Nearly home... MH Tour Blog Stage 18 Preview

With the peaks of the Pyrenees behind them, the jerseys for their year's Le Tour have all but been decided. That means it's time for someone to snatch some glory with a stage win prior to Paris. And with just a few climbs, the way is open for any sprinter still with the puff after the last climb to go for it.

Profile c/o letour.fr

Wiggins has the Maillot Jaune sewn up and onto himself, Sagan the green one, and Voeckler that nice spotty one you get for climbing mountains. Expect them to play fairly safe tonight, and it's time for someone else to have a crack at the stage win tonight.


OUR PICK: We've been tipping it for weeks now, it's time for GO GO GOSSY to pick up a stage win in a flat-out charge to the finish.

DRINK MATCH: We're just east of Bordeaux and the Dordogne here at the finish tonight, so it's time for a nice glass of claret... See if you can find a Cotes de Bergerac for a close-by tipple.

AUSSIE MATCH: Right, into Bordeaux-style material from down under, lets think some icons:
I'd go Yarra Valley for the Mount Mary Quintet myself, but for the other side of country, you'd be hard pressed to beat the Cullen Diana Madeline. Could you drink better on a cold winter night??

Stage 17 It's over folks! Or is it.....? Bagnéres-de-Luchon to Peyragudes

Stage 16 & the haul up Col du Tourmalet was always going to produce a result one way or another.

Like many of our readers we were firmly clutching onto that last sliver of hope that somehow, and by some mysterious turn of fortune, Cadel Evans would be able to claw his way back as a real GC contender. Even if he managed to get all the Gods on his side, he would have needed more to evade the formidable SKY Train. What a team!

Lets hope Cadel can keep his chin up & not slide any further down the classifications. With the pressure off, hopefully we'll see some less conservative riding from him. Was very touching watching Cadel & big George ride across the line together at the end.

What a ride from Voeckler to steal the polka-dot jeursey. He is a machine. What about those facial expressions?

Tonight it's Stage 17, Bagnéres-de-Luchon to Peyragudes, the last in the Pyrenees. So what can we expect? It's short yet sharp with a couple of Cat 1's, a Cat 2, a Cat 3, a sprint and yeah there is the HC, a nasty 7.7% ave 11km climb to bust up the Peleton towards the end of the stage.

Will any one challenge the Sky boys? Nibali showed a bit of spirit last night & will be keen to challenge again to trim the 18 sec between himself & Froome in 2nd. Expect some action from the Liquigas lads.

Sagan has got the green in the bag, so all eyes will be on the breakaway for the KOM polka-dot jeursey. Rolland who earlier in the race had a crack at the jeursey himself will now help Voeckler (107pts) defend his slender lead over Kessiakoff (103 pts). Or will he?

OUR PICK: Voeckler for back to back wins & and another dozen or so new facial contortions...

DRINK MATCH: Given the chilly viewing conditions from the couch & our proximity to Spain lets leap over the Pyrenees into Tempranillo country & sip on any of the fantastic Thelmo Rodriguez reds from the north. His M2 de Matallana never fails.

AUSSIE MATCH: The Mayford Tempranillo out of NE Vic at Porepunkah is superb so to are some local versions in our own Pyrenees. Dog Rock the best of them.

MH Tour Blog Stage 16: The Epic Stage

OK Tourists, we're seriously into the Haute Pyrenees tonight with a couple of massive Hors Categorie climbs, including the infamous Col du Tourmalet at over 2km high! So unlike Schleckie, we recommend you stay off the diuretics and nestle in for a long one tonight with a glass of good red instead...

Profile c/o letour.fr

It could well be said that it's now or never for the GC competitors. With Wiggins well out ahead, this, and tomorrow night's stage will almost certainly see changes: either an extended margin on Froome, Nibali and Evans, or perhaps a comeback from the Italian and/or Aussie mountain-men.

We'll most likely see a few would-be climbers break out from the pack early, and within the Peloton the SKY riders will be working flat-out once again to protect Wiggo's lead from the likely assailants: Evans and Nibali. Both will fancy themselves on that massive descent into the finish, and we'll look forward to watching them with balls to the wall to close the Wiggins gap...

OUR PICK: Nibali to bring it in, hotly pursued by Evans, making up a minute or so on Wiggins....

DRINK MATCH:  Here in the French Pyrénées, it's time to get into Madiran: Usually mainly the Tannat grape (as its name suggests, plenty of tannin around a dark-berry fruit flavour), along with parcels of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Try: Domaine du Crampilh Madiran 


AUSSIE MATCH: If we're talking dark berry fruit and fine tannins in the heart of the Pyrenees... (the ones closer to home) ...then it might be time for a bit of our Mitchell Harris Pyrenees Cabernet Sauvignon 2009...perfect for a cold winter night watching little blokes go up big mountains....


And don't forget, for a little look at our Winter Reds, including the Cab, our new Mataro / Grenache / Shiraz, and the Pyrenees Sangiovese, get into our Winter Warmer Six-Pack - $120 for this month!

Our Pyrenees Cabernet...before it met the bottle.

The Mitchell Harris Winter Warmer Six Pack!

It's cold...so damn cold out there! 

Who needs a little WINTER WARMER ???

That's right...a tasty 6 pack for only $120!! 2 x Sangiovese, 2 x Cabernet Sauvignon and 2 x Mataro Grenache Shiraz (new release).

Just email us on info@mitchellharris.com.au to get your hands on this ripper 6 pack offer.

Free delivery in Ballarat, $10 everywhere else.

A walk through the vineyard

The Peerick Vineyard at Moonambel

 Great to have a walk through the gorgeous Peerick vineyard out of Moonambel today. What a great little oasis in the Pyrenees! Vineyard looking great. Disease free so far... 
Cabernet almost through flowering.
Looks like lower yields this year which will hopefully translate into some good concentration of flavour.
Fingers crossed for more sunny days like today!!

The Mitchell Harris 2012 Fumé 

Mitchell Harris Success at the Ballarat Wine Show

This week saw the annual Ballarat Wine Show take place at Bray Raceway.

The competition sees entries from Ballarat and the surrounding wine regions: Grampians, Pyrenees, Bendigo, Heathcote, Macedon and Geelong.

A great chance for us to benchmark some of our new releases and see what some of the other great producers in our area our doing.

And, of course, a bit of love for some of our babies. This even included a silver (rare for a pinkie) for our 2011 Rosé. A great lid-dipping to Johnno for his great work in crafting our current range, which is finding its way onto wine-lists around the country.

Wine Fiction: Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker

I thought recently I'd expand my feel for the wine game by having a look at a few novels, to see what sort of wine-related fiction is out there for oenophile reader. So to kick off, I picked up this little page-turner that promised to give the reader a bit of mystery in "la France profonde."

The plot revolves around the goings-on in a tiny rural village in the Dordogne, where it seems an outbreak of Eco-terrorism may be about to consume the locals and their sleepy valley. Into this marches local Police Chief, Bruno Courrèges, who, as well as hunting, cooking, and coaching the kiddies' rugby team, keeps a firm finger on his community's pulse.

A huge multinational wine company is looking longingly at the valley's untapped winemaking heritage and (so far) cheap land values for their next shiny mega-winery, and there is some good, thought-provoking material here on whether the new jobs promised might be good for such a tiny hamlet, or whether something more than land gets sold off when big producers move in. Some themes run throughout the book that would be familiar to many of us involved in Aussie winemaking.

There are plenty of mouth-watering food and wine moments throughout, well-rounded characters, and it's easy to see this would have been great fun for hard-nosed business and political journo Martin Walker to write, presumably on or inspired by his yearly sojourn in the Dordogne.

It's great fun to read, and I look forward to hooking into some of the others in the Bruno Courrèges series... Keep an eye out for them!




WINE MATCH: A Bordeaux, let's say Chateau Petrus 1961?
FAILING THAT: Mitchell Harris Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 ...;-)

-Mitch

Dark Vineyard
By Martin Walker
Published by Quercus 2009

Vintage 2011...Bringing in the 2011 Cabernet

Getting toward the end of our long, late, cool vintage of 2011 and it's time to head up into the Moonambel Hills again for a look at how the 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon is travelling.

Some brilliant work in the vineyard throughout the growing season has kept the floods and the rot at bay, and we've got some gorgeous big black bunches hanging there, ready for picking.

Always hard of course to judge what this season's weather will do over the next week or so, so it's time to work out whether to take the leap and start picking.

Johnno checks the sugar content on the refractometer, basically a prism that reacts differently according to the sugar content of the sample inside it. With the Cabernet at 12.5 Baumé, and the weather ahead looking let's say, a little dodgy... 

It's time to get in the fruit, about 7 tonnes, and start the fermentation for our 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Follow that Cab....

Ok, so after a few weeks fermenting in our big new shiny open-top fermenters, the 2010 Mitchell Harris Cabernet has been drained out, and hits the presses today. Nice work Johnno, you deserve a beer.

Beautiful fruit from our Moonambel vineyard looks like it'll make one of our best vintages yet, and now set for a stint in our snappy new French Oak barrels.

Stay tuned for more progress...

Mitchell Harris Cabernet 2010 - a work in progress...

A few snaps from this week, showing that winemaking isn't all sitting on a verandah watching the sun set over the vineyard.

The 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon in our open-top fermenters.

If you look closely you can probably even see Johnno breaking a sweat in some of these shots!

Things look promising for a top vintage 2010...