Brown Magpie Wines - The Warble

Hi Everyone
I hope everyone enjoyed the Australian Day Celebrations. I was at the cellar door. It was fairly quiet, so I had a nice relaxing day too. I had one couple who complained about the road signage. Unfortunately, inspite of pleading, I am not going to be given any more. If you check on our Contact Us page however, there is a pop up map that might help.
Veraison or ripening of the berries is starting. Especially in the pinot noir and pinot gris. The shiraz normally starts about two weeks later. Firstly, the berries become quite shiny, then they start turning a reddish colour. We are therefore starting to plan on putting the nets on in the next couple of weeks. We will leave it as late as possible this year as the nets add to the disease pressure. If it rains, the canopy takes longer to dry out, and it also more humid inside the nets. Hopefully, we will now have a long, warm autumn, so the grapes will ripen slowly and stay disease free. Unfortunately, hope has nothing to do with it. 
You will soon be able to order on line using paypal. Hopefully this will make it easier to buy your wine directly from us.
We are now open on weekends only, although we will open over Easter. The hours are between 12 noon and 3 pm as usual.

Hi Everyone
We have certainly had a lot of rain at the vineyard. Luckily we have wonderful run off, so it all goes into our dam. The dam is overflowing though. We are still disease free and the crop looks good at this stage. I hope you are all crossing your fingers for us. The grapes are green and pea size. I think the harvest will be later this year, or back to normal anyway. We will probably be picking from early March to late April, so if you are looking for a picking job, please email me and I will keep you posted.
 
We are currently counting our bunches per vine. We get the average bunch numbers and then at veraison, when the grapes start ripening, we weigh them. This is multiplied by 1.6. We then multiply the average bunch weight with the average number of bunches per vine. We then multiply this by the number of vines. This will give us a crop estimate and will allow us to prepare for vintage. We need to know we have enough vats, tanks, yeasts etc etc.

I hope you are all enjoying our wine and like our new website. If you are down the coast, please drop in and see us.

Kind Regards

Loretta

It is a lovely day at the vineyard today. The sun is shining, and there is a light southerly breeze. Ian, Nick and Robert are busily putting up the top wire and tucking in the loose canes. We have two wires that we raise up as the canes grow. This helps the canes stay vertical. They are now repairing the gripples. The gripples hold two ends of wire together, so that instead of two strands of short wire,  you have one long  strand of wire. The gripples were applied about eight years ago, so this year they are letting go of the wires.

Chris, our winemaker, was in yesterday, racking the  premium pinot noir 2010 out of the barrels and putting them into tank. This allows the wine to settle before bottling. It also blends the pinot noir so that all of the premium pinot noir 2010 tastes the same. It is tasting wonderful. A lovely long palate, subtle mocha oak tannins and wonderful cherry fruit. Next week, Chris will rack the shiraz.
Robert will then fill the barrels with water with some citric acid and sulphur. The water keeps the barrel from drying out. The sulphur kills any bacteria, and the citric acid keeps the pH of the water low, which again helps bacteria growing.

I am serving at the cellar door today; however, it is very quiet today. Probably because it is beautiful beach weather. People often come to the cellar door when it is too windy, wet or cold for the beach, so we have been very busy this year. 
Well I might go and have another look at our wonderful pinot noir. I hope you are having a wonderful break but remember to stay safe.

Kind Regards

Loretta Breheny

Hi Everyone
We hope you all had a peaceful Christmas and wish you all a healthy New Year. Our best wishes also go out to all of you that have had a difficult time during the Yuletide season. The cellar door has been busy. We would like to remind you that we are closed on New Year's Day but are opened every day in January and every weekend until June.
The vineyard is looking good.  The grass and weeds are finally slowing down, so we are finally getting on top of the work. We have had to start watering the vines this week. It seemed like only yesterday that we were waterlogged, but the vines are  quite big and growing quickly. 22,000 vines can certainly suck all of the water out of the ground quickly.
The little grapes on the vines are almost the size of baby peas and are looking very healthy. Veraison usually starts at the end of January, but everything is later this year, including the baby magpies. We have just had a new brown baby magpie come out of its nest. I will try and get a photo for you.

We have been busy stocking all of the local restaurants and bottle shops ready for the silly season. Our delivery service Fastways is having a well deserved Christmas break, so Robert has had to run around and personally delivery all of the late orders.
If you have a winery, vineyard and cellar door, the business never sleeps.

Well must go and serve at the cellar door as it opens at 12 noon. Hope to see you there.

Kind Regards and a Happy New Year.

Loretta Breheny

Hi
The growth in the vineyard has been phenomenal. Robert, Dennis and Ian have been busy cleaning up the vineyard, and as a result it is beginning to look neat and tidy. The neatness is not only for aesthetic reasons, but also for disease control. Because of the rain and the cooler temperatures, the vineyards are vulnerable to downy and powdery mildew and botrytis. These are all diseases that can quickly wipe out your crop. Downy mildew is the grey mould that you find in your punnet of strawberries if you forget to put it in your fridge. Powdery is as it sounds, a white powder which covers your crop. It can look almost like snow if it gets out of control. Botrytis is a form of berry rot. If you put the wires up and have you canes standing high off the ground; take out the broadleaf weeds and do not have your grass too long, the breeze can come through your vines, drying them out quickly. If you spray, the spray can get right through your canopy, so that it covers all of your leaves. The downy mildew comes from the ground, so that keeping the vines off the canopy floor helps the downy from spreading into your crop. We also desucker the trunks of the vines. Again so that the disease does not come off the ground, and the sprayer does not miss leaves that are low to the ground. Hygiene is more important than chemicals, so it is important to have a neat and tidy vineyard. This reduces the disease pressure and therefore the need to spray, or at least minimises it.

Kind Regards
Loretta

Hi Everyone.
I thought I would fill you in on our latest success. We received a Silver Medal at le Concours des Vins Victoria last week. le Concours des Vins du Victoria is a wine show run by the French-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. This wineshow has been held annually for twenty years. The judging panel was led by renowned Rhone Valley winemaker Michel Chapoutier. It was held at the Medallion Club in the Etihad Stadium last Thursday evening. There were over 400 other wonderful Victorian wines to taste plus a buffet of amazing French regional cheeses selected by Maitre Fromager, Will Stud from Calender Cheese Co. We also received a very nice tasting glass to take home. It was a really lovely evening and we were asked to go up and receive our certificates and have our photo taken. If you go to their website you can see the results, but as of yet, the photos from last year are still posted. Our Silver Medal was received for our entry into the Sparkling Wines Class. We came in just after Blue Range Estate Wines - Blue Range Estate Blanc de Blancs NV and came equal with Blue Pyrenees Vintage Brut 2007. We were happy to succeed in such a strong line up of fine wines. I went up to receive our certificate and shake hands with the judge. Our Blanc de Noir is available on line, at the cellar door and at our selected retailers.

www.facci.com.au/leconcoursedevins


Sparkling Wine (26 wines - 5 awards)

Gold Medal
Blue Range Estate Wines - Blue Range Estate Blanc de Blancs NV

Silver Medal
Brown Magpie Wines - Brown Magpie 2008 Blanc de Noir
Blue Pyrenees Estate - Blue Pyrenees Vintage Brut 2007

Bronze Medal
Mt William Winery - Mt William 1999 Macedon Blanc de Blancs
Mount Avoca - Mount Avoca Jack Barry Sparkling Shiraz NV

Kind Regards

Loretta Breheny

Hi Everyone
If you are wondering what the new building is that you can see as you come up the drive of the vineyard towards the cellar door, it is not the winery as our winemaker Chris hoped. It is not the new cellar door as our customers hope. Neither is it another storage shed, Robert! It is our new house! Yes, I now it is large, but we had a lot of land down there, so why not. Barry, Pam and Liz will be happy however as the house has a large space for a new office. They will be in luxury with airconditioning!!!! Unfortunately, Robert's work station will be as cold as ever during the winter. I hope he doesn't complain.

The weather has been beautiful today own at Brown Magpie Wines. The flowers are out everywhere. The roses, the banksias, the tea trees an the callistenons are all in full bloom and the little native wasps and bees are really humming. The grass is growing inspite of the regular mowing. We have, however bought a new mower mulcher to try and stay in control. We now have a total of four mowers. Each one has a different purpose. I think the vineyard workers love new mowers, so there should be a little contentment down in the bottom paddock. Our new machine shed seems to get fuller everytime I look in it. Robert and Dennis have recently tidied it up, and it looks tidier than my house at the moment. We have been getting lots of visitors at the cellar door. Matthew has just started with us and is working on most Sundays, so you must drop in and say hello to him.
Kind Regards
Loretta

Christmas is certainly coming around very quickly, but but down here in the cool climate Geelong area, winemakers have other things on their minds. THE NEXT VINTAGE!!!! Our Brown Magpie Pinot Noir and Shiraz need good quality oak to help the wine reach its full potential. The cooperages are all contacting us because they have to bring out containers from France. Many are already on there way.  It is wonderful to see the array of French, Hungarian and American barrels available, but it is extremely difficult to assess the size of the order in the Geelong area at this time of year. Whereas, in South Australia and the Riverlands flowering is already starting, and the crop estimates can soon start, Geelong has  to wait until mid December until we see the end of flowering and therefore a reliable estimate of the size of the crop.
Order too many barrels and you go broke. They are expensive!!! Order too few and your wine quality can suffer. We are also sorting our orders for our yeasts, and other wine making products. We are checking and repairing our winemaking equipment making sure that it is all in order for the start of vintage. The wine press that we use to press our pinot gris, grigio, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc is currently away for repairs.  It is very difficult to get a machine part quickly as most of our equipment  comes from Italy.
We are also employing our vintage staff because skilled people are difficult to find. It is a busy life, but the vintage is the most exciting part of the year. We plan to make sure everything goes smoothly. Of course, we always encounter a problem. What will the Black Swan be this year?

The weather has been beautiful at the vineyard today. The young shoots are now growing rapidly and we can now see the fruit on the vines. They have not flowered yet, so cross your fingers for some good weather. If the weather is good, the caps on the fruit will fall and the harvest will be a good one. We have brought in a team of vineyard workers to do some summer pruning. They will take off the unwanted shoots from the vines. This will clean them up and keep the vineyard disease free. The roses are out and looking sensational, and we have a little blue wren feeding from the cobwebs (dare I say) in the corners of the window. Unfortunately, we have not had a brown baby magpie this year. We still have one adult brown magpie on the vineyard however. I hope you come and taste our Brown Magpie Pinot Gris 2010 and Brown Magpie Pinot Grigio 2010 soon. They are true to style. The Pinot Grigio displaying wonderful grapefruit flavours, and the Pinot Gris, luscious with lemon, apple and pear flavours.

Kind Regards
Loretta Breheny