- Harvest, 2022
- February 2022
- November 2021
- August 2021
- June 2021
- Harvest, 2021
- March Shipping Trials, 2021
- March, 2021
- February, 2021
- January, 2021
- November, 2020
- September, 2020
- August, 2020
- Harvest, 2020
- On wine as a currency
- Harvest, 2019
- Harvest, 2018
- Harvest, 2017
- Harvest, 2016
- Seven go mad in Burgundy, July 2015
- Harvest, 2015
- Natural Wine, July 2014
- New vines arrive, October 2012
- Reva, November 2011
- The kids start coming, October 2011
- Subtle but not vindictive, March 2011
- Autumn arrives, March 2011
- Spring at last, October 2010
- New Arrivals, June 2010
- Exporting hope, May 2010
- Dubee Dubai Doo
- A bug's life
- It's the dirt stupid
- A Winter's tale
- On the dynamics of ecosystems...
- A nose to tail morning
- A Bug's death
- Last day of harvest
- Life the universe, and everything
Nigel's thoughts....
A BUG'S DEATH
Blair arrives in the lab with a small glass jar of earwigs. I'm not that surprised as I have seen a lot of earwigs climbing out of a small fermenter just a couple of hours earlier when I was taking a couple of keen Americans round the winery. There are undoubtedly an unusual amount of earwigs in the wine this year, (always quite a lot of small spiders, which we view as beneficial) but the earwigs are new. I know what is coming, because we've had the ladybird conversation many times.
Occasionally in some regions Ladybirds (Ladybugs) can reach plague levels in vineyards. We've never seen it in New Zealand but it can happen in Canada, parts of the USA, and in 2004, there were a lot in parts of Burgundy. Ladybirds can excrete a very strong chemical, not wildly different from TCA which can "taint" wine. Blair is familiar with the taste from his US experience and is confident he can taste the ladybirds in some 04 Burgundies. We have heard of issues with large numbers of earwigs in the Mosel, but not of them tainting wine.
But we need to know. So attacking the small insects with some vigour he crushes them into a goop. We pass it around and smell it. Nothing too threatening there. But Blair isn't satisfied: "what if it only comes out in ethanol, or doesn't smell much on its own, but pervades wine?" So, we take two samples of our Pinot and infuse a small vial of one of them with the earwigs. There will be a tasting later.