27 Jan 09 - 2009 vintage gets underway today!

The winery staff managed to get a break over the long weekend before the 2009 vintage started today. Fruit has started to arrive, tanks have been prepared and staff readied for what looks to be a fantastic vintage!

A cool start to the summer gave way to the normal summer temperatures that Western Australia is accustomed to, paving the way for an excellent crop. At this stage both the reds and whites look like possessing complex flavours, with bracing natural acidity.

In our quest to produce the best possible wines from varietals that are specifically matched to each of Western Australia's premium viticultural regions, we receive fruit from late January all the way through to April.

We typically see Dandaragan fruit coming into the winery in the beginning stages. Although quite warm, the cooling ocean breezes make this region ideal to acheive sugar ripeness and flavour.

Next is the Geographe region with the acid laterite derived soils over limestone on the coastal plain at Capel being cooled by strong afternoon winds from Geographe Bay, prolonging ripening and thickening the grape skins. Merlot, Malbec, Petit Verdot grow here with outstanding red wine flavours, while Verdelho, Viognier and Chardonnay produce wines with exciting aromas and strong mid palate flavours.

Heading further south and following Geographe is the Margaret River region with its sandy laterite over decomposed granite on the well drained slopes providing an ideal environment for intensely flavoured Cabernet Sauvignon, with typically very specific outstanding regional characteristics.

The winery will then prepare for fruit from the Pemberton region. The very overcast growing season on top of the southern Darling plateau provides Pinot Noir with ideal flavours yet enables good skin colour to be achieved. The white grapes of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon produce strong mid palate fruit salad flavours with less herbaciousness than elsewhere, while Chardonnay produces a wine unexcelled in purity, ideal for restrained barrel fermentation.

The last grapes to arrive come from the Great Southern and more specifically the Mount Barker sub region. Cool, windy, often overcast conditions, with very leached laterite and granite sandy soils provide the region with ideal growing conditions for Riesling and Shiraz grapes which ripen showing some of the most desirable elegant but complex flavours and aromas seen in the best wines of Europe.

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