This week we have a guest post from Sue and Warren at Pyramids Road, who are enthusiastic about their Strangebird variety Mourvedre, and took a wet day off from pruning to tell us all about it. Over to Sue and Warren:
Mourvedre has many names -the French call it Mourvedre,
Monastrell in Spain and Mataro in Australia. It is debatable about its origin
but it is widely planted in the south of France and near to the east coast
of Spain behind Alicante. In Australia, it was planted and grown as bush
vines in the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale. These plantings have
considerable age where
some vines are 80-100 years old.
In our vineyard it stands straight and tall which means
it is a pleasure to work with. It grows with gusto and proves difficult at
pruning time as the canes grow very thick and strong. It loves the sunshine
and warm days in our summer as the tannin in the skins needs this weather to
ripen.
We love this variety as it has the potential to be used
in a blended wine or as a straight varietal wine. It classically has elements
of spice, earthy, dark cherry flavours with a tannin structure that gives
the wine great body and length. The wine is a dense purple colour that, while
delicious in its own right, is best accompanied with food. It is not for
the light hearted and accompanies any hearty meat dish on winter nights by
the fire. It creates interest in the cellar door and most people are
intrigued and willing to sample the wine. Since our first vintage in
2005 it has created quite a following and many repeat customers keen to see
how each vintage changes.
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