Tragedy and relief in early spring 7 September 2006

Chris Williams comes full circle, and puts his beloved wines into bottle

Those readers familiar with my (all too infrequent, according to the editor) contributions to the Coalface column will have read my apprehensions of pre-harvest preparations, the joy and activity of vintage-time and my musings on assessing the wines after malo-lactic fermentations have settled. I have written about my love affairs with various grape varieties and the challenges and rewards of what is, at the end of the day, a really great way to earn a living.

It is perhaps appropriate then that, with the first stirrings of spring life making themselves evident around us, from the  rising sap of the vines, the emergence of a new generation of diaphanous-winged insects, to the revelation of the summery dresses worn by the pretty girls of Stellenbosch, that we have come full circle, from harvest to autumn, through the bleak but restful winter and now into  glorious spring.

Into bottle

Spring at Meerlust is as much an ending as a beginning. As winter ends and a new promise of future vintages becomes a reality, the final step in the process of wine growing and making is about to happen: bottling. Most winemakers think of bottling as a particularly mundane chore, one done almost as an after-thought while being far more interested in the younger wines in barrel.

Bottling  is both a tragedy  and an enormous relief for me. A tragedy because you have to let go of the young wine and realize that your role as caretaker of the vintage is now over, and that a wonderful, expressive and demonstrative young wine from barrel is just never really the same after the trauma of bottling, no matter how gently it is treated. It is also a relief because, for better or worse, there is nothing more that you can do (or not do, as is so often the case).

I am never satisfied with my wine after bottling: for months afterwards, the wine disappears into itself, so-called ‘bottle-shock’. The  wine seems to undergo a process of reverse-harmonization, an alienation from itself , where all the complexity and balance you have coaxed from the wine and encouraged right from the vineyard through barrel-ageing is lost. The wine places itself under a siege-mentality, throwing up impenetrable ramparts of sullenness and a self imposed vow of silence. Every time this happens, I find myself asking if it will ever re-emerge as a thing of beauty and eloquence.

And then, quite surreptitiously at first, and usually after about eight weeks in bottle, something happens. The brooding liquid seems to start breathing again. Like a human form encased in plaster that begins to regain its dexterity, the wine starts showing  signs of forgiveness for having been subjugated  to such bruising treatment. The amazing thing is a whole new personality begins to emerge from the wine. Instead of exhibiting the wonderfully seductive, fruity and primary characteristics of a typical barrel sample, the young wine begins to show something a little more interesting, more developed and grown up.

The process of bottle-ageing reveals a completely new and unseen part of the wines’ character, the primary aromas become secondary, then tertiary. The simple fruit character evolves into ‘higher’ forms: earth, meat, minerality, perfume. The real complexity of the wine begins to peep out from behind the other more direct elements of the wine’s composition. The wine has evolved from the charm of youth, through the difficult identity-searching teenage years to the confidence and eloquence of young adulthood.

It is difficult to make the rather prosaic process of bottling an interesting step in the winemakers calendar, but so much is often lost at this final stage through negligence, ignorance or haste. This year’s bottling will be a particularly poignant and personal one for me. I will be finally relinquishing control of my first  solo Meerlust vintage, the 2004. Yes, the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir of that vintage have already been committed to bottle, the Chardonnay already sold out. But the Rubicon is our standard bearer, our hallmark. For the last three years, this wine has been my constant companion. I have experienced all the inevitable highs and lows of all stages of this wines’ development. It is a sad but somewhat triumphant moment for me.

A sad footnote

It has also been a somewhat sad time for the Australian wine industry. Len Evans, a world renowned wine taster, critic, raconteur and mentor for many in that country died recently at age 75. A somewhat bombastic figure, Evans was a superb taster and vocal critic of almost everything. Opinionated, yet supremely confident and respected, Evans played a major role in the renaissance of the Australian wine industry, starting in the late 1960s. He was a founding partner of the Rothbury Estate in the Hunter valley.  Probably his lasting legacy to the trade was a mentorship training programme known as the Len Evans tutorial. A group of hand picked wine professionals were exposed (some would say subjected) to rigorous tasting exercises somewhat akin to the practical paper of the Master of Wine Exam. While it could be argued that this has lead to a standardization of taste among the leaders of the Australian wine industry, the tutorial nurtured critical thinking and open debate which I think has been so lacking in our own industry.

Evans, born in Britain, immigrated to Australia as a young man and initially began a career in the restaurant trade, discovering a passion for wine along the way. One wonders what would have happened if he had chosen to come to South Africa in the 1960s, rather than Australia. It would have been entertaining to see such a force of nature pitted against the stolid South African wine authorities of that era.