Chris Williams of Meerlust reflects on the ever-changing process of making wine

An interesting and some would say infuriating aspect of being a wine producer is the completely normal phenomenon that each and every single vintage is different. To me, this is one of the most thrilling idiosyncrasies of the job because the real challenge is to try to foresee and understand how a particular vintage differs from another and, importantly, what to do to accentuate the positive qualities of a specific vintage.

This is why I approach each new season with a completely open mind but with a forbidding sense of trepidation as well. Sure, there are similarities in certain years and the first step is to say to yourself ‘ah yes, it looks like this year will be a bit like 1998 or 1996’, but, in the mere 11 vintages that I have experienced, every single one is still different.

It is an enormous help if you knows your vineyards well – which is one of the reasons why I believe the annual winemakers’ game of musical chairs in changing jobs is not a good thing. I think this is mainly the fault of proprietors, who try to pay the least for the services of a particular winemaker who gets poached by another vineyard for a meagre increase. The first thing the new winemaker does at the new cellar is try to ‘stamp’ his or her personality on the wines without first making an effort to understand and learn about the vineyards.

This is why so many producers are not able to find their definitive style or chase the particular fashion of what is ‘hot’ at the time.  It is the same as an author who battles to find the right ‘voice’ in their writing by being influenced by others in the creation of their plots and characters. Seasoned novelists will tell you about the epiphanous moment when they discarded the desire to imitate and, after a leap of considerable faith, found the comfortable individuality which is the hallmark of any true craftsman.

It is with this in mind that one takes a moment to analyse and qualify the recent harvest. Of course it is near impossible to get it totally right, but wandering through the barrel hall and tasting the young wines in barrel as they finish malolactic fermentation it is so interesting and rewarding to realise that you did make the right choice by leaving that particular block of merlot for an extra two days on the vine, or that it was the right decision allow another vineyard of cabernet franc an extra week on its skins, or what a relief it was to use second fill barrels on a particular lot of pinot noir.

The successes are noted in order to build up a database of trends, tastes and textures, mixed with the memory of how the grapes tasted at picking and how the canopy looked during ripening and then how all of this is annotated to information on the weather of the season. When this mass of information is digested and understood, you realise you have the beginnings of what is called ‘gut feel’ and the information becomes available for use (or misuse) for future vintages.

It is this dynamic and ever-changing process which fascinates and frustrates the winemaker. Factor in the maturing vines every year and you have a degree of complexity which is daunting. It is this complexity that still has me marvelling at what a truly wonderful substance good wine can be. It is a beverage which is raised to a high art. It is an agricultural product with minute differences in composition which radically affect its perception and price. It is a basic foodstuff which commands similar interest and investigation as a  ruined ancient civilisation. It is so intricately analysed, studied and autopsied and yet there is so much that we do not understand about wine itself and the unique effect it has on us.

I find this complexity so fundamentally intriguing that I am no longer embarrassed when asked if I have a hobby and I am forced to reply that I have none. For I am one of the rare fortunate people who is doing exactly what I want to every day when I go to work. I really do know how lucky I am.