(1) 2010 Providence Private Reserve, Matakana
2007 MLB Regular Season PIT vs CHC 桑田真澄後援部分逐球 Masumi Kuwata
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoUGJwZw9Ng
Masumi Kuwata (桑田 真澄 Kuwata Masumi, born 1 April 1968 in Yao, Osaka, Japan) is a former Japanese right-handed pitcher who played the bulk of his career with the Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball. He pitched 21 seasons with the Giants, beginning in 1986. Near the end of his career, he played part of one season with the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball.
Masumi Kuwata, Japanese baseball hero, first discovered Providence some years ago when it was introduced to him at a restaurant in Miyazaki, Japan. Providence quickly became his favourite New World wine. M. Kuwata mentioned he would love to make a vintage at Providence. This happened in 2010, which was a perfect year. As a result of M. Kuwata and Jim Vuletic’s co-operation, we have the best vintage of Providence produced to date, the 2010 Kuwata Vintage.
The 2010 vintage began with usual rainfall during winter, preparing the vines for the growing season. The 2010 summer was the driest on record for the area. Temperatures reached 33degrees by day and lows of 8 by night, creating incredible concentration and complexity of flavours. It was the perfect vintage from start to finish. The quality of the grapes used in the 2010 vintage were among the best in our history.
Cabernet Franc 46%, Merlot 38%, Malbec 16% (13.5%alc)
Concentrated berry colour with a rich nose of currant and cherry. On the palate it shows tremendous depth and texture with purity of fruit. Chocolate, coffee and berry characteristics combine with elegant acidity and ripe tannins to produce a voluptuous texture and Grand Cru finesse. An extremely complex wine. Long, elegant finish. Age potential 15 - 25 years.
https://www.providencewines.com/2010
“ Jim Vuletic has been working in his wine shed for 25 years. He was one of the first wine makers on the hills of Matakana. Now there are also a number of flashy Boutique-style vineyards. But such outward appearances do not interest him. "I need no château and no catwalk, it's the wine that has to make the difference," he says.
But Jim Vuletic wants to make wine. "I just have to make wine," he emphasises. Not any wine; he aims for the ideal which for him is the Bordelais and, above all, the Château Cheval Blanc. For him "good wine is man's greatest cultural achievement" and Cheval Blanc remained unsurpassed: a "miracle of elegance and perfection". The 1947 vintage, which those in the know consider the best wine of the last century, he "has drunk already fourteen to fifteen times".
In his cellar Malbec and Merlot are fermenting in open wooden tubs, the Cabernet Franc has not been harvested yet. Jim Vuletic sleeps little because he wants to be close to his grapes and his musts. Again and again he cleans his wine press and his cellar, "I'm a bit of a clean freak," he says with a grin. He develops the wines for two years in new French Barriques of the Tonnellerie Aquitaine. Toward the Bordelais, which has been his inspiration for a long time, he has now developed an ambivalent attitude. It was the elegance of these wines which so beguiled him and which "I am now often missing. It's a shame that so many blockbusters are mixed together these days."
In many cellars wine makers 'manipulated' with reverse osmosis and micro oxydation, he says, while he did not even know yet how this was functioning. Anyway, one finds him most often in his little vineyard which, for him, is a 'magic place'. Jim Vuletic produces his wines with traditional craftsmanship, without much equipment but with a lot of intuition. "We oldies know that, once upon a time, the Bordelais was different and had a different taste," he says somewhat nostalgically.
It may sound strange when a New Zealander in Matakana claims: "I am still producing the traditional Saint-Emilion." But that best describes his work and his style of wine.”
Fine Magazine June 2015, Text: Rainer Schäfer
Photography: Johannes Grau
https://www.fine-magazines.de/
https://www.providencewines.com/press
Purpose built, temperature-controlled cellar.
New Zealand-Merlot and blends
