Kerner Estate Blog

Last week Will and Lizzie traveled to Amersterdam to pour our Kerner Estate Wines at the New Zealand Wine Fair and introduce our newest label, “Splendiferous.” They had great success and loved Amsterdam!

 

 

On Wednesday, July 27th, we had a Kerner Estate Tasting at Bahr Che in New York City. There was a spectacular turnout and guests sampled Kerner Estate 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, 2008 Chardonnay and 2008 Pinot Noir. This is the first of many events we hope to host and are looking to do so in cities across America. If you’re interested in tasting Kerner or would like to purchase, please email info@kerner.co.nz for more information. Cheers!

It’s beautiful here now, with cold nights, misty mornings and still days. Time to listen to the birds again and tidy up after the harvest.

The 2011 Harvest is almost over at Kerner Estate. Here are some pictures of the Pinot Gris hand harvest. The fruit was so great that it went directly into the crusher and directly into barrels where it will ferment and develop for the next year. It’s amazing that from the last bin to the barrel it took about an hour. Lovely!

There was snow this morning on the mountains, but we had a beautiful spring day and one can sense the vineyard coming to life for another season.

There was snow this morning on the mountains, but we had a beautiful spring day and one can sense the vineyard coming to life for another season.

The sounds of machines and tractors have gone, and for a while the vineyard is quite with the now-welcome sound of the birds and gently falling leaves.

Well, finally we have taken off some grapes. First came the Chardonnay:

Finally, it’s time to harvest our chardonnay.The grapes are beautiful this year, full of hen and chicken (large and small berries) which the winemakers love. More flavor.

So yesterday, Graeme, Murray, Sofie and An, took down the nets.
It’s a lot of hard work, and Sofie drives a mean tractor!

This morning, the harvest began.

And when the truck is nearly full, it goes to get weighed and delivers the grapes to the winery who has bought them. The nearly ten acres took five hours to machine harvest.

After a hard day’s work, we had a dinner of Corned Beef and cabbage, potatoes and carrots. We started with some wonderful Belgian beers and moved into Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc which went amazingly well with corned beef!!!!