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Back in April I wrote that while we had a few weeks to go, it was fair to say that as a winemaking team, we're very happy with the quality of the 2009 vintage.
Looking back, we started crushing on 30 January and this eclipsed the previous earliest start set in 2008 by one day. The lead up to harvest, whilst quite dry was relatively cool, apart from a burst of hot weather in late January/early February.
Fortunately the weather then settled to warm days and cool nights allowing the vineyards to recover and the majority of the grapes to ripen slowly, producing wines with excellent colour and flavour.
Vintage was effectively over by 17 April with the Botrytis Semillon harvested on the 12th of May. The total crush to date is approximately 11,000 tonnes, which is down nearly a third on 2008.
While volume is lower than last year, we are very excited with the quality as the white wines are showing well with Riesling and Semillon being the stand out varieties.
It is an outstanding red wine year, with the wines exhibiting strong varietal characters accompanied by incredible depths of colour. Shiraz is the strongest we have seen since 1998 and many other varieties such as Grenache, Mourvèdre and Tempranillo are also exceptional. All in all we believe that 2009 will be regarded as a vintage of great quality.
Andrew Wigan Chief Winemaker
