A good turn out at this meeting held on 19th September at our clubrooms, Deaf Hawkes Bay Lee Street Taradale.

The raffle was won by Art, a new member tothe club.

After the formal meeting we we honoured to have Tony Prichard ex of Church Road Winery and now owner of his own winery, de la terre, on the Napier/ Taihape  road. He had two examples of his Viognier which had beebn made with subtle differences. One had the big floral in your face style New Zealanders have become familiar with and the other was more of the European style with less of the fruit driven characters. The difference was the timing of the use of SO2. THe fruity wine had SO2 added after picking and the other had it delayed for some hours so that the volotile phenolics were allowed to “micro oxidise” away. A huge difference and both wines were excellent but quite different. Being a micro producer he has the same issues with making small amounts of wine and he gave us a few tips to protect our wines from oxidation. One included the use of ascorbic acid combined with the use of SO2.

Another interesting peice of research he told us about that he was involved in. It was the problem winemakers were finding of the early ageing of Chardonnay. It turned out that the leaf removal of vines to open them up for air movement was exposing the bunches to excessive sun. So it was found some bunch protection from the sun was needed to slow the ageing of chardonnay which involved the phenolics in the juice.