2005 Vintage

This year was considered one of the best in decades; Regular rain, a mild summer and a long cool, dry ripening period to finish off. Harvesting was late March for the Shiraz and mid April for the Cabernet Sauvignon.

No testing of fruit was done prior to harvest. This was our very first year and the first time fruit has been taken from the young vines; we basically picked, gave it to the wine maker and hoped for the best.

2006 Vintage

Our approach was a lot more professional this year. Shiraz was tested on the last day of February and every week thereafter until harvest; Cabernet Sauvignon followed the same regime two weeks later.

The winter had good rains but the summer was incredibly hot, with a 4 day period in January being the hottest 4 day period since 1943. The vines struggled in the heat without the water; the Cabernet Sauvignon more so than the Shiraz.

Yields in the Cabernet were well down this year. There were some issues with weed control and the still young vines struggled a bit after the relatively higher yields in 2005. The ripening period from mid February on was mercifully cool however, allowing for good quality fruit.

2007 Vintage

Following the driest winter in recorded history, the bunch numbers were so low that we decided not to harvest this year. The fruit there was left to drop naturally. (See the VITICULTURE section to learn of what we did, as a dry grown vineyard, to compensate for the very little rain).

2008 Vintage

More record breaking weather! Harvest time in the Clare Valley broke the national heat wave record (consecutive days over 35 degrees Celsius). Grapes, both red and white, responded by ripening at the same time and there was a consequent bottleneck in wineries as growers rushed to take all the fruit off before it withered.

The Shiraz crop was down on weight – not so much juice in the berries, and the bunches were fairly small. This equates to a high skin to juice ratio. Not sure what effect this will have on the end product. Time will tell. We did a quick test on the juice on Sunday and the Baume, colour and taste were all good. We are now in the hands of the wine-maker (Neil Paulett of Paulett Wines).

The Cabernet Sauvignon had a grand Baume reading of 18.00 and even then the picking day had to be bought forward. (More on Baume reading has been promised in newsletter #4 but basically it indicates the ripeness and potential alcohol level and is normally 14.5-15.0 for red grapes).

2009 Vintage

2009 picking was for some of us from a distance - Philippa had regained a teacher/linguist position in an Aboriginal community school on the South East coast of Carpentaria and the river crossings are generally impassable from January to June. (More on Life in Numburindi Country in our next newsletter).

Marie successfully recruited an assemblage of friends and family again, (many thanks to all of you) for the Shiraz, the Cabernet Sauvignon crop was almost double that of 2005. The 2009 vintage, and all wines in the for the forseeable future are being made by Scott "Scooter" Smith of Cardinham Estate.

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