News

2012 Vintage Summary

The 2012 vintage is fast approaching.   An update of where we are at:

WINERY

The winery has begun its preparations of dusting off the equipment we only use for 3 months of the year, having them cleaned and serviced.   Most of the tanks are empty and all our bottling has completed.

We have begun receiving our 2012 Barrel Purchases we made in September.   Many of our barrels are made to order in France and are shipped across ready to arrive during late January and Early February.   I like to have these in the winery well before vintage to ensure they are all up to our high standards.   This year we have purchased some American oak barrel to trial in our Bartondale Shiraz to add some weight to the mid palate.   We also have some barrels being etched with the Churchview Brand – maybe in 3-4 years you might be lucky enough to have one of these as a flower pot!

 I have also purchased some specialised enzymes we have been trialling over the last couple of years.   These are the ones we use on the aromatic varieties to enhance aroma and add to the enjoyment of the wine.

SEASON

The winter and Spring in Margaret River was wet.   In fact I think it has been the wettest for a long long time.   With all this rain, we have also had a few warm days – some of the dairy farmers have even cropped 2 parcels of hay – the first time in 30 years.

Budburst and the first stages of growth in the vineyard has been very even.   When growing any crop even is as good as it gets.    Growth of the vines has been controlled – creating lovely leaf cover and good fruit cover without being over shaded.   Leaf plucking was only done is selected areas this year.

Some of the whites are starting to soften – which means picking is getting close.   Verdelho and Chardonnay are beginning to show signs of flavour which is great at such an early stage of the season.   All estimates for harvesting will be similar to last year – mid February.   Our shiraz (especially the Bartondale Block) is starting to colour up – such a beautiful time – green and red speckled bunches.  

EXPECTATIONS

V12 has started very well.   We expect to harvest the whites at lower sugar levels than usual making wines with slightly lower alcohol and more finesse.   It is too early to make any comments on the reds – but will expect similar to the whites – maybe even similar conditions to 2007 and we all know how good that year was.

I will post some shots on the news sections of the website – so keep your eyes peeled!

Screw Caps

At cellar door we often get asked the question why we don't use cors anymore.   The answer is we want you to have the bet possible experience with our wines - whether you are opening our latest SBS or have carefully cellared our Bartondale for 10 years.   Closing the wine with a screw cap closure is the only way we can be certain the wine has not been affected by a cork.

Corks can act as great closures to wines, however 1 in 10 bottles has been cork affected.   From dried corks you simply can not remove, to cork taint (TCA), and random oxidation this failure rate is simply not good enough.   The image above clearly shows how bad a cork can be.

Spike found the following article that shows visually the affect of the closure on the wine.
http://www.universalwine.be/fckBrowse/file/Screwcap%20Research.pdf

Now you can be certain, that when you open a bottle of Churchview Estate, you are drinking the wine we intended it to be.

Cheers

Greg!

3rd Winner Summer promo

2011 Wine Show Summary

The wine show season is over in Australia.   Churchview has had wonderful success this year – including:

• 12 GOLD Medals – 6 of these were the TOP GOLD in the respective show,
• 19 SILVER Medals,
• 71 Bronze Medals,
• 102 Medals in Total (up from 44 last year)

In addition to this tally are the Multiple scores in excess of 90 points from Halliday and Jordan, including the 94 for the Zinfandel which is the equal highest ever score given by Halliday for a Zinfandel.

Next year we will focus on some international shows as well to truly show the caliber of the wines we are producing at Churchview Estate.

As the vines get older, and we get wiser about picking and wine making, these results can only get better!

2011 Bartondale Chardonnay

Thursday, 10 November 2011 01:43

We conducted our 2011 Bartondale Barrel Selection yesterday.   We tasted our way through 20 barrels, rating them A, B and "Other".   Only the A barrels make it into our Bartondale Blend.   This year the whole batch was very tasty and 9 barrels were rated by our expert team as an "A".   Here is an image of the team:

We were lucky enough to have the Mclean's over from Bowen QLD to lend a hand - you know what they say many hands make light work.   

We now will blend these 9 barrels together into a stainless steel tank, and prepare this wine for bottling on the 5th December.   In 12 months we will release it!