Vintage Updates

Edition 1: Wednesday 15th January 2025 This is one of the earliest vintages in my memory with us starting Monday, 6 January, two days earlier than last year, and the earliest since 1981. With autumn practically starting at the end of the first week of August this was always going to be an early vintage. We had decent winter rain, but it has been dry since the end of winter with some real heat in the latter half of December, with a couple of 40 degree days.  The other weather feature has been very little wind so if there is…

Edition 1: Wednesday 17th January 2024 This year we turned around after New Year’s Eve and suddenly vintage was upon us. We picked the first grapes on 8 January, which was the earliest since 1981; when we started on 4 January.  We had two wet years where the soil was almost saturated, followed by the last twelve months, which was much hotter and drier.  There were no days over 40 degrees.  Luckily, we had half an inch a week for the four weeks coming into Christmas, which certainly kicked the vines along.  Between Christmas and New Year there were some…

Edition 1: Friday 20th January 2023 Today marks the start of the 2023 Vintage, which will be about sixty I can remember much about. Early November saw the end of almost two and half years of rain and a lot of the soil, in the lower country, was quite waterlogged, however there is nothing like some sun and some serious dry wind.  We were able to get back into most of the vineyard quite quickly at the end of the rain.  We were also helped by having a helicopter available to spray when the tractors were sinking into the vineyard…

Edition 1: Thursday 20th January 2022 Another different growing season.  For the full year 2021 we beat our average rainfall throughout the whole year and it is wonderful to look out to the green grass, and green vines, instead of dusty brown plants trying to survive the drought. Nature really is a wonderful thing as we would have at least 1000 new trees that have grown since the drought ended. The vines have all got good foliage and a good to medium crop without being a huge one.  Although it will be interesting to see what the extraction rate is,…

Edition 1: Tuesday 12th January 2021 What a difference this year is to 2020. No smoke haze and green grass in the paddocks rather than bare dirt. The growing season has been a bit of an old fashioned one and reminds me a bit of some of the years in the 1970s. With the end of four years of drought we got a good season as I expected and we have a good solid crop which again fits in with nature’s usual cycle. 2020 received more than double 2019’s rainfall and the vines, and the bush in general, have reacted…

Tyrrell’s has made the decision to have a severely reduced 2020 vintage. We have not been directly impacted by fire damage however the continued presence of smoke in the Hunter Valley since late October 2019 means that many of our vineyards have been affected by smoke taint. Tyrrell’s has been working closely with the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), and Dr Ian Porter of La Trobe University, who have been testing our vineyards’ grapes across the region for smoke taint. We have also been conducting micro ferments in our own laboratory which has led us to the decision that most…

Edition 1: Monday 14th January 2019 The 2019 Vintage will commence at sun up tomorrow morning, with hand picking Chardonnay at Penfold Vale for the 2019 Blanc de Blancs Sparkling.  We were lucky enough to get 25mm of rain on Friday night with another spectacular light show put on by God.  Not as good as New Year’s Eve but nearly.  The moisture after the hot weather has got the vines working again and the fruit has considerably changed from last Friday morning to this morning. Wednesday night and Thursday night we will pick the Chardonnay Pinot Noir Brut using two…

Edition 1: Monday 15th January 2018 The 2018 Vintage is now into its second week. We started picking on Wednesday, 10 January which is three days earlier than last year. As I look out the window at the bare paddocks we could not be any further away from 2012 and 2015 if we tried. This Vintage is as a result of one of the driest growing periods since the mid 2000s, and we have had less than 150 millimetres of rain from Easter 2017 to now. The only real rain fell in November / December, and I would give my…

Edition 1: Friday 20th January 2017 2017 Vintage is well and truly underway, and it is a week earlier than I thought it would be through the growing season.  Everything started off well, good rain over winter but most importantly 75mm of rain during the Christmas/New Year period, which has given enough soil moisture to the dry grown vines to get them through the number of 40 degree plus days we have had in January. The vines look remarkably healthy for the heat they have gone through. We started last Friday with 8 tonnes of Chardonnay for the yet to…

Edition 1: Monday 25th January 2016 “Here we go again”……in December 2014, we were talking about sending the cattle out with a voucher at lunch time to buy a meal at the local shop because it was so dry. This year, it is hard to find the cattle for the height of the green grass. 2015 was a high rainfall year; almost a third above our long term average…..so, the vines have undergone no stress at all and we have come into the home straight with plenty of foliage. Like everyone, we believed we were going to have a hot,…

Edition 1: Sunday 20th January 2013 This year’s vintage will start on Monday morning, 14 January, with six or seven tonnes of traminer from John Tulloch at Broke and at this stage, on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, we will pick pinot noir and chardonnay for sparkling base.  This is probably two or three days earlier than I originally expected. The vines have stood up remarkably well in the heat and dry conditions although at Fordwich, where John Tulloch’s vineyard is, they had 4 inches of rain at Christmas against the 80 points we had here. On Monday morning we…