TWC Vintage Report 2011

TWC vintage season started on 14th September, 2011 and lasted till 24th October, 2011. This appeared the latest vintage during the past 13 years.  

Another interesting thing with wine-making is that every year one has to face different challenges from nature such as different weather and different grape growing conditions which consequently result in making different wine every year.  

From this point, the year 2011 was very unique, at least in the areas where the most of the company-owned Kondoli vineyards are located.  

January, 2011 was quite a dry month with the average temperature around zero. In February the same temperature was observed with an intensive snowfall in the end of the month that continued in the first decade of March as well. This weather conditions in the first quarter of the year have not prevented us from performing all the agriculture-works within the scheduled agro-terms.  

April was cooler than average that led to a 3-4 day delay in budding with different sorts of grapes. In addition to this, the first hailstorm considerably damaged the west part of the vineyards. Almost every day in May was cold and rainy. Intensive rainfall and the second severe hailstorm destroyed roughly 50% of the grape yield. June was cold and rainy as well, especially the first quarter of it and thus, long-term average flowering process was delayed for two weeks.  

July and the beginning of August were quite hot and dry with the temperature going up to 36-37°C on some days.  The part of vineyards on the stony soil was evidently suffering of the lack of moisture. Fortunately enough, the intensive rainfall twice in the beginning of August has corrected this fault. The end of August appeared very cool and rainy; the temperature fell down to 11°C a few times. We strongly believe that it was the reason of the delayed vintage.  

September and October were quite dry and cool that contributed to the prolonged and regular ripening of the grapes. Therefore, the poliphenolic maturity of the grapes developed with relatively low sugar content that was finally revealed in a freshly fermented wine with a fairly low max alcohol as compared to the 2010 wines.   

The growth and seasoning of the vine in Kindzmarauli vineyards was virtually identical that of Kondoli Vineyards only that no hailstorm has damaged the grapes in Kindzmarauli and the yields were fully harvested. In the bio block of Saperavi, being also within Kindzmarauli Appellation and being treated with the organic methods for three years already, the harvest was small as before due to the green-harvest organized in July and August when the yield of grapes is artificially reduced. 

To sum up, despite the unpredictable weather conditions and dramatic temperature fluctuations during the grape seasoning in 2011, September and October proved to be dry with relatively mild temperature. This helped the red grapes to develop the full poliphenolic maturity with relatively low sugar content. At this stage, the malolactic fermentation is not yet finished in most of the wines, though the test results are promising enough to have the 2011 wines among the best.