Benfield & Delamare 2005 Newsletter

It's great to bounce back from a missed vintage. While 2004 was cool and wet, 2005 was hot, and until later in March, very dry. The rainfall after Easter was not welcome, and with the continuing heat, rot soon became a problem. We held out to quite a good vintage, but lost an awful lot of fruit. Consequently, this is a small vintage!

Cabernet Sauvignon, with its thick, rot resistant skin was as usual a star performer in tough going. Rot really got away in the Merlot, and most ended up on the ground. So, it's no surprise the wine this year is around 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, the balance Merlot & Franc. And again, due to the conditions we ended up with a vintage of extremes, some pretty good material, and the balance didn't even make it to "A song for Osiris". That's grape growing!

Through the late 1990's and early into this Century, we had exported most of our wine to both the USA and the UK. Our UK agent went out of business in 2001, and although we have had several approaches from that market, the high NZ dollar has meant that we have been unable to agree an acceptable price in NZ dollars. While our US agent didn't go out of business, much the same happened there. Again, further contact between us and US distributors have all foundered on price, due to the high Kiwi. A small producer neither has the ability and inventory to spread over a variety of pricing points for different markets, nor does it have the backers to cover its temporary losses till the market re-adjusts. Japan has been another story. Although the volumes have been modest, they are at least prepared to meet our price, and our wines have been doing quite well there over the last couple of years.

While in some ways, the very small producer lacks the price flexibility of the bigger producer, their small volumes allow market flexibility. There are many small niche markets that a low volume producer can exploit economically. So, while it is now uneconomic for us to export in any significant way, we have been able to move back onto the New Zealand market quite successfully.

This wine is from 3 barrels of Cabernet Sauvignon with some Franc, picked on 14th April, blended with one barrel of Merlot, picked on the 12th. It illustrates superbly the advantage of an unirrigated vineyard; deeper rooting vines still hadn't picked up rainwater, there is no sign of dilution. The wine is of deeply coloured ruby. On the nose, a blackcurrenty cedarey character, with touches of flowers and hints of oak. To the taste, initially softly rich, supple, yet it fills out with a full body, mulberries, soft forest fruits come to mind. There is still quite prominent smoky soft oak which should settle down over the next year.

Bottled 16th April, 2007. Total production, around 99 cases.

More Information about past vintages