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2006 marks a special occasion for Happs, it will be our 25th Vintage. A time for us to celebrate and to reminisce. In this Issue
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Time to celebrate. A lot has happened in 25 years. We hope you enjoy our little stories about those 25 years, what has happened and how things have changed. This first story is written by Ros, who is a ten fingered typist, with bits added here and there by Erl, a two fingered typist! The story is therefore of a diversionary character. It is hard to believe that this vintage will be the 25th. How have things changed? I remember that first vintage in the new winery. The winery itself was a work of art, made from mud bricks and ‘sliding concrete form’, using the grit from the pits at the top of the hill on Commonage Road. Some of the 50 cent telegraph poles that came out of the old line from Busselton to Wonnerup as well as a few Busselton jetty timbers found a home there. The rest of the timber came from Jim House’s Mill, now closed down. Jim was a great character. He never wore shoes and knew a lot about saw sharpening, trees and cricket, and of course the history of the Yallingup district. A
series of small circular stained glass windows, set high in the walls depicted
the story of wine making from the pick and shovel stage, through to the grapes
and wine in the glass. We were proud of that building which Erl built with the
help of Anton Cheney and father and son team, Dennis and Les Cuthbert. It
seemed so big with its three 500 gallon waxed steel tanks at one end and the
five waxed concrete open fermenters at the other. We initially planted three red
grapes, Cabernet, Shiraz and Merlot. (Erl liked red wine better than white, so
that’s what he decided to make!) The crusher ran on rails on top. The fruit was
handed up from the back of a ute in 10 kg buckets. The idea was to do without a
must pump. The crusher was made with the help of Les Saxey in Busselton. The
stainless steel came from Sims scrap metal yard in Perth. Les’s dad started
Saxey’s foundry which used to be located behind his house in West Street near
the yacht club. They made pulleys and machined them up on a lathe. This was
before town planning came to Busselton. There was no such thing as a light
industrial area. Skip Forsytes boat building shed was behind
In
the centre of the winery was the basket press, recovered from Vasse Felix and
lovingly re-engineered by my father Adrian Jones. I think it took about 10 vintages before Erl really began to relax and actually enjoy vintage. There is always the pre-vintage tension that lasts until everything is shaken down. Is everything clean? Will the press work or will it cut out with some minor electrical problem when the precious juice is dripping slowly into the tray and oxidizing it’s head off. Will a nut fall off the crusher and bring the must pump to a screaming halt? Will an overloaded juice tray collapse and send the juice down the drain? Speak to any wine maker from any winery; all will have some great stories to tell! Each vintage is different. The crew has new personnel. As I write, it is January 24th and it’s pouring with rain. The vines are a month behind schedule due to a cool start to the season. This has never happened before. Will we be picking in the rain in late May? Horrors! Erl has just been looking at the radar picture showing where the rain is falling in a radius of 250 Km from Perth,. The Bureau updates the image every 10 minutes. It is pouring in Dunsborough, but not in Karridale for which he is grateful. The grapes from our Karridale Three Hills estate began to influence Happs wines from about 1997. Erl’s research had led him to believe that Augusta was the place to go to grow superior grapes. There has been a run of show successes for the Three Hills wines to confirm the point. The Three Hills label is applied to the best wines from the vineyard that bears that name. In the winery, the steel was soon replaced with stainless steel, including the novel variable capacity tanks, in some cases specially designed to include cooling across the floor where the yeast accumulates when you are stopping a ferment to make a sweet wine. The winery was equipped with a unique network of pipes to convey the fermentation gases and maintain tanks with a headspace free of oxygen at all times. Early acclaim as ‘the merlot man’ because of his success with that variety, was balanced with strong customer support for the sweet styles. Fuchsia took off like a rocket to become the top selling pink style in W.A. Making good sweet wine is a bit more technical than making dry wines, requiring great attention to detail, excellent equipment for cooling, an ability to look after wine in the absence of sulphur dioxide and absolute sterility in the bottling process.. Out of that experience came PF White and PF Red, the styles that are synonymous with the Happs label on the Eastern seaboard. Our beautiful little winery was soon filled to capacity with tanks and wine barrels obscuring the stained glass windows. The bottling and packaging came to be housed in its own shed and the crushing and pressing moved out to a steel framed ‘lean to’ that envelopes part of the old mud brick winery. We added an external tank farm, each tank insulated and refrigerated and some years later a massive shed for barrels and finished wine. Erl has always kept his finger on the wine making pulse. He is passionate about both the growing of the grapes and the making of the wine. Several wine makers have had a big influence over the wine styles, including Frank Kittler, Mark Aitken and Anne Coralie Fleury. Today the very competent, all round good guy, the Mark Warren, formerly of Lamont’s, is a key person in the team, happy to be working with grapes that offer so much potential. At the end of the day the grape sets the ceiling on what is possible. We have 30 varieties to work with so a cellar tasting is an event and an experience. Staff come and go, thankfully infrequently, but Erl’s sister Liz is a fixture. She is the one who restocks the cellar door at 5.30 AM each morning and sees it as her personal responsibility to make sure the labels go on straight and that bottling runs smoothly. Her varied life has included pruning and organizing the picking at vintage. Our ‘new man’, Bill Parsons, who has been with us for 3 years took over the pickers last year. With each vintage, we meet new people … sometimes recent graduates from overseas working vintages in both hemispheres. Making wine has ‘socializing advantages’. Even if your wife is not interested in growing grapes or making wine and selling it, at least you can share the joy of drinking it with her. Last night we took a bottle of our just released ‘Three Hills Sangiovese’ to Yallingup for dinner on the beach. We always take an extra glass in case we meet someone who might share the wine with us. Last night it was Rob Malcolm, from Yallingup Galleries who swore that he was off alcohol after a week at Rottnest, but being the happy feller that he is, helped out. The wine was superb. Talking with Rob is like coming full circle. Rob was also a teacher, came to Yallingup for the beach and the surf, bought his block on the Hill for $1100 and created his own hand made house. Hadn’t handled a saw before then. We had to laugh. Now the asking price for a block in Yallingup runs to a bit over a million and Rob makes fancy furniture. Rob helped us in the early days by creating the display shelves in the pottery. We meet him at exhibition openings at his delightful ‘Water Galleries’ and we love to catch up.. Here’s to the great wines of both past and future vintages and all the helpers who have contributed and will contribute in the future. We hope you, the reader, get as much pleasure as we do in sharing these wines with friends. Ros and Erl Happ Since our last newsletter, we have released for sale a number of new wines and vintages. New vintages include FUCHSIA 2005, MUSCAT A PINK 2005 & SAUVIGNON BLANC 2004, all now available from the cellar door and retail outlets. The 2005 Preservative Free White will be released for sale next week. New wines now available for purchase included three new additions (no pun intended) to the THREE HILLS range. These being all 2004 vintages of; EVA MARIE - is a blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. We believe this blend is capable of many expressions and in choosing this name we are hoping to separate this wine from the simple fruity style that dominates the market place. This wine has been barrel fermented, had solids inclusion, batonage and partial MLF and as a consequence is a world away from the style typically encountered. With this wine we are attempting to challenge consumer’s expectation of this classic blend. The name Eva Marie evolved from the names of the wives of the two original Happs brothers Charles and Andreas who migrated to Australia and whom we named our red Bordeaux blend Charles Andreas after. This wine displays the grassy characters expected of the blend but is more complex also displaying attractive lime, white peach and lanolin characters. The palate is medium to full bodied with tight, crisp acidity and a creamy mouth-feel. The flavours are of grass, lime and straw and are incredibly persistent. Not your typical quaffing SSB. VIOGNIER - This is the first white wine to come out under the Three Hills label. It is produced from the variety Viognier ( Vee-On-Yay ) grown at our Karridale vineyard. We have spent the last few years experimenting with different winemaking techniques on this variety and think we have now developed a clear path for production of this variety. It has significantly higher levels of phenolics compared to most white varieties and these need to be tamed by the winemaker and embraced by the consumer. When done right the result is a wine with wonderful texture and mouth-feel and this sets Viognier apart. This wine has the intense orange blossom and apricot aromas typical of the variety with a slight spice and nectarine note. The palate is intensely flavoured yet soft, round and textural with flavours of almond, nectarine, mandarin, and orange with soft acidity and long flavour. SANGIOVESE - This wine is another new comer to the Three Hills range. In the early years when the vines were young this variety was somewhat disappointing but as the vines have matured so have the wines improved. Sangiovese is an Italian variety that produces interesting savoury characters and notable tannin in its native Tuscany. This wine has an attractive savoury aroma displaying characters of black olive, dark chocolate, prune, raspberry and mocha. The front palate is dominated by sweet berry and cherry flavours while the late palate is more savoury in character and is distinguished by some obvious drying tannin typical of this variety. A great compliment to savoury foods. We re very proud of our
cellar door staff and the service they provide our customers. The next time you
visit you will be greeted by one of the
following.
Leonie Ladhams the Cellar Door Manager on the left, Elisha Ladhams in the
middle, Brett Ladhams on the right with Sauvignon Blanc 2002 normally $15 (6 bottles - $10 ea 12 bottles - $9 ea 24+ bottles - $8 ea) Purchase Any Case or Mixed (12 bottles) other than above. Get 2 bottles FREE (1 x 2002 Tintanello, 1 x 2003 Marrimee) Purchase any 6 bottles other than above Get 1 bottle FREE Either (1 x 2002 Tintanello or 1 x 2003 Marrimee) 2 Pack Special $25.50 !!! Save 15% (1 x 2002 Tintanello + 1 x 2003 Marrimee) 3 pack Special $38.25 !!! Save 15% (1 x 2002 Tintanello + 1 x 2003 Marrimee + 1 x 2005 Fuchsia) If you are interested in a holiday in the beautiful southwest and want to spend that holiday in a well appointed comfortable home, then the Happs Holiday Home might be for you. Have a look at all the facilities and features at www.happs.com.au/hamelin . As a special offer to our Happs customers we are offering a book two nights get one night FREE special. Simply insert "Happs Newsletter Customer" as the first three words in your booking comment to obtain this special offer. We have now included on our website a list of retail outlets across the country where you can purchase our wines. The link is available on the header page. To see the list now just click on Retail Outlets. Also remember you can keep abreast of all the upcoming events in and around our cellar door by viewing our events page on the website. If you would like to purchase wines, please download, fill in and send us the Cellar Specials Order Form For Wine Orders or Additional Information |
