Swinging Bridge wines...
White Wines
Swinging Bridge Chardonnay were the first blocks that were planted on the vineyard. The blocks sit at the top of the hill of the vineyard and have a lighter soil (light clays). The vines are trellised and set up in vertical shoot positioning. This is where wires are used to create a balance so that enough sun is allowed to penetrate the canopy however not so much that sunburn occurs and the resultant burnt characters that can carry through to the wine. These are generally only moved once during the season and it is generally in early November.
The vineyard is planted to the Chardonnay V1 Clone which is one of the dominate rootstocks in Australia. We have found that this suits the soils and the climate of our vineyard or ‘terrior’ as the French like to call it. The vines are planted at a spacing of 2.0m to 3.3m which gives a planting density of 1515 vines/ha. The vines are all able to receive supplementary irrigation where the water comes from the Belubula River.
The vines are hand pruned in winter with budburst occurring generally in the middle of September. Flowering commences around the start to middle November and verasion (colour change or softening of the berry) occurring from the start of January. Harvest is generally at the end of February- early March however this has not been the normal case during the last couple of years due to the drought with earlier harvest occurring.
Since the inception of the Swinging Bridge label the Chardonnay has received many accolades. Originally the Chardonnay was first made at CSU Winery and then at Tamburlaine in the Hunter Valley for a period. The style started out like many at the time being fairly heavily oaked and going through a full malolatic fermentation. These wines performed well with the standout wine being the 2001 Chardonnay.
Since 2003 the wines have been made by Chris Derez with Tom Ward assisting. The wines have performed extremely well with the change in emphasis starting to show. We have started to use bigger barrels for our wine moving from hogsheads (300L) and barriques (225L) to puncheons (500L). We use French Oak generally from Saury. We have found that the oak and the wine seem to fit in well without an over domination by the oak. We have also been stopping the wine going through full malolatic fermentation so as to avoid overt malolatic flavors (over buttery).
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Red Wines
Planted in 1995 on some of the lower blocks where the soil tends to contain a little more clay. The vines are trellised in the vertical shoot position. Unlike the Chardonnay where a more open and non fruit exposed canopy is desired the Shiraz is generally a little more exposed and we aim at about 30% exposure of bunches. We also move wires on both the eastern and western side in mid – late November to get some exposure as you do not want dense canopy and no exposure (not only because of shading characters and the resultant green characters but also for disease management purposes).
The Shiraz are planted with clones of PT23 and BVRC 12. The clones show some difference with the PT23 more intense coloured wines with greater tannin while the BVRC 12 generally show greater primary fruit characters. These are set up on the trellis with vine spacings of 2.0m *3.3m. The vines are supplementary irrigated by drip irrigation.
The vines are hand pruned every year in winter to set crop levels. This is extremely important to get right as the vines are fairly variable in their bunch numbers per bud every year. Budburst normally occurs from late September and flowering from mid–late November. In years where there is increased vigour in the vines (which certainly has not been the last couple of years) regulated defecit irrigation (RDI) is practiced. This is the period for 4-6 weeks after flowering where the irrigation is held back and it controls the amount of cell division that occurs in the developing berries. This in turn causes smaller berries and results in wines of greater colour and varietal flavour. It is a vital time for the vines because too much stress and the berries will be too small, while big rains at the wrong time can cause larger berries and other problems that go with it.
Verasion (changing to red) occurs around 15th January. It generally takes 1-2 weeks for all of the berries to change colour. Harvest is normally from the start to mid March.
Our Shiraz which we have been making since 1997 was originally made by Murray Smith from Canobolas Smith until the 2004 vintage. Since then we have made this wine with Chris Derez and Tom Ward assisting. The wines have generally been left on oak for 12 months but it depends on the vintage and the wine. We have aged the wine on French oak from 11 months though to 2 years (2003 Shiraz). The wines are fermented on skins till the 4-5 Buame where they are pressed and transferred to barrel to finish off primary and malolatic fermentation.
The Shiraz wines have been extremely successful since our first vintage. Some of the highlights are detailed below.
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