An update from Rich
We have been hard at work ensuring the vines are looking happy and healthy as véraison has been coming on fast in the last few weeks due to a bout of warm sunny weather – finally!
Some of the work done on the vineyard include opening up the canopy on the ‘darker side’ of the Sauvignon Blanc and taking fruit off on the small shoots. We also dropped some weight out of the Abel clone Pinot Noir vines and opened the canopy there as well and moved through the Lakefront block removing any green fruit or green shoulders that we saw.
We’re now in the Top Block of the Pinot Noir and moving the wires up whilst also ensuring the vines are in balance and doing some leaf plucking where necessary to ensure adequate light penetration. We are getting some good consistency in the vineyard véraison is almost finished.
Interestingly, we our two Riesling blocks are showing quite marked differences with one block having bunches that range from small to large and quite advanced, whereas the other block has much smaller bunches but a bigger yield – it’s amazing how different the blocks are given their close proximity.
Highlights over the last few weeks was our visit from Masumoto-san, the President of our distribution company in Japan along with a group of 22 Japanese comprising wine trade and sommeliers – they were quite a fun bunch. We also had Garry King visit from Tonnellerie Saint Martin who provide some of our French oak barrels. We really enjoyed his laid-back style and it is always great to meet people that have a part to play in the production of our wines. It was great to have Eddie and Christine from Rathdowne Cellars in Melbourne come up to the vineyard and sit for an enjoyable tasting of wines in the afternoon sun at Ah Foo’s House. I always enjoy a break from the vineyard work to enjoy some of our wines with customers.
We have said goodbye to our German friends who had been working with us for 6 weeks and sadly Sai has now left our permanent team so we wish him all the best.
My lastest yield estimates look like we’ll have over 100 tonnes of fruit with Pinot Noir about 70% of that total. Now we play the waiting game until harvest. Looking forward to it!
(In this update I have included two charts below to show the difference a week can make on the vineyard in terms of véraison and also what our bunch sizes look like across the vineyard)
Just 10 days after the photo above – the development has been quite outstanding!
