How fickle are the seasons!

The 2007 vintage started with promise – sufficient subsoil moisture and an even budburst. We even avoided the frost that blighted so many regions, partly through blind luck, and partly through some degree of preparedness, as the effect of frost is minimized with bare moist soil, and we had disked just before the frost. Then it forgot to rain – at all, and the fires threatened us for five weeks (with the attendant thick smoke). Then it forgot to rain – again.

One advantage of having a largely non-irrigated vineyard, as we do, is that the vines have already learnt how to survive a drought, as it is either that or die. They were bearing a reasonable amount of fruit considering the conditions, but to ripen properly they needed at least some moisture, which was not forthcoming.

Some weeks before vintage, we had decided not to make any pinot because of the smoke taint probability. Red grapes, with the attendant skin contact in fermentation, will show all of the taints present. White grapes, if the juice is taken off the skins quickly, at least have a chance to minimize smoke the effects (our 2003 chardonnay was magnificent in spite of the smoke of the fires of that year). We made some chardonnay and sauvignon blanc this year, but proper assessment is some months away, as both are still fermenting at the time of writing.

By contrast, the 2005 vintage, our new release, was probably our best for ten years, in both quality and volume, and certainly the best this century. Both the chardonnay and the pinot are delightful, and should be long lived. The chardonnay is a real Briagolong wine, with all the complex barrel fermented character, fruit and honeysuckle associated with our wines. The pinot is one of the best we have produced for ten years, topped only by the low volume, as yet unreleased, 2004, and shows abundant “nervous” pinot character. Incidentally, the low volume of the 2004 was the final result of hail two years earlier, as it takes that long for the vines to recover!

Both 2005 wines are available either as straight cases, or as a mixed case. All prices are the same - $ 370 per dozen, including delivery – usually by Australia Post