James Halliday is arguably Australia’s best-known wine writer and critic.  His annual “Wine Companion”, the preeminent guide to the best wines produced in this country, was released in early August and we were very, very pleased to have received an entire page of very positive reviews, including the following reviews for current release wines in our range:

2017 Estate Pinot Noir

“Opens with great colour; mouth filling waves of black cherry and satsuma plum follow precisely in the tracks of the bouquet. It has exception finesse, line, length and balance. Trophies: Best Tasmanian Red Wine and Best Tasmanian Wine Hobart Wine Show ’18, plus significant gold medals in other shows. 96 points

2016 Reserve Pinot Noir (stocks are extremely low)

“Exceptional colour; a best-barrel selection from its ’16 siblings, with more depth and intensity to its array of dark fruit flavours. A showcase of gold medals, six from Asian competitions, and three from reliable sources including Sydney and Melbourne.” 96 points 

2012 Cuvée Traditionelle sparkling

“60% pinot noir, 40% chardonnay, disgorged Oct ’18. Around 80% of the base wine spent 5 months in very old French oak to allow MLF [malolactic fermentation] to develop naturally before the wine was tiraged and spent 6 years on lees. A most appealing wine, the price a bargain for consumers, but causing the bank manager to weep.” 95 points 

2017 Estate Chardonnay

“Estate-grown, hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed, wild fermented and matured in French oak for 9 months (20% new). Picked at perfect ripeness, white peach, melon and grapefruit all present and correct. No hint of the fearsome Tasmanian acidity. Double-gold San Francisco International Wine Competition ’18. 13.2% alc.” 95 points

2018 Pinot Rosé

“Crushed and destemmed, tank fermented. Shows the strawberries and cream character that this variety typically produces as a rose. Quite mouthfilling on the palate, but the freshness and liveliness gives it a feeling of buoyancy which adds to its appeal. Essentially dry, but there is some fruit sweetness which suggests it will drink well with a good chill.” 92 points

2017 Cabernet Merlot

“Displays its cool climate origins on the bouquet with some green leafiness, but the varietal characters of blackcurrant, redcurrant, mulberry and cedar are attractive. The flavours are ripe and the palate is soft until the firm, drying tannin takes over. Needs a bit of time.“ 91 points

We’re also very pleased to retain our 5-star rating, awarded to an “[o]utstanding winery capable of producing wines of very high quality, and did so this year”, generally with two wines ranked 95 points or more – which we comfortably reached!

Cheers, Fred

It was only around 6 weeks ago that we announced the release of our 2016 Reserve Pinot Noir – and it has already featured in the National Press! James Halliday selected this wine as one of a limited number of “Winter Warmer Reds” for his recent special article in “The Australian Magazine” on 25 May 2019. James’ full review is below:

Tasmanian wine scribe Winsor Dobbin was just as impressed, calling our 2016 Reserve Pinot Noir an “exceptional new-release reserve pinot noir “ in his recent view of it.  Winsor’s full review can be found here. Access to our secure online store, including the 2016 Reserve Pinot Noir, can be found here.

Cheers, Fred

We are now approaching the final stages of picking vintage 2019 – one of the most compressed vintages I have ever seen! I suspect this will be a more regular occurrence thanks to climate change, so we have better get used to it. The upside is we will get more of a break between vintage and our winter work – now that does sound great!

Whilst vintage is always a “marathon” event – very long weeks organising and working with lots of pickers, many of whom are foreign backpackers with virtually no local knowledge, handling the logistics of ensuring snips, buckets, bins, forks, pickers, trucks, porta loos etc are on the correct blocks for picking – this vintage has been particularly “manic”! The later varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling decided to develop flavours amazingly early and needed to be picked about the same time as our Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. To get through in a timely manner we have been picking up to 4 vineyard blocks per day – which is a considerable stretch for our teams.

Usually vintage proceeds in a more “orderly” fashion, but not in 2019! Fortunately the weather has been with us, I think we only lost one day of picking due to weather. The grapes have been excellent with some great flavours, generally smaller berries so more concentration of flavour and colour, and the volumes more like average so the vines have handled the fruit load quite easily.

Cheers

Fred

This has so far been a roller-coaster vintage, and we are barely into our main pickings! Our initial thoughts were that with such a warm summer this would be a very early vintage – but not so. Conditions cooled early in March and the ripening seemed to slow right down and in some blocks virtually stopped. In the last 10 days the vines have knuckled down to the “ripening” business and we are now flat out hand picking! As often happens in this style of season, all the varieties and blocks are tending to ripen together. Even Sauvignon Blanc in some of our cooler blocks is now well advanced and has fabulous flavours! Same goes for Riesling – which is hot on the heels of Pinot Noir and is building a very attractive flavour profile. Pinot Noir looks fabulous, quite delicate flavours and aromas with great poise and balance. We will see some very “classy” Pinots this vintage! With a relatively dry to very dry season, disease pressure is low, and strangely we have not been pestered by birds trying to get through our netting defenses – yet!  They have been suspiciously quiet and it wouldn’t appear to be because they have their beaks full! So a very, very busy few weeks ahead with no time to lose! Cheers, Fred

Vintage 2019 is fast approaching, and if this hot, dry weather persists it could be a lot earlier than we initially thought. In the south it has been exceptionally dry and consistently warm to hot. The older vines seem to be handling it surprisingly well, courtesy of a very dry spring which enabled the survival of their deeper vine roots.  Hence we are concentrating our irrigation efforts on the higher and more exposed blocks, and the younger vines that have yet to fully develop their deep root systems. With some pretty mizzly, drizzly weather during the flowering of some blocks, there are some smaller berries in bunches where the pollination was incomplete – hence I am expecting only fairly modest bunch weights and yields. Coupled with a continuation of this weather pattern, this will also accelerate veraison and ripening.  In fact we are seeing the early signs of veraison ie berry softening and a little colour, in Pinot Noir berries in our earliest blocks. Ah, the joys of applying bird netting are not far away!!