HONEY MOON VINEYARD - SPRING NEWSLETTER
November 2011

Season's greetings to all our customers. What a year we have had – it has raced by!! We experienced the coldest and wettest vintage for many decades with some surprising results – including lovely sparkling wine and very cool spicy Shiraz. We hope you will enjoy this little newsletter. Following some very nice feedback from many customers (thank you) we have continued with our format of a little bit of technical info about how we grow our grapes and make our wine, plus info about where to find us.

A Short Lesson on Pruning Grape Vines

Winter pruning this year was a long and meticulous process. We "cane prune" our vines which involves cutting off most of last year's growth and leaving two strong canes/shoots per vine (which are wrapped or tied down to the fruiting wire) and several, strong 2-bud spurs (very short shoots about 5cm long), which will give rise to next year's canes.

The total number of buds (called nodes) that are left after pruning is the first determinant of what the coming season's crop will or may be like, because each bud will produce a new shoot in Spring that will have about two bunches of grapes. So, for example, if we left 12 buds on a Pinot Noir vine we should get about 24 bunches of Pinot Noir grapes; if each bunch weighs 70grams then the vine has given us about 1.6 kilos of grapes which is about the right crop level to produce high quality Pinot Noir dry red table wine, in the Adelaide Hills.

Cane pruning is a difficult process! It can only be done by hand and by a skilled viticulturalist/worker who understands how vines grow. The choice of which canes to leave and where to position replacement spurs requires a lot of thought and consideration of the future life and growth of the vine, perhaps thinking several seasons ahead; possibly some politicians and others who live only for the moment would not make good cane pruners!!!!

The Honey Moon Vineyard in Spring

Spring has been moderately cool this year but vine growth has been strong with adequate rains to provide plenty of moisture for the vine growth. Budburst in the Pinot started about the 12st of September and the Shiraz followed about 7 days later. The pictures below show the new shoots on Pinot Noir and budburst in Shiraz this Spring in the Honey Moon Vineyard.

New Pinot shoots & Kish	Budburst in cane pruned Shiraz

At the time of writing (mid November 2011) we have gone through the vineyard several times and taken off any excess shoots from Shiraz and Pinot to achieve a balanced crop and even shoot spacing.

As the season progresses we are hoping for a mild warm, sunny season with low humidity during Autumn which will produce ideal conditions for a great 2012 vintage. We are crossing our fingers.

Introducing our Sparkling Wine

Honey Moon Vineyard Rosé Brut 2009 is our first sparkling wine on a commercial basis. This wine is made from Pinot Noir from the Honey Moon Vineyard (83%) and Chardonnay (17%) from the Anderson Vineyard at Charleston. Grapes were hand harvested and whole bunch pressed with the resulting juice fermented and aged in old French oak barriques.

To create the bubbles we use the traditional method where the wine goes through a secondary fermentation in a heavy weight sparkling wine bottle closed with a crown seal. After further ageing on yeast lees, the sediment is removed via remuage and dégorgement and a low dosage of 8.0 grams/l is used in the expedition liquor.

This traditional process means that the bottle you buy is the same bottle that the wine was in when it went through the secondary fermentation. (This is the time-honoured method perfected by the Champenois and the method of choice for premium sparkling wine.)

This wine has delicate salmon pink colour, red fruit flavours and intriguing texture. Bistro Dom in Adelaide and the Rockpool Bar and Grill in Perth have been our main restaurant customers for this wine, both selling it by the glass. Alas, they have sold it so well that we have only a small quantity left!

We have enjoyed making this wine so much and feel that it provides another expression of our Pinot, but from vines that we have pruned differently and harvested earlier. We have made sparkling wines from the 2010 and 2011 vintages and, vintage conditions permitting, will continue to do so.

Note: The Honey Moon Vineyard Rosé Brut 2009 is now sold out. The 2010 release is now available for sale.

Wine Show Results Update

Entering our wines in wine shows is one way of "testing the water" of our wines in the wine market/industry, to see how our wines are considered and judged, by experienced wine professionals. For a small producer like us there are not many wine shows that we can enter as most require a minimum production volume of 4500 litres of any wine. This is way above what we can produce, so we can only enter shows, and classes in big wine shows, that have a smaller volume requirement, typically close to 100 cases [900L]. Sometimes these classes are for individual vineyard wines such as Honey Moon Vineyard. As we wrote in our previous newsletter only about 50% of entries in wine shows get any sort of medal and only 7% approx get Silver and less than 1- 3% approx, get Gold medals. So any award is good news and producers who are awarded Silver and Gold medals on a regular or recurring basis can genuinely claim that there wines are of rare and fine quality!

Winning wine show medals is not what drives our making of Honey Moon Vineyard wines but having our wines judged by independent wine professionals and gaining awards is one way of letting our customers know that our wines are considered very highly by our peers in the wine industry. An old saying goes "No one will ever criticise you if you have good table manners!! Likewise for wines with wine show medals!

Last years newsletter reported 26 wine show medals to date for Honey Moon Vineyard, and to add to this we can report that Honey Moon Vineyard Wines have won another 19 medals, this year {shown with an * below}, including 5 Gold medals and 7 Silver medals. The show record of our wines on offer are also listed below. As you will see we have a very strong run with our Shiraz wines winning 5 Gold medals, this year!!

The Gold Medal at the National Wine Show of Australia for our 2009 Shiraz , in November, was a special thrill as wines can only enter this show if they have won a medal at a qualifying show, so it is like the "Grand Final" of Australian wine shows.

Honey Moon Vineyard Shiraz 2009
Gold Medal International Cool Climate Wine Show 2011*
Gold Medal WineWise Small Vignerons Award 2011*
Gold Medal National Wine Show of Australia 2011*
Gold Medal Adelaide Hills Wine Show 2011*
Silver Medal National Cool Climate Wine Show 2011*

Honey Moon Vineyard Shiraz 2008
Gold Medal, Adelaide Hills Wine Show, 2010,
Gold Medal, Adelaide Hills Wine Show, 2011*,
Silver Medal, International Cool Climate Wine Show 2011*
Silver Medal, Winewise Small Vigneron Awards 2011*
Bronze Medal, Sydney Wine Show 2011, *
Bronze, National Cool Climate Wine Show 2011*
Bronze, International Cool Climate Wine Show 2010

Honey Moon Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008
Silver Medal National Cool Climate Wine Show 2010
Silver Medal Adelaide Hills Wine Show 2011*
Bronze - International Cool Climate Wine Show 2010

Bronze Medal Adelaide Hills Wine Show 2010
Bronze Medal Royal Sydney Wine Show 2011*
Bronze Medal International Cool Climate Wine Show 2011*
Bronze Medal Winewise Small Vignerons' Awards 2011*
Bronze Medal National Wine Show of Australia 2011*

Honey Moon Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009
Silver Medal International Cool Climate Wine Show 2011*
Silver Medal, Winewise Small Vigneron Awards 2011*
Silver Medal, Adelaide Hills Wine Show 2011*

Honey Moon Chardonnay 2008
Bronze - Boutique Wine Awards 2009
Bronze - National Cool Climate Wine Show 2009

Bronze - Adelaide Hills Wine Show 2009

Honey Moon Vineyard Rosé 2010
Bronze - Adelaide Hills Wine Show 2010

Honey Moon Brut Rosé 2010
Bronze - Adelaide Hills Wine Show 2010*

Reviews of Honey Moon Vineyard Wines

Occasionally we receive a review of our wines which is most pleasing. Here are a few!!

Honey Moon Chardonnay 2008
"Bright straw green; elegant, finely structured wine with nectarine and melon fruit cradled in subtle French oak; a classic example of winemaking restraint."
92 points. James Halliday Wine Companion 2010 Edition.

"A pure expression of hills Chardonnay. Delicate and mineral, delivering bright lemon and apple flavours……great lift and verve from underlying acid structure."
Louise Radman. The Adelaide Magazine 2010.

Honey Moon Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008
***** 5 Stars James Halliday Australian Wine Compendium 2011
" Bright red hue; the bouquet is packed with predominantly red berry fruit, the palate opening with more of the same before the second stanza brings savoury tannins into play. All the bells and whistles of Dijon clones 777, 115 and 114, hand-plunged open fermenters, some wild ferments, some whole bunches, then 17 months in old and new French barriques. Rating 94 To 2016"

Honey Moon Vineyard Shiraz 2007
"A very well made juicy, spicy wine; great thrust to the light- to medium-bodied palate with small red and black berry fruits; quality French oak and fine tannins."
93 points. James Halliday Wine Companion 2010 Edition

2nd Best Shiraz 2007, Winewise Championship 2010."Another wine with a sublimely perfumed, spicy, red fruits nose. The palate is deliciously opulent, with a very fine tannin structure." 13.5%

2 Glasses, 93 pts Nick Stock Age/SMH Good Wine Guide 2011 "A bright and nicely styled Hills wine that oozes finesse and brightness. Sweetly spiced red fruits, raspberries and eastern spices fine-ground pepper and warm autumn earth: it gives a very settled and soulful impression on the nose. The palate's tangy, with purple berry flavour- cassis meets blue damson plums; spices trail through the finely etched finish. Brilliant wine indeed!"

Honey Moon Vineyard Shiraz 2008
"This is a fragrant, spicy, medium-bodied style which, with a little more structure, would have scored gold. Never-theless it is a good example of the positives of Adelaide Hills Shiraz." SILVER MEDAL Winewise Small Vignerons Awards 2011

Honey Moon Vineyard Shiraz 2009
"The floral nature of the nose is quite captivating, and the medium-bodied palate is packed with small berry flavour. Delicious." GOLD MEDAL Winewise Small Vignerons Awards 2011

Where to Find Our Wines

Honey Moon Vineyard Wines are now found in a variety of top restaurants and retail outlets in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Queensland, and we are growing with new listings every month.

Upcoming Events

Brunch with Bubbles!
As part of the 2012 Crush Festival, Honey Moon Vineyard will showcase 3 sparkling wines [two vintages of our Rosé Brut and our first Blanc de Blancs at the White House Provincial Kitchen and Lounge in Hahndorf. Sunday 29th January 2012 9.00am-12.00pm. The wines will be served with delicious matching brunch cuisine specially designed by the chef.
[$35 ph Bookings 08 8388 7669]
More Information - www.crushfestival.com.au/

Please contact us if you have any queries or comments.

Honey Moon Vineyard Pty Ltd
www.honeymoonvineyard.com.au