Lucky for us, the weather was a amazing, settled and dry (apart from that one day) and we could manage a controlled easy harvest after all. We picked everything when it was ready, no concessions to labour shortages or impending rain which is an absolute luxury.

Colours and flavours in the young wines, some still fermenting, are vibrant and plush. Early flowering and a hot summer did a great job so we didn’t need the normal hang time to get things where we wanted them. Beautifully balanced acid, sugar and flavour. Tough to pick a favourite this year, but the Sauvignon Blancs, Chardonnay and Syrah’s look pretty bloody good at the moment.

Crops were down a little overall….there’s no such thing as the perfect season I guess. Berries were small and bunches were loose due to a cold snap back in November at the critical flowering stage. Again, great for quality.

We grow all our grapes Organically now, with some fully certified and some still in conversion. A season like this makes life easy with low pressure from mother nature. We’re now concentrating on keeping the vines healthy before the leaves start to drop and things go dormant for winter. It’s a really critical period for plants to build reserves before shutting down….A bit like grapregrowers and winemakers really – all our reserves used up, time for a few days off!” RM