|
Well, what a difference a year makes. The ‘08 vintage is now packed away in the winery with both whites and reds coming off very well and we expect some of our finest wines will be made from the ’08 vintage.
Timing and luck are everything, notwithstanding the planning and hard work that went into this vintage. We had good rains in late ’07 and early ’08 which replenished the water table around Orange, ensuring even bud burst, strong early growth and probably the best canopies on all the varieties that we have seen on ross hill since 2002.
Strong canopy and foliage growth are extremely important in producing both Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. With good canopy cover, this year’s Sauvignon Blanc will have strong varietal aromatics combined with what is becoming a well recognised feature of ross hill Sauvignon Blanc - its unique minerality and earthy palate which is derived from the ancient basalt rocks and soils in that vineyard.
We have been working over the last 5 years to produce an environment of dappled light on our Chardonnay, thus minimising sunburn and phenolic developments. In ’08 the Chardonnay was again hand-picked in two lots, one at 12.5 baume and the other at 13. This will produce an elegant Chablis-style Chardonnay,.
At one stage the vintage was in the balance with significant rain just prior to harvest, producing spots of botrytis in the above mentioned varieties. We were able to eliminate the botrytis and we had a clean pick at vintage. Good weather prevailed, producing a terrific outcome.
The red grapes picked at harvest have been spectacular.
The Merlot was picked first at around 13.5 baume and produced a deep coloured and well balanced wine.
Both the Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon look especially good this year, with the flavour development in both varieties matching the ripeness.
The changes in pruning practices that have been adopted; restructuring the vineyard to a vertical shoot position (vsp) and close attention to strategic irrigation scheduling combined with a dash of global warming, meant that we harvested the two Cabernets much earlier than has previously been the case. For instance, in 2002 we picked our Cabernet on 8th May.
With almost every variety, there was a reduction in the time between the ripening of our reds and our whites. This phenomena appears to have been Australia wide creating production havoc for winemakers.
Finally, the Shiraz grapes, these we kept a little longer on the vine to ensure that the spice and pepper flavours were achieved .and so keeping up the high standard of the ross hill’s award winning Shirazes.
We have had David Jordan, a New Zealand viticulturist advising us over the last few years. He works with wineries such as Cullens and Phillip Shaw. His expertise in cool climate viticulture has been crucial in improving our understanding of cool climate viticulture practices and our grape quality.
Part of this process has been to reduce our tonnages per hectare. But the irony is that when mothernature takes over, all the manipulation of foliage and pruning practices yields to her powerful forces. This year’s crop of 90 tonnes compares to 40 tonnes last year and a predicted 55-70 tonnes this year.
|
