We recently wrapped up one of the most unusual harvests we've ever seen so we asked Matt Dicey, our winemaker, his thoughts on how it all went. This is what Matt had to say:
This was the summer that we all dream to be on holiday for; certainly spring and early summer were extremely warm and dry. This presented the vineyard team with some challenges, firstly just keeping up with the unusual amount of early season growth. Then trying to keep on top of giving the vines enough water as the season continued. This massive early heat led to the whole season coming on early with our earliest ever start to harvest on the 6th March. We picked through a few early blocks and were then into the thick of vintage around the middle of March. We finished picking on the 7th April – again a first.
Fruit condition was excellent coming into vintage with no disease pressure due to the dry summer. Over February, March and April we had three quarters of our average annual rainfall! Luckily this was still not enough to present us with significant disease pressure, partly due to how cold the rain was and also the low levels of disease coming into this wetter period. The wines are understandably ripe in flavour and, if picked in a normal window, slightly lower in acidity. They do seem at this stage to sport an almost old school Central amount of fruit volume. Vintage 18 hear me roar!
- Matt Dicey, Winemaker