The White Stuff - Part One.....

The original plan had been to pick the Sipon (Furmint) grapes first – and to get the fermentation of our white wine underway before tacking the red. However Sipon is a notoriously late-ripening white variety, and when Sinead arrived the advice was to leave it another week or so to let the sugar levels rise a bit more. It was a decision we were to regret later on…

Back in February, Sinead had travelled out to prune the vines. Most of the older vineyards are pruned in a double-Guyot style – two main sperons, with between 5 and 7 shoots coming off each on which the grapes grow. We had decided to change two of the rows to single-Guyot to compare the yield, and crucially the quality. Sinead was helped by Bozidar from Verus Vinograd (an amazing viticulturist) and the two of them did a great job.

Seven months later, the results were clear to us. As I walked the vineyard with Bozidar, we sampled grapes from adjoining, but differently pruned, rows. 2011 is a genereous vintage of good quality – but the vines with double-Guyot training were laden down with fruit – on average probably between 5 and 6 kilos per vine. The single-Guyot vines were yielding about 2.5 kilos and the grapes tasted fresher, purer and more complex. Ivan, who owns the adjoining vineyard and keeps watch over our own vines when we’re not there, had followed the “experiment” with interest. He is a traditionalist and was concerned about the drop in yield – his generation were paid for quantity, not quality, by the local co-operative.

Miro and I decided that we would harvest the Sipon on Friday 30th September – the juice showing a promising 90 Oechsle. At 7am we picked the two rows of single-Guyot vines into small plastic crates. In a high-yielding year aromatics and freshness can be compromised, so Sinead had suggested we leave the grapes in their small crates overnight in Miro’s cellar to see if any additional aromatics could be gained following picking.

On returning from Miro’s cellar, having deposited the crates, I was confronted by a very angry Ivan. He had visited our vineyard and was aghast at the fact we had left grapes on the vines and, even worse, that we had discarded bunches on the ground. He was very upset – feeling that all his work during the rest of the year had been worthless. I tried, through the magical international language of arm waving and bad German to explain that we had just selected the best grapes, and that there was plenty to go around – but all to no avail. He stormed off, vowing never to return, repeatedly saying what we had done was “criminal”. It was a slightly unexpected start......