Many a slip twixt vine and lip

The Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT) Bachelor of Viticulture and Winemaking student won the 2021 Gingko Trophy for the best wine student at the 2021 Marlborough Wine Show, sponsored by QuayConnect, for a Chardonnay that seemed destined to fail. "I was flabbergasted, and completely shocked, but I was really happy," says Johnny, who lost most of his Chardonnay grapes to birds, along with the Chenin Blanc grapes he thought could supplement the harvest. "They were just about all gone too," says Johnny. "I thought I was pretty stuffed, but I found some Albariño grapes, which hace completely different characteristics to Chardonnay and you wouldn't normally blend them together. But I didn't have a Plan B so ended up with 60 percent Chardonnay, 20 percent Chenin Blanc and 20 Albariño - and no idea how it would turn out."

Johnny continued with his winemaking plan, treating it as a Chardonnay, but had an issue with high acidity due to the unripe Albariño grapes. He decided to carry on using malolactic fermentation to give the wine a creamy, buttery taste, done by adding a bacteria culture to kickstart the process. Unfortunately, the room the wine was in had a temperature malfunction which killed off the malolactic fermentation process.

"At this stage I nearly called it quits as nothing was going my way and I seemed jinxed. But I put the wine in oak and left it on the lees - the acid levels started to drop and every week it developed and became how I wanted it." Johnny was the last in hig class to get his wine bottled.

Ngarita Warden, NMIT Viticulture and Wine Tutor, says Johnny's win is "awesome" especially as no other student won a medal. "Johnny worked so hard in every paper, he has a great attitude and the effort he put into his wine was unbelievable - it's a really well-deserved award."