Shed Red 2012

The Shed Red 2011 is nearly ready for drinking, that is, nearly ready for drinking by other people after I give bottles as Christmas presents, once the recipient has signed a legally binding disclaimer, naturally.  Indeed, I have already given one bottle away to a relative who was interested in trying home wine making or, to give it its scientific term; ‘getting drunk on the cheap during a recession’.  Early reports are that Shed Red is better drunk after leaving it to breath for a couple of days.  This, I am given to understand, gives the chemical smell and aftertaste time to dissipate.  This may well be the first wine that should not be decanted near varnished surfaces.

So while Shed Red 2011 will shortly only be a memory, and for those whose higher brain functions it inhibits, maybe not even that, excitement is building about Shed Red 2013 – okay rosé!

This was a golden summer, but only in terms of the medal haul of Team GB.  Weatherwise it wasn’t great, in fact the Met Office put out a press release officially declaring it the most ‘bloody miserable’ summer since records began, and that includes the one with the Ark.

The wet summer has given us a truly golden autumn.  The trees have been spectacular this year, leaves shimmering gold and amber and fiery red.  They are, as a result of the (surprise) wind and rain, mostly on their way to being attractive mulch now, but for a few days the colours were glorious.

The wet weather may have produced attractive foliage, but it’s been hard on the crops, my vine in particular.  One of the most important decisions in any grape grower’s life is when to prune the leaves from the vine, allowing the sunlight to shine directly on the crop.  The problem is that the leaves also shelter the grapes from being battered by the rain.  This year, the decision was simple, there was no sunshine and there was plenty of rain.  In addition to a lack of sunshine, I am now able to say with certainty that grape guzzling critters are quite happy to brave the elements while the cats that kept the squirrels at bay last year were, presumably, at home curled up on top of a radiator, occasionally shitting in their owner’s shoe to relieve the monotony or whatever the hell it is that cats do.

The result is that the yield, as they say, is down.  This has affected not just my harvest, but the good people at Nyetimber, who are reported not to have even bothered harvesting this year.

Yea, well, Nyetimber may have bottled it (or not), but it takes more than a vastly reduced yield and the possibility that the under-developed grapes may result in a drink that requires its own entry on the periodic table (SRx) to put team Shed Red off getting out the demijohns, the sugar and the fining powder and other chemical additives that make the stuff drinkable and, importantly, makes drinking it ‘quite an experience’ rather than ‘death by misadventure’.

I have actually tried some of the 2012 and it is an improvement on the 2011, a darker colour (although still a rose rather than a true red, it is a much darker blush, think ‘social mortification resulting in having to make a large donation to a badger sanctuary’ rather than ‘used wrong soup spoon at dinner’ levels of embarrassment) and a more complex taste, there is almost no way in which this could be mistaken, or used for, paint thinner.

Moreover, this is very much a limited edition.  Last year there was about forty bottles of the stuff, this year, a mere eleven or, as my winemaker explained the other night ‘ten’, not that I begrudge him a bottle although I hope that he sipped it and savoured it rather than bolting it with the determination of Frankenstein attempting to destroy his own creation.

Odd though that a year which gave the smaller crop of poor grapes has produced a superior wine.  One thing is for sure, when drinking a 2012 vintage, people will be thinking about gold.  A shame Nyetimber passed on that.