‘We completed the harvest – around 1,500 tonnes of grapes – on March 27 this year. That’s 10 days earlier than when I joined Nautilus in 1998. Right now, it’s a watching brief. We still have quite a few Sauvignon Blanc ferments that are running, plus Chardonnay and Pinot in barrel, so we’re monitoring those, tracking them to see that they’re going dry. Temperature-controlled Sauvignon in stainless steel completes ferment in three-four weeks, whereas a natural Chardonnay ferment in barrel can take months. During that time we keep an eye on it and top up the barrels and stir as we need to. Then we start to think about blending. 

‘We do around 35 different Sauvignon Blanc ferments from each part of the vineyard. Each of these is a potential blend component, so at some stage we do a classification tasting – although we’ve already got a good idea of what will go where. We’re looking for a bit more palate weight with the Sauvignon these days, trying to turn the volume down on the aromatics. As well as Nautilus – our top brand – we have the Opawa and Twin Islands brands. We make 100,000 cases in all, split across the three, the vast majority of which is Sauvignon Blanc [there are just 2,000 cases of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Albariño combined]. 

‘So it’s actually quite a good time of year to get away and visit the market – hence why I’m here in London. There’s nothing super-urgent to do back home and I’ve got a great team who know what they’re doing. They only contact me if there’s a problem – and I haven’t heard anything yet. 

‘In the vineyard, we’ve had our first frost, so the leaves are dropping and we’ve started pruning. Pruning is a massive job in Marlborough – there are over 50 million vines to prune, all by hand, and it takes weeks and weeks. It’s tough work – particularly on cold mornings.’

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Mariachiara Faccin

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