VINTAGES

What a great vintage, delivering very high quality grapes which ripened at a steady pace, allowing for picking at the optimum time and making the cellar work easy. It was a little later than usual for recent vintages, feeling a bit like the good old days of the 1970s and 80s when harvesting took place in perfect autumn weather in mid-March to mid-April. What a pleasure it was. The only down side to 2022 is the small size of the crop. Not tiny but smaller than average for Shiraz and well down in quantity for Grenache unfortunately. The quality of the wines more than compensates for that.

This was the second La Niña influenced season in a row, this one providing ideal ripening conditions thanks to a cooler summer without excessive rainfall. In fact the summer was quite dry overall, except for some refreshing rain on January 23 and 24 which gave the vines a much-needed drink just as they started ripening. The weather couldn’t have been better from then on, with February quite cool and dry, retaining good natural acidity and freshness in the juice. March stayed dry for harvesting but warmed to average temperatures which kept the sugar and flavour level in the grapes climbing, assisted by the small crop. We completed all of the McLaren Vale harvest between March 4 and 23 and the Langhorne Creek Shiraz was picked on 18 and 20 March. The nights turned quite cool in late March and early April and we had to start warming the Shiraz ferments to keep them going at a reasonable rate, which is unusual. The Cabernet took it’s time to ripen in these conditions but April proved ideal for that, avoiding the showers which can move in late in the season. Instead, it was warmer and drier than usual for that time of year and we picked the Fruit Trees block (along with a little late picked Shiraz for vintage port) on 10 April and the Main Road block a week later to finish the harvest. We couldn’t stop smiling.

Other memorable things going on around that time: COVID cases were falling in the latter part of 2021 and the state borders re-opened on 23 November in time for our last weekend of cellar door open days. Worldwide labour shortages were making it tough on businesses across the country. Many restaurants had plenty of demand but couldn’t find the staff to work so had to turn customers away. Our favourite local bakery closed its doors on some days when they were short staffed & that had never happened before! Luckily we had a great crew of grape pickers that often went beyond what was asked of them in order to bring the harvest in. With the smaller crops in all blocks in 2022 many of the bunches were only carrying 10-20 berries so it was lots of work. As always though, the reward is in the wine and we’re happy to say that we consider the quality of the wines from 2022 to be amongst the best we’ve made.

We hope you will enjoy them,

Drew and Rae.

Photo below: Smoko at the end of the row.

Main photo: George and the picking ladies bringing the grapes in from the 20 Rows Shiraz Block.