It was the perfect lead up to vintage, good winter rains, spring started well, the growing season had been lovely and cool, with late rain into October keeping everything looking fresh, green and not heat stressed.
Then came a week of really hot weather in early January, this caused the chardonnay fruit for the Sparkling base wine to be picked about 2 weeks earlier than last year, the earliest we’ve ever picked. The fruit ripened quickly as mid January continued to be dry and warm. The biggest challenge this year was deciding when to pick, but fruit quality was generally excellent, with good yields.
By the week of 20 January it was on for young and old, we were picking every other day, so we pick Sunday, process Monday, pick Tuesday process Wednesday and so on. By the end of the week we’d done a quarter of our vintage!
Despite the hot weather the whites have really intense aromatics and flavours. We’ve bottled the 2014 Verdelho and Black Bream White and they look fantastic, really lifted, intense, rich full fruit flavours just leap out of the glass.
All the red fruit had very small berries, which results in intense colours, sweet fruit characters and round tanins and plenty of ‘oomph’. This will quite possibly make 2014 the best vintage for a long time -but I hate to get ahead of myself and make these big statements so early in the wine’s life!
Perhaps the best solution would be to come and try the 2014 Verdelho at our Cellar Door, to see what you think!