Walking the Parcels of Clos Ostler
Updated: 4 days ago
An elevated view of the vineyard at Clos Ostler.
From a distance, Clos Ostler appears as a single sweep of vines on the limestone slope. Look more closely and that apparent simplicity resolves into smaller places. Rows turn with the ground. Paths separate the planted areas. Names such as Caroline’s, Bally, Cleavage, Audrey’s and Kairos give the people working here a more precise way to describe where they are.
The estate’s vineyard plan brings those names together. For a visitor, it is an introduction to the vineyard around the suites. For someone discovering the wines, it shows how the smaller places within the estate contribute to the wines.
The Clos Ostler vineyard plan, with Pinot Noir in green, Chardonnay in gold and Pinot Gris in rose.
The shape of the vineyard
The colours make a further distinction within the named blocks. Pinot Noir, shown in green, occupies most of the plan. The gold area within Kairos marks Chardonnay, while the rose-coloured strip within Audrey’s marks Pinot Gris. A block can therefore contain more than one grape variety. Its name alone does not describe everything planted there.
Caroline’s, Bally and Audrey’s form the main sequence of adjoining blocks on the plan. Cleavage extends away from that sequence, while Kairos sits separately to the left. The drawing also places the Waitaki, EOS and Ostler suites in relation to the vines. The names on a bottle begin to acquire a setting, and the estate becomes easier to imagine at the scale of a walk.
A block name identifies a working part of the vineyard. On the ground, the slope and the position of the rows give that name its physical meaning. Keeping both in view helps explain how conditions can vary from one part of the hillside to another, even within a shared aspect.
Five clones across the vineyard
The Pinot Noir plantings include 115, 667, 777, UCD6 and Abel. An early technical plan, dated February 2004, records several of these in separate groups of rows across the main blocks. The block names and the clonal pattern overlap. Caroline’s, for example, is a place on the map; it does not describe one clone, nor does its boundary define all the fruit that contributes to Caroline’s Pinot Noir.
This distinction is useful when reading a wine label. A block, a grape clone and a finished wine are three different ways of describing the vineyard. A clone identifies the vine material. A block locates it. The finished wine brings selected components together after their development has been followed in the cellar.
From separate components to Caroline’s and EOS
At Clos Ostler, the Pinot Noir components are harvested and fermented separately. This preserves the opportunity to consider their differences before deciding on the final compositions. What one part of the vineyard contributes in a cool year may have a different emphasis in a warmer one.
Caroline’s reflects that season through all five Pinot Noir clones. Its identity rests on bringing the vineyard’s different contributions into a complete expression of the year. EOS concentrates on perfume, power and structure, with its selection led by 667 and 777 and a smaller contribution from Abel. Both belong to the same estate and the same vintage; each has its own composition.
The map therefore provides a useful first step towards understanding the wines. It shows some of the material with which the work begins. The final proportions and the character of a particular vintage emerge through tasting, rather than from a fixed formula attached to each row.
The white wines within the clos
The current plan places Chardonnay within Kairos and Pinot Gris along the outer side of Audrey’s. Both sit beside Pinot Noir plantings. The white wines come from particular parts of the clos, each with its own vine material and harvest decisions.
The February 2004 technical drawing and the current plan record different stages of the vineyard. The earlier drawing is useful for tracing the clonal plantings; the current plan shows how the varieties occupy the named blocks today. Reading each in its own time avoids treating a vineyard as something fixed at the moment it was first planted.
A map invites attention to the land before a bottle is opened. Tasting Caroline’s, EOS, Chardonnay or Audrey’s then returns that attention to the glass. The variety and the composition change, while the work remains centred on this vineyard and on understanding what each part contributes through the seasons.
.png)
Comments