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Vintage Report 2024

The dust is starting to settle on vintage 2024 as ferments quietly tick away and the first few Sauvignons have finished ferment. The winery smells truly delicious currently. 

A warm and dry season, late season frost and a cooler start to the flowering period in December created low-yields across much of the region. As an average our estate and grower blocks were 25-30% down, with a surprising number of Sauvignon vineyards yielding single digits. Fruit was hanging pristinely on the vine with smaller than usual bunches. With the quality of fruit in 2024 I know many in Marlborough are quietly brimming with excitement.

It was a dream run with little disease pressure, as Marlborough had the driest summer on record. Harvest started on the 13th of March and was more of a sprint than a marathon, with the last block coming in on the 30th of March. The earliest finish to harvest many can remember.

The resulting wines will be somewhat bolder than usual with excellent flavour and expression. Once the ferments are finished, they will spend time on lees without racking to build further palate weight and complexity. This year time is on our side and the wines will certainly benefit not being rushed to market.

Cheers to a truly remarkable 2024 season.

 

Matt Ward

15/04/2023  

Sound of Summer 18NOV23

Buy your tickets to Sound of Summer at Sound of White Vineyard here!

Sound of Summer is our third event at Sound of White Vineyard in collaboration with Vinyl in The Vines, local beer, spirits and food providers on Saturday November 18th 2023. 

Settle in for a sunny afternoon of sounds & enjoy fantastic local food & wine at the picturesque Sound of White Vineyard in Blenheim. The event is family friendly, with picnic rugs and games for the kids available. Kids under 16 enter free.

If you're looking for the perfect summer event in Blenheim, Marlborough, Sound of Summer is it! For more details and ticket information visit eventfinda. 

 

Sound of Summer 28JAN23

All ticket & transport information can be found on the event page here.

Catalina Sounds presents the second event in collaboration with the Vinyl in the Vines DJ collective - Sound of Summer at Sound of White Vineyard on January 28th 2023. 

Last January we just hosted our inaugural Vinyl in the Vines event, sneaking in before Marlborough moved to red traffic lights, and we're so glad we did. After such a successfull day, we have decided to welcome you back to our special vineyard in the Waihopai Valley. 

Settle in for a sunny afternoon of funky vinyl sounds supplied by DJs Mr Slice, Dai and Boom & enjoy fantastic local food & wine.

In addition to the Catalina Sounds bar, we will have plenty of beer & gin provided by our stellar partners! Wine by Catalina Sounds & Lawsons Dry Hills. Beer by Boom Town. Gin by Roots Gin. Food by Cloudy Bay Clams & Boom Chef and La Rua. 

Kids are welcome and will have a dedicated area to enjoy fun toys and games on the day. 

Harvest Report 2022

I’ve been out tasting and sampling our vineyards over the last few days for maturity – measuring the accumulating sugar, the acid balance and also monitoring disease pressure. It looks like we might kick-off with a small amount of Chardonnay around the week of the 14th, which is exciting! Pinot Noir will be coming in a close second, with much of the Sauvignon Blanc looking like it will be late March, early April, which is slightly later than the previous few years.

The growing season has been quite the ride so far – significant rainfall in winter and early spring gave the vines a massive head start and we all felt like we were chasing our tails in to December to keep up with vine growth. December and January were hot and dry – deviating from the La Ninã weather pattern New Zealand was in. An ex-tropical cyclone paid a visit at the start of February which had everyone on the edge of their seats as veraison was really kicking in, but the ground was parched and soaked it up pretty quickly.

The fruit set has been super favourable compared to last year and we’re grateful for this! We have been working hard to ensure we’re aiming for quality though, and have dropped excess fruit and hand leaf plucked to keep the vines in balance and give plenty of airflow to keep disease pressure low. We’re going to see the benefits of this as we see warmer, summer like temperatures again for the next couple of weeks which will bump ripening along.

All our 2021 wines are in bottle, other than our single vineyard Sound of White Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, which is still sitting quietly in barrel until we blend and bottle in June. We all wait in anticipation now as the vines enter their final stretch before harvesting and getting a well-earned break. I think all involved in the industry will need the same once everything is off the vine and quietly fermenting in tank.

Cheers to a safe and happy harvest ahead!

Vintage Report 2021

2021 is moving along quickly and although the new vintage wines have been resting in tank and barrel for about 6 weeks now it feels like we were picking only yesterday. It’s a nice time to reflect on vintage and the season that’s been, just as we look at blending our first Sauvignon Blanc; the wines are settled and looking “themselves” now.

This vintage felt somewhat uneventful – in a good way, as it definitely had its nuances compared to other vintages over the last decade. Marlborough’s central Wairau Valley had very low yields due to multiple factors – three dry summers in a row, early September frosts and cool, wet weather during flowering seem to have had a compounding effect. Though Marlborough appears small, the southern valleys and western Wairau valley were mostly unaffected by the weather as they tend to flower later than the central valley. A testament to this is our Sound of White vineyard in the Waihopai Valley, which gave us slightly more fruit than 2020 (much to our fastidious vineyard manager, Fraser Brown’s delight!). The weather was perfect apart from a low that brought much needed rain towards the end of picking at the beginning of April. With light canopies and low disease pressure it was possible to hang the last fruit through this and it came into the winery looking stunning.

Harvest was earlier than usual, by about 7 – 10 days than 2020 for some blocks, which relates back to the lower yields and warm, dry summer. Quality across the board is excellent with the wines showing a touch less restraint compared to 2020.

It’s also an exciting time for me as our first Catalina Sounds Chardonnay from the beautiful 2020 vintage is set to touch down on the palates of wine lovers in Australia and New Zealand in July. I’ve truly loved these vintages for Chardonnay, as they’ve really allowed a minimal intervention approach with clean, ripe fruit and lashings of juicy minerality. Nothing added and nothing taken away, just as wine should be.

My Second Blog Post

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