Harvest time at Backsberg

Harvest kicking into gear

Fri, Feb 13, 2009

Last weekend, we did a serious sampling tour of the winelands. Getting up at 6am on the Saturday morning, my dad, Guillaume (our winemaker), my better half and I, set out to a vineyard close to Darling, where we are sourcing some Sauvignon Blanc. The rich red soils and coastal influence of Darling make for top quality Sauvignon. The specific vineyard site is perched towards the top of a hill, and you can feel the lilting ocean breeze coming from the Atlantic. Interestingly, the vines are not trellised, i.e. they are bush vines. This made for quite a challenge in terms of sampling accurately. Usually in a trellised vineyard, the sampling technique is fairly methodical: firstly, take a couple of berries from inside and outside the vine canopy (to account for the differences in sun exposure and hence ripeness). Secondly, alternate between the top, middle and bottom of the bunch (within a single bunch the sugar level can vary). And lastly, take from both sides of the vineyard rows (accounting for the differences in the effect of sun intensity from the morning and afternoon sun). This has to be done at different spots throughout the block to account for differences in soil and aspect. That sounds more complicated than it is; basically, you want a random sample.

With Sauvignon being a fairly vigourous vine, the shoots tend to be fairly long. Because the vines weren’t trellised, the shoots were less ‘organised’ (compared to those in a trellised vineyard), making it slightly more complicated to follow the method above. To combat this variability, we took three samples in the block. Sugar ripeness is important in judging the time to harvest. What’s also key, if not more important, is the phenolic ripeness of the grapes. Phenolic ripeness (or physiological ripeness) refers to how the grapes actually taste, i.e the flavours and tannins in the skins and the pips (your can read more on that here.) The grapes tasted absolutely delicious, with incredible flavours of asparagus and cut-grass bursting through.

Boosted with padkos (Afrikaans for snack for the road, note: I make a mean pastrami sandwich), we headed back towards Stellenbosch, over Sir Lowrys Pass and onto cool-climate Elgin. We stopped at two blocks of Chardonnay that we have there, as well as another site where we are sourcing some Pinot Noir. This year will see us producing our first Pinot Noir, to be part of the Black Label Range. The vineyard, whilst still fairly young, shows great potential and it was quite hard to keep Guillaume still on the trip home.

As far as this week goes, we have harvested Sauvignon Blanc from Darling as well as on Backsberg itself. We have also taken in the first of our Merlot (see pic above) from the farm. I got some really cool pics – especially the last one – at 5am on Tuesday morning, since it coincided with full moon. You can check them out here. SB

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This post was written by:

Simon Back- who has written 56 posts on the Back Chat Blog. After finishing up studying economics at UCT in 2007, Simon has joined his family wine farm, Backsberg. When he is not trying to figure out what marketing wine means, he is authoring his blog, Back Chat.

Author's web site: Backsberg