CASTLE MATAKANA
Medal Winning Wines from Estate Vineyard
"Wine is made in the vineyard"
Our tiny estate vineyard is on a quite steep NE slope of well draining clay on the Tawharanui Peninsula, some 5 kms east of Matakana. This truly maritime location affords beautiful views of islands in Kawau Bay to the Hauraki Gulf beyond. The local sea breezes circulate the often slightly salty air through the vines helping to offset the effects of the region's humidity. Although much of the land in this region was in well fertilised dairy or beef farms, for the previous ten years this piece of land was a goat farm with little or no fertiliser applications and this assists the control of the vigour of the canopy. To assure good drainage even in prolonged wet spells the site was mole-ploughed prior to planting.
We planted the vines in the spring of 1998 at 1m vine spacing and 1.8m between each of the 26 North-South rows. At the end of each row is one of Val's favourite rose bushes which provide fresh blooms for the luxury B&B accommodation rooms for several months of each year. The grape varietals planted are Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec with multiple clones of each on three selected rootstocks. The trellising is a simple VSP system with the fruiting wire at 8-900cm and two sets of moveable canopy wires. All wire and posts are recycled from a nearby kiwifruit orchard. The vines are spur pruned and all tending of the vines is by hand with rigorous shoot thinning, leaf plucking and summer pruning of the canopy. The vines are low-bearing and bunch thinning is applied selectively. We have now picked our 8th vintage which is mellowing beautifully in French oak. This was fermented completely naturally with wild yeast and the winemaker has declared "best yet". The vines are maturing well and producing increasing crops of clean ripe bunches each year. The vignerons have also learned a lot through this period!
Intensive Planning Session for the 2005 Pick with our resident consultant Boo Boo J
The climate here in Matakana / Tawharanui is classified as sub-tropical and characterised by mild winters with showery spring and somewhat humid summer but a long warm and generally dry late summer/early autumn provides ideal conditions for the crucial ripening period of our red grapes. Our experience is that some of the 'usual' disease pressures vary by varietal and also by clone albeit to a much lesser extent. As a sweeping generalisation, the Merlot is more susceptible to Black Spot in the damp and cool of early spring and the Cabernet Sauvignon is susceptible to Powdery Mildew particularly in mid-late December. The Syrah and Malbec have been very resistant with respect to these two items and the treatments for control of Botrytis and Downy Mildew mean we seldom see material sign of these on any of the vines. A post harvest 'clean up' spray of copper leads into winter and pruning. All pruning cuts are treated with the naturally occurring Trichoderma and then later the dormant vines are sprayed with lime-sulphur.
There is the occasional frost visible in the lower valleys around in winter but from our inquiries we have found no record of frost damage to vines or grapes in the district in its history of viticulture and certainly we have not seen any suggestion of it out here on the Tawharanui Peninsula in 10 or so years that our vines have been growing.
So, all in all we believe we have a relatively benign climate conducive to producing fine red wines in a superbly scenic and peaceful district with the added bonus of great maritime environment for boating fishing swimming.
The highly skilled motivated and dedicated Team 04.
The vigneronne with a vat of Malbec/Syrah Must ......it's all in the planning.
Only grapes harvested from the estate vineyard are made into our Castle Matakana wine. The current vintages we are serving is 2005, 2006 and 2007 which are all very easy drinking yet vibrant fruit driven wines that were bottled after 12 months in a mix of new and old French oak. Our "Proprietors Reserve" PR wines undergo further ageing in French oak for another 8-12 months. We then bottle them after some 2 years in the wood during which time the wines have successfully concentrated in body and flavours and mellowed somewhat in comparison to the earlier bottled wines.
After a short while in the bottle we entered the 2004 PR in the 2006 Romeo Bragato Wine Awards and were pleased to be awarded a Bronze Medal. Last year we entered the 2006 PR and the 2007 in the Romeo Bragato Awards and each was awarded a Bronze Medal in its year. This year we entered the 2007 PR in the Small Vigneron Awards in Canberra which has no less an authority than James Halliday as the head of the judging panel. We were delighted to find that the Aussies awarded us a bronze medal maintaining our 100% entry/award record!
To give an idea of the value of the Bragato medals, in the 2007 Merlot and Blends class, just 1 Gold and 5 Silvers and 6 Bronzes were awarded. Given that many producers do a selective pick of their best fruit to produce a top or show wine whereas all the fruit from our vineyard is in our entry, we are very chuffed indeed!
The vigneron and the winemaker with some production!
Certain of our wine is sometimes available from www.matakanawine.com