{"id":3253,"date":"2021-04-03T19:56:22","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T19:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winefolio.co.nz\/?p=3253"},"modified":"2021-04-03T20:15:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T20:15:28","slug":"winemaker-series-bryce-edmonds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winefolio.co.nz\/?p=3253","title":{"rendered":"Winemaker series: Bryce Edmonds"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Towards the end of last year I picked up a couple of Hawke\u2019s Bay wines simply because the label caught my eye. These were a pair of bottles from Zaria<\/strong> \u2013 a superb Chardonnay (94pts) and a \u2018classic\u2019 Merlot \u2013 \u201csoft but dense on the palate, with ripe fruit everywhere\u201d (91pts). The wines in the bottle matching the elegant labels that I noticed at first. A brief email exchange resulted in a new ros\u00e9 \u2013 from Malbec no less – being sent over and a promise to catch up with the winemaker, Bryce Edmonds<\/strong>, when I was in town\u2026<\/p>

WineFolio<\/strong>: You know I\u2019ve been staying up at Millar Road<\/strong>, and Hayden\u2019s just dropped all his Organised Chaos<\/strong> 2020s over for me to get through, and The Supernatural<\/strong> have a red this time around \u2013 a Cabernet Franc, which is really darn good. When I first went there in June this year, that was my introduction to \u2018their world\u2019. Hahaha. I like them. They\u2019re not just \u2018interesting\u2019, they are really good wines.<\/p>

Bryce Edmonds<\/strong>: Hayden\u2019s one of my good friends. We were each other\u2019s groomsmen at each wedding, and we had a band at University, must have been twenty odd years ago now. I\u2019ve known him since first year University in 2000. He started working on this vineyard and helped us establish it ultimately. He didn\u2019t know what he was going to do at that point, but working here over the summers got him into it, and he changed \u2013 I think he was doing a PE degree or something \u2013 so enrolled in a double degree and topped the class in both. The rest is history.<\/p>

The Supernatural Sauvignon Blanc<\/strong> is one of the few Sauvignon Blancs that I\u2019m really keen to try every vintage. Just because it\u2019s such a nice wine. Even in \u201917 which was a real struggle here, they managed to make a cracking wine. It was only about 11.5% even, but it was full of flavours. I do love Sauvignon Blanc and I would consider making one if there was any possibility that I could sell a reasonable amount. It\u2019s such a tough sell in the market.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: How\u2019s Zaria going?<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: Good \u2013 very good. Best month ever this month \u2013 I\u2019m just trying to get it out there a bit more. There\u2019s a new wine shop in Napier called \u2018Deco City Cellars<\/strong>\u2019, which was the only place that the Chardonnay was available when you said you\u2019d tried it. He just started a couple of months ago, and he\u2019s done a magazine which he just gives out for free. There\u2019s a couple of blurbs and shots of us in the back of it.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Your product is certainly good looking – the label really stands out. As you know I tried the Chardonnay first, then found the Merlot, and then you sent me the ros\u00e9. I\u2019m a tricky customer when it comes to ros\u00e9 and that really ticked the boxes for me.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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BE<\/strong>: I worked in a place called Umathum<\/strong> in Austria in 2009 and he made a ros\u00e9. He had three single varietal top wines that he sells for about 50 euros a bottle. He brings in the reds and saign\u00e9es 10% off each of those reds and makes a special ros\u00e9 from those saign\u00e9e parcels. And he prices it quite high, it\u2019s the most expensive ros\u00e9 in Austria, but it sells just like that every year. People treat it as a secondary product a lot of the time and he just wanted\u00a0 to treat it as one of the primary products. And it\u2019s a pretty top end ros\u00e9 and he\u2019s put it into a really nice bottle. It\u2019s not see-through, it\u2019s got a glass capsule. It resonated with me at the time, and I decide to make a really nice ros\u00e9 that was a little bit interesting. My point of interest it that it\u2019s 100% Malbec. I do have an opportunity where I can just take the free run and sell the pressings to someone else, so that helps to lessen the phenolic edge on the wine. It allows me to bring it bone dry. I always check as we\u2019re coming down to dryness\u2026 in fact in 2019 I did retain about 3.7 grams of residual sugar because the acid was a wee bit stingy. It still tasted dry and was ultimately a dry wine. But I am careful as it goes dry. This last one I think it got down to 0.5 and it\u2019s still got an element of sweetness even though it\u2019s got no sugar.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: I liked that it\u2019s dry, and it had real character. I worry that there\u2019s this tendency to err on safety and leave ros\u00e9 a bit sweet..<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: I don\u2019t get that. It doesn\u2019t resonate with me at all. I think to err on the side of safety these days is to make it dry. Everyone I know says they want a dry wine, or at least they say they do.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Consumers don\u2019t. They want 5 grams of sugar in it please. It stood out to me because it was dry. Still lots of fruit sweetness in it though. A lot of consumers here in New Zealand seem to expect that their ros\u00e9 will be made from Pinot Noir? They\u2019re obsessed with colour. And a perception that the darker the colour, the sweeter it will be? The preference, I\u2019d say, is for pale, as far as looks goes. Yours is a little on the darker side.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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BE<\/strong>: Everyone seems to have a different idea of what colour is the best colour? Do they want salmon or do they want bright pink? You think mine\u2019s a bit dark \u2013 Since it\u2019s free-run, I\u2019m not sure how I\u2019d get any less colour (laughs)!<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Well, look at \u2018Blondie\u2019<\/strong> which makes it into the ros\u00e9 category, and it\u2019s practically clear! People love that wine. Isn\u2019t ros\u00e9 supposed to be put on a lunch table in summer and its job is to brighten the mood and the food?<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: It\u2019s a fun wine but I think there\u2019s a gap in the market for top end ros\u00e9s. You\u2019ve heard of WineFriend<\/strong>? They\u2019re always screaming out for expensive ros\u00e9s. A lot of winemakers say \u2018I can\u2019t bring myself to price it above other wines\u2019.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: It was your Chardonnay though that really stopped me in my tracks. Tell me about that wine.<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: I really love Chardonnay and we didn\u2019t have any here at the time. I\u2019ve just planted some here though and will be getting a first crop off that this coming vintage.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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That wine wasn\u2019t actually from our vineyard, it was from over the back fence, some Mendoza clone Chardonnay \u2013 about 12 rows. I bought a tonne off them and I only made 3 barrels \u2013 a new barrel and two older barrels. I think the key to a good Chardonnay is to whole-bunch press it \u2013 for me there\u2019s no other way. I normally take about 550-600 litres per tonne and cap it at that. I went wild ferment for two of the barrels and I innoculated the third.<\/p>

And the interesting thing about that wine \u2013 one of the barrels was quite aldahylic and worrisome to me. I hadn\u2019t sulphured it \u2013 I don\u2019t tend to sulphur them until the following summer. And one of them wasn\u2019t dry, so I had to kickstart the ferment leading into the next vintage. And that just seemed to bring everything back together again. I\u2019m actually doing the same thing with my \u201920 chardonnays. That little bit of extra ferment, there\u2019s something about it that just kind of cleans everything up. When you\u2019ve got it in barrel on lees and you\u2019re stirring it up, so it gets that developed character. Then you take those and freshen it up by just doing that last bit of ferment. Without that it might not have that tightness and be a bit too generous.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: It\u2019s funny you said you love your chardonnay \u2013 I do too. I keep this list of great New Zealand Chardonnay in my head, and it\u2019s bloody hard in a great vintage like we\u2019ve had.. you get all these new ones, and then you think you have to relegate a couple from the Top 10. And I find my tastes change year by year.<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: I even like things like the Kumeu Village<\/strong> chardonnay, at $20 a bottle. I had the Coddington \u201919<\/strong> the other day and found it overtly \u2018clovey\u2019 \u2013 dunno if that\u2019s from the new oak that they were using. After tasting that I just couldn\u2019t get past.<\/p>

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WF: <\/strong>The Hunting Hill<\/strong> was hard work this year. I thought the Coddington was quite good \u2013 it\u2019s usually the most approachable. I didn\u2019t think the \u201819s were even remotely ready to drink at their best though. Even the Estate was such a baby that I thought it a waste to open any of the case I bought. But I have found a lot of the \u201819s I\u2019ve had, across the board, quite shy. 6 months on has definitely helped a lot of them settle down.<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: For 2020 I\u2019m hoping to get that tonne as before, plus a tonne from here, and maybe a tonne off a Te Awanga vineyard as well, which I\u2019m teeing up at the moment. My idea with chardonnay is to make it as complex and interesting as you can, so a little bit of malo here, and a bit of not-malo over there. Some full-solid ferments. Wild over here, some stuff that\u2019s being cold-settled and inoculated over there. Stuff from this vineyard, that vineyard and pull it all together and see what happens.<\/p>

Lots of winemakers I see tend to like that sense of control, and they always are manipulating it at every point in the process to get it to where it needs to be. Depends on their personality. A lot of people have a need for control. But I\u2019m more relaxed in my approach. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I know what I\u2019m doing. I don\u2019t need to get in there at every point. I don\u2019t need to fine it heavily or add acid or sugar or whatever. I\u2019m more interested in seeing what nature can deliver.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: One of the things I like about this chardonnay is the balance of it. It is noticeably oaked but in a specific, integrated way.<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: It\u2019s a Serugue<\/strong> barrel, made for Chardonnay. It\u2019s a top end barrel. I find if you\u2019re going to spend money on oak, don\u2019t skimp on it. You may as well get top quality, top end oak, and I really like the Serugues. They\u2019re more spice and gives palate weight but not so much that planky thing that can come through with some.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: I like that the fruit is really ripe, heading in a tropical direction. One thing I hear people say about Hawke\u2019s Bay Chardonnay is \u2018they\u2019re so acidic and grapefruity\u2019.<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: Hawke\u2019s Bay Chardonnay? If that\u2019s grapefruit and acidic, then what\u2019s Marlborough? It leaves no space for Marlborough chardonnay then?<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: I\u2019m always looking for the best of its kind \u2013 whether it\u2019s a supermarket wine, natural wine, old school wine.. We had our ‘Top 10 Tasting’ <\/strong>of Chardonnay, and Hawke\u2019s Bay just walked away with it. There were wines from all over New Zealand, but they finished, 12th<\/sup>, 18th<\/sup>, 23rd<\/sup>.. most of the Top 10 was Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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BE<\/strong>: We make awesome Chardonnay here. It\u2019s what I think we should be hanging our hat on. It\u2019s a no brainer. You can see why Tony made a business from it. I\u2019m a big fan of Hawke\u2019s Bay Merlot as well, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m trying to champion it myself. As much as people say they love it, it\u2019s a hard sell. I think it\u2019s been taken for granted, but it\u2019s slowly coming back. There\u2019s not that many people make it any more. From 2019 onwards I\u2019m going to have a Cabernet Franc\/Merlot<\/strong> blend.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Noooooooooooooo. Keep the Merlot as is, and then do a separate Cabernet Franc, on it\u2019s own. We need more Cabernet Franc, on its own. It\u2019s a brilliant wine.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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BE<\/strong>: It\u2019s too late. My issue is I only have a 1000 vines of Cabernet Franc and about 10,000 vines of Merlot.<\/p>

Back to Chardonnay \u2013 have you tried the Beach House chardonnays?<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: I\u2019ve had a few a while back and they were quite good. But to be honest I struggled to find any information about them. Do they have a Cellar Door?<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: My boss isn\u2019t the best at marketing them.. he just doesn\u2019t understand how to get the name out there. There used to be a Cellar Door for about 15-odd years. If you look at Google, it still says we\u2019re in Haumoana, but the winery is on Mere Road. Nobody knows.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: But you\u2019ve got your own vineyard \u2013 that\u2019s something a lot of people are aspiring to, and you\u2019re still a young winemaker with many vintages to come. Speaking to Dan or Olly and Amy, they\u2019d love their own patch, but how do they do that. So, you\u2019re in a good spot.<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: Our family trust has a vineyard. My Father passed away recently, so my brothers and I will be making some decisions in the next year or so as to how we\u2019re going to run this place. My idea is to buy the place off my brothers, but it\u2019s what this place is valued at \u2013 and there\u2019s a massive spectrum that could come in there. All those decisions will be coming up.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: Cellar door?<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: I worked at the Beach House<\/strong> Cellar door every summer Saturday for 5 years, and that was OK for a while but I got over it. Once I\u2019m there and I\u2019m doing it, I actually do enjoy it. Talking to the customer and I find that 90% of the people that come through the door are keen and want to listen. Once they\u2019re aware that I\u2019m actually the winemaker, and I can talk about every single facet of every single bottle, they hang off my every word. I did enjoy that side of it. Maybe. Have you been to Element Wines<\/strong> where they have a little gazebo and people can come and taste the wines? One step at a time. I\u2019ll get the vineyard locked in, and take one step at a time.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: There\u2019s the opportunity to be at festivals, or like that Hawke\u2019s Bay Pop-Up thing in Hastings.<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: We\u2019ve got the area here, we could easily kit this out with a few barrels and tables and whatever. Abbey Cellars<\/strong> is just there, so people could walk between here and there. For Zaria wines, I\u2019m pretty small at the moment and the plan was always for a slow, linear climb. My thought is that the longer you\u2019re able to stick around in the market for, and the longer people get an opportunity to hear from you, then eventually your business is at a stage where it can sustain itself, and you. I might be around 500 cases this year, then 1200, then 2000. Once you\u2019re at 5000 cases you\u2019re turning over almost a million dollars and you can extract a living from it.<\/p>

I\u2019m trying to keep things simple – I want to stick with my three wines \u2013 my Malbec Ros\u00e9, my barrel-fermented Chardonnay and my Red. I might do the odd special edition.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: This is really good. I would say it\u2019s perhaps not hit the heights of the 2019. Love the colour \u2013 really green!<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: No, and I agree. That was my first effort. The main reason that\u2019s not as good, in my opinion, is\u2026 I was always under the impression this was being hand-picked, and on the morning they had already ordered a machine to bring it in. I don\u2019t know what the reason was, but I was pretty pissed off. At least it was done at 5 in the morning so it came to the winery cold, really quickly. Pressed it off at 6am and it was in barrel by 6.30. Made the best of a bad situation. It\u2019s retained freshness and probably why you\u2019re picking up on the colour.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: What is it about Hawke\u2019s Bay that you think makes it the best place to make wine?<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: it\u2019s the opportunity to do whatever you like. You can get one of 20 different varieties and know you can make a great wine out of it. And Chardonnay. Chardonnay is my favourite variety now. My eldest brother is a winemaker too, and it was him who decided on the varietals for this place. Why they planed Semillon<\/strong> is another question. My cousin Grant who owns Red Metal<\/strong> and used to work at Sileni<\/strong>, had big dreams for Semillon. Of course you never know what\u2019s going to happen, and this was twenty years ago. I\u2019m thinking of taking those trees out and planting the last three rows. At the moment I\u2019m thinking the 1066 clone<\/strong> of Chardonnay which is super light crops and super interesting wines apparently.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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I\u2019ve thought about Chenin<\/strong>, maybe Gamay<\/strong>, but I dunno. This is a very Merlot-heavy vineyard so I think over time I\u2019ll probably convert a few more blocks over to something else. What do you think would work?<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Chardonnay.<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: Yeah, well there\u2019s the Chardonnay block there, the Merlot block in the middle, and the Malbec block at the back. I\u2019m thinking of pulling up that middle block and putting in another clone of Chardonnay.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: I don\u2019t know, of course. I\u2019m blessed with a complete lack of knowledge of making wine. I\u2019m just a well-educated consumer of wine. I don\u2019t understand half of what a winemaker talks about, but I understand the important half, that matters to me, to be able to do what I do. And I understand a lot more about the tourism side than most. And the consumer side of things, plus I\u2019ve done quite a lot with branding and what makes consumers tick in relation to buying habits \u2013 stuff like that.<\/p>

BE<\/strong>: I made wine since 2006 \u2013 a barrel or two off this place, and it wasn\u2019t until 2013 that I made my first Zaria wines. But before that I made what we called Alchemy<\/strong> and Element<\/strong>. My father was a pharmacist, so he was the Alchemist. And Alchemy was supposed to be the blend \u2013 it was Merlot\/Franc\/Malbec blend. And then Element was the single varietal of that blend, so we were going to single varietals of each as well. Then one day I was reading in the Hawke\u2019s Bay or NZ Wine magazine and I saw \u2018Alchemy Chardonnay\u2019. I still don\u2019t know if they thought it up themselves or saw one of my bottles in circulation. Same thing with Element. I was talking to Dom who has Element wines and I said \u2018what\u2019s the name of your new brand then?\u2019 He said \u201cElement\u201d and I was like \u2013 \u2018are you taking the piss?\u2019 Judging from Dom’s response I’m sure he had no idea I had made any wine under the Element name – it was just a coincidence. I hadn\u2019t trademarked either of these names, and it wasn\u2019t a business at that point, but I was planning on that. So, that was a lesson. I\u2019d already made some of the Zaria ros\u00e9 and I just thought let\u2019s run with that. It probably has more of a story to it than Alchemy.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: I like it when you get a product that just does what it says on the tin. This is an elegant label, and when you open it and try the product, it\u2019s the same \u2013 it\u2019s just a fit.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Towards the end of last year I picked up a couple of Hawke\u2019s Bay wines simply because the label caught my eye. 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