umgang mit der Natur nachzudenken. Ich fuerchte, dass vielen Deutschen die Ungezwungenheit fehlt – einfach einmal an einem emotionalen Erlebnis dieser Art teilzunehmen. Ganz zu schweigen von der Chance, hiermit unseren Kindern ein grossartiges, friedliches und sehr familienfreundliches Miteinander zu zeigen.
Ihr Michael Brecht
Australian Bushfires: many Victorian wineries are at risk
It is a human tragedy with more than 150 people dead, countless animals, houses, properties and therefore also vineyards lost to a series of fires, of which many believed to have been lit by arsonists. With the main damages currently happening in Victoria, I fear the worst for the wineries around Melbourne. Daily temperatures above 45 degrees and searing winds helped the fires spread fast across the state.
Bushfire wines
Parts of the Yarra Valley, Heathcote and Gippsland are still burning. Some wine regions such as one of my favourites, the Beechworth region are under immediate threat. The first reports now come through about the wineries affected: in the Yarra Valley the Roundstone winery and restaurant was burnt to the ground, and other Yarra wineries including Punt Road, Domaine Chandon and Lance Family Vineyards were partially damaged. These are the first vineyards that were directly damaged by the fires.
But the real damages will be discovered in the weeks to come. Let us have a look into the 2003 fires, that caused serious damage in Victoria: it became evident that few vineyards were actually damaged by the fires then, but damage caused by smoke taint was widespread. And as Australian viticulture continues to spread into locations that might be considered as more bushfire-prone than many established grape growing areas, there is a possibility that smoke taint might become a sporadic but more common occurrence in the future. The fact is, that you can protect yourself to a certain extent against a fire hitting your property or home, but you have no chance against the smoke.
The University of Adelaide has just started a project to counter wines produced in smoke-affected areas. The $500,000 project intends to support the wine industry in ‘finding grape and wine production methods which minimise the uptake of smoke by vines or the extraction of smoke-derived aroma compounds during winemaking’. Unfortunately for most wineries based in these areas currently fighting the bushfires, the results of this project come too late.
It is a sad day for Australia.
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Weltweit schauen Menschen entsetzt auf das moerderische Schauspiel der tobenden Flammen, die derzeit weite Teile Victorias heimsuchen. Im Yarra Valley, in den Regionen Heathcote und Gippsland und ganz akut in der Beechworth Region fegen Feuerstuerme ueber alles hinweg, was sich nicht in Sicherheit bringen kann. Die Folgen sind verheerend, denn selbst wenn die eigene Winery von den Flammen verschont wird, so bleiben meist Folgeschaeden durch Rauch und Russ. Unsere Gedanken sind bei den Familien, die Angehoerige verloren haben, deren Hab und Gut in Brand aufgingen und letztlich auch bei den Winzern, die hiermit entweder ihre Ernte oder gar ihr Lebenswerk verlieren.
Ihr Michael Brecht
Climate change puts Australian wine growers to the test
Winemaker’s in the McLaren Vale have started becoming green a few years ago, as global warming and climate change are an immediate challenge for wine producers. If we look at the last three years in the McLaren Vale, the 2006 vintage was one of the earliest and shortest on record and the 2007 vintage happened within the worst drought in South Australia. Earlier 2008 the area experienced a record heat wave, so it is no doubt, that the temperatures are rising without any rain in sight.
Climate change and the drought effects on wineries
I have learnt in the past days here in the Vale, that about 80 wineries in the area are using irrigated water from the Willunga Basin Water Company to water their vineyards. Norm Doole, one of the owners of Dowie Doole Winemakers is a co-founder of the Water Company. The plant treats an equivalent to 10,000 Olympic swimming pools of waste-water per year. About one third of that is being used for irrigation. The remaining treated waste-water is pumped out to sea. And the wineries are really happy with the water as the scheme has helped drought proofing viticulture in the McLaren Vale.
Additionally the winemakers are working on new techniques to water their vines. The commonly used trickle irrigation over longer periods has been substituted by shorter spells of more intense watering in Dowie Doole’s vineyards for example, thus the vines developing deeper and stronger root systems and being less vulnerable in droughts.
Small steps to confront climate change – big steps if adopted by many – and so the McLaren Vale is a successful showcase for a growing number of climate conscious winemakers here downunder.
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Die globale Erwaermung stellt fuer die Winzer im McLaren Vale eine echte Herausforderung dar, die letzten drei Ernten fanden inmitten der schlimmsten Duerreperiode statt, die South Australia je gesehen hat. Die Dowie Doole winery ist einer der Vorreiter in Sachen Wasser-management, denn einer der Partner Norm Doole ist Mit-initiator der Willunga Basin Water Company, welche inzwischen ca. 10,000 Megaliter Wasser aufbereitet. Mit einem Drittel dieser Menge werden inzwischen mehr als 80 Wineries bewaessert, eine sehr wirksame Methode gegen die weiterhin bestehende Duerre.
Zusaetzlich sind die Winzer sehr kreativ in dem Umgang mit dem (nach wie vor wenigen) Wasser, die juengste Tendenz ist es, den Reben Wasser in kuerzeren Abstaenden aber mit groesserem Druck zu geben, denn das foerdert die Tiefe und Robustheit der Rebstoecke und fuehrt letztlich zu einer groesseren Resistenz gegen die Duerre.
Einen schoenen Gruss
Ihr Michael Brecht
