2014 Archives - Amanda Barnes

Written for Wine-Searcher Rainclouds were common over Mendoza during the 2014 vintage

The grapes of the 2014 vintage in the Southern Hemisphere are safely in wineries and, while the weather has not been kind to many regions, overall the quality looks good.

Argentina

For a land that is normally blessed with more than 330 days a year of sunshine, the country’s major wine-producing region Mendoza suffered an unusually wet harvest in 2014.

After a record-breaking heat wave early in the season, the year’s entire annual average rainfall fell in just three weeks during the Argentinean summer. As a result, many growers had to do more vineyard work than normal in order to limit the botrytis risk.

The harvest was also compressed into a few short weeks, causing more headaches for wine producers.

“It has been a different vintage,” says Pablo Martorell, head winemaker at The Vines of Mendoza. “In December we had record high temperatures [compared with] the past 30 years. Then we had two rainy months. Therefore we have experienced more challenges than normal. For the majority of the reds, ripeness occurred very close together, creating a need for additional logistical planning during harvest.”

Susana Balbo, president of Dominio del Plata in Mendoza warned that this was not a year for leaving the fruit out in the vineyard to gain extra ripeness. “In a year like this, long hang times don’t work – there is a dilution effect on the quality.”

Written for Wines of Chile

While the year certainly started on a hard note for Chile with an unexpected and ferocious frost across many of the wine regions, nine months later the wine that has made its way into the wineries is looking promising for a high quality vintage.

The difficult start to the vintage was because of a widespread couple days of frost in mid-September which reduced production by between 10 and 70% (depending on variety, vineyard and winery). It can be said that every cloud has a silver lining though, as – according to many winemakers – these low yielding vines produced more concentrated grapes that benefited from a steady ripening season.

“This year has been very good in terms of quality, as some of the varieties already had a reduction in yields because of the spring frosts,” Julio Bastias, winemaker at Matetic in San Antonio and Casablanca said. “Because of this we’ve had very good concentration and complexity in the wines.”

Most of Chile was favoured with good climatic conditions for a long and dry ripening season. “Although volumes are lower than historically, I think that because we are facing a smaller crop and enjoying outstanding climate, we will have an excellent quality in our 2014 wines,” said owner and winemaker Aurelio Montes from Montes winery with vineyards all across the country.

While the lack of rain has been good news for ripening, some producers – especially in the north – have their fingers crossed this winter for a good snowfall in the Andes so that water resources are replenished for next year. “Climate conditions here in Elqui were very nice as usual,” commented Giorgio Flessati, Head Winemaker at Viña Mayu. “The production is a bit lower than 2013 vintage but we didn’t suffer frost effects, only smaller bunches. The only big worry that we have is the water: we had just two days with a bit of rain in the last 18 months.”