By Andrew McCarthy, Bodegas Castro Martin, http://castromartin.blogspot.com/
We last heard from Andrew back in June when he reported that proto-grapes had started to appear on the Albarino vines. Here’s the lastest update from Galicia:
I imagine that today’s blog title might have grabbed your attention! Harvest? In July? What on earth is he talking about? Green harvest?
OK, so I confess, I don’t actually mean …
By Dan Coward
Straw cover in Scholz vineyard
In my previous vintage update I mentioned St Hallet’s small batch system. The value of this approach becomes very clear when I’m bumping around the vineyard in Toby’s 4×4 on his rounds of the vineyards. Along with Viticulturist and Grower Liaison, Chris Rogers, in the back, there isn’t much these two …
By Chester Osborn, www.darenberg.com.au/
The weather in the last two weeks has been perfect, nice and mild
We had right on average rainfall for the year but lots of it fell in Autumn when the soil cracks had not closed so …
By Dan Coward
Small Ferments
The vintage at St Hallett is firing along on all cylinders. And that’s a lot of cylinders, believe me! For St Hallett, part of the skill is juggling an extremely lively tank schedule with such a range of fruit sources and picking schedules. When Stuart Blackwell meets me at the door he cuts straight to the chase and …
By Brett Jackson
I was going to delegate this task to one of our winemakers for the update of our harvest advance. Though after contemplating it a little, with the circumstances of this year, this vintage is really not only the most intense experience for winemaking but also the most intense experience I have lived and I want to try and …
By Luke Tyler
We have now broken the back of vintage, ticking over the half way mark this week with Adelaide Hills Chardonnay destined for the Lucky Lizard. 2010 has been a compressed vintage so far with an early start and a lot of varieties ripening at similar times. Overall quality is excellent, particularly for reds owing to consistent temperatures with mild to …
By Dan Coward
hand-picking at the Hanlin Hill vineyard
Nothing about bringing the grapes in at Petaluma’s Adelaide Hills winery at 6am lends itself to thoughts of global warming. It’s bloody freezing! The Adelaide Hills region is always full of surprises and the diurnal temperature swing can really catch you …
By Dan Coward
Old vine shiraz
I’m at Knappstein and it’s time for Chief winemaker, Julian Langworthy to get me into some real action. Riesling and Shiraz are moving along okay and both will be jostling for centre stage in the winery in coming days. Overall, as at Friday 26th Feb Knappstein was halfway through overall. After the last four years, the …
By Dan Coward
Fresh juice at Knappstein
I made wine the other day. Shiraz grapes from the Stobie vineyard came into my crusher, at which point I twiddled my knob and sped up or slowed down the speed of the crusher-destemmer and then adjusted the speed of the pump accordingly. The deep purple juice then sailed off happily down a big fat …
