As May quickly approaches and our wines are finished ferment and now preparing for bottling (early release whites) or maturing safely in barrel (reds), it's the perfect moment to reflect on the Vintage that was.....

Like all years, 2024 brought it's unique challenges however the season overall has proved to be exciting and fruitful with the promise of some wonderful wines ahead.

The growing season had a cool early start and quite a lot of December rain, which resulted in good bunch set and canopy growth in the vineyards.  Our dry grown blocks at Lot 94 in particular benefit from this early summer rain to build up soil moisture for the season. Steady warm days in January and February lead to lovely ripening and perfect harvest conditions for our sparkling Chardonnay and Pinot blocks as well as Rose and White varieties of Chardonnay, Pinot Gris,  Riesling in Clare and Sauvignon Blanc in the Adelaide Hills. Our first red pick, Pinot Noir, also came into the winery in February and is looking fantastic.

Early March saw a flurry of Shiraz ripening (on average a couple of weeks earlier than last year) before Mother Nature saw fit to throw the curveball of a 4 day heatwave over the March long weekend.  A good portion of our Shiraz was off the vine prior to the heat and we were also able to harvest all our dry grown vineyards at Lot 94 the first warm day, which was a great outcome for these wines. The hot weather lead to swift ripening of all varieties and as such the harvest window for red grapes was quite condensed this year, which made for some interesting logistical challenges in the winery.  It's a tricky year indeed when Shiraz and Cabernet blocks are ready for harvest in the same week! It wasn't all unwelcome news though, the heat proved to be quite favourable to our Grenache blocks this year, which cope well in the warmth and developed fantastic fruit intensity in the weeks before harvest.

Keep an eye out for our first release wines of the 2024 vintage, with Riesling, Pinot Gris and Sauvigon Blanc all due for bottling in May.  These wines have all benefited from the early steady warm weather and are showing excellent freshness and depth of flavour.  These whites will soon be followed by Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Tempranillo mid year which we are really excited about so stay tuned!