Vintage 2007

The 2007 vintage will be remembered by many wine regions for all the wrong reasons. The effect of the bushfires, frost and hail devastated vineyards across Australia and wiped out entire grape harvests in some regions. Our vineyard in Dookie was extremely fortunate to be spared from these calamities. Our most challenging condition was the drought with essentially no rain during the growing season. Warmer than average temperatures during October when flowering was occurring in the vineyard resulted in reduced flower set. The high temperatures and lack of rain continued during December and January and lead to less than average bunch numbers and sizes. Berries were also small. This reduction in yield was fortuitous as we would not have had sufficient water to keep the vines going during the summer otherwise.

The extended dry, warm conditions caused the grapes to ripen much earlier than anticipated and completely caught us by surprise. As we scrambled to prepare for vintage, the grapes poured in, variety by variety. While these small berries did not yield much juice, the depth of flavour in the juice that was extracted was intense. Consequently, the wines produced from the 2007 vintage have concentrated favours with great colour intensity in the reds.

With the departure of our vineyard manager Greg Smith to greener pastures, Max Keele, our long time right hand man, has taken on the job of overseeing the vineyard. Working closely with John Runting from Wine Network, Max is managing his new responsibilities with enthusiasm and great attention to detail. This season has been a ripper. Sangiovese kicked off budburst in late August with excellent fruit set achieved. An extremely hot January kept us on our toes maintaining water requirements - fortunately the Dookie dirt is impressive with its outstanding water holding capacity.

Early ripening meant early picking and as our vineyard has been hard pruned over the last two years, this has resulted in lower yields, easier picking and highly intensive flavoured fruit. With fine weather over harvest, grapes were delivered to our winery in excellent condition. We are enthused at the prospects for the future of this wine and w ith this year's pruning well underway we are now looking forward to the season ahead.

Vintage 2005 will be fondly remembered for the 164mm of rain that fell in February. Rain is always welcomed and fortunately this rainfall had no detrimental effect on fruit quality. Weather patterns were in stark contrast to 2004 when consecutive 40 degree days and hot northerly winds caused us unavoidable stress. With consistently warm conditions, vintage was anticipated to be two weeks ahead of 2004. As it turns out the downpour was a blessing in disguise. It slowed down the ripening process and allowed the fruit to gradually develop intense primary fruit characters and flavour concentration.

The lead up to harvest was ideal, with consistently warm days and no extreme weather conditions. During winter 2004, with a grape surplus looming, and some contracts not being renewed, we took the opportunity to hard prune the vineyard in order to reduce the yield and increase fruit quality. The unpredictability and eccentric nature of the viognier required particularly extensive shoot thinning and some fruit dropping. This time consuming practice benefited the fruit left on the vine significantly. The reward was a distinctive aroma and character displayed during peak maturity as the fruit was hand picked. With this years pruning now underway we are now looking forward to the season ahead.

We welcomed our new viticulturist, Greg Smith, with his wife Cathy to our team in September last year. Greg previously worked for 7 years on his Yarra Valley family vineyard and has approached his new position with enthusiasm and dedication. Here he describes his first impressions : “I was really surprised with the vigour of this vineyard and the reduced spraying requirements in a warmer climate. The infamous Dookie red dirt is impressive, particularly its exceptional water holding capacity and its unique ability to stain clothes!

Mother nature influenced a number of different characteristics in the vineyard. There was a cool start to the season; fruit was clean from disease and excellent fruit set was achieved. The viognier vines cropped magnificently and in order to ensure the best quality hand thinning was necessary. Even though it was not as hot a season overall as 2003, we experienced 4 successive days during February with over 40 o heat - 24 hour irrigation was required to maintain vine and fruit health. Although this spell caused anxiety, the long hot dry end to the season was ideal for ripening and harvest. As we believe our wine is made in the vineyard, I am looking forward to continuing to enhance the quality of the fruit and with particular developments to canopy management and pruning techniques planned for the year ahead we look forward to these improvements being far reaching.”

Winter was ominously dry. Some interesting developments included the expansion of vineyard area under shiraz and viognier and new plantings of merlot and sangiovese. Merlot and sangiovese were the outstanding performers in a four year on-site trial looking at the affinity of the cultivars with the distinctive Dookie terroir and two vintages of micro-batches of wines. Merlot, an infamously fickle variety in Australian vineyards, looked more than comfortable, settling into produce nicely balanced, even crops of well coloured and concentrated berries and very promising wines. Sangiovese looks equally at home.

This was a warm, dry and very short season, with only a couple of “very hot” days. However it wasn't without its difficulties. Birds and all kinds of exotic insect species sought refuge in the vineyard. On the other hand the drought made weed control easy, and the low humidity meant little pressure from mildews. Fruit was very sound and there were still some missed bunches in good shape six weeks after harvest. In the older vineyard the drought tortured shiraz and cabernet sauvignon produced a light crop of very fine fruit, characterised by loose bunches with small berries of high concentration and colour. The fruit ripened early and with clear weather conditions over harvest, grapes were delivered to our winery in excellent condition. This high quality fruit has produced superior parcels of wine which are now storied in a variety of French and American barrels to undergo their secondary fermentation. We are excited at the prospects for the future of this wine.