Whilst in the Southern Hemisphere Spring has arrived and vineyards are going through budburst, across the Northern Hemisphere our growers are gearing up for harvest, in fact some have started. Here are two contrasting reports, one from Campbells in Australia and one from Villa Wolf in the Germany, describing what’s been happening in the vineyards this month.
View Villa Wolf's News Here
CAMPBELLS NEWS
Vineyard
At Campbells we are enjoying amazing spring rains and lovely warm weather with the vineyard positively jumping out of the ground! Budburst is strong with a healthy two bunch crop at this stage. So far fingers crossed we have managed to avoid Jack Frost! Everything is biding well for a bumper 2022 vintage with vibrant fruit and tannins - this is fantastic news as we rebuild our stocks due to losing the 2020 vintage.
For the first time in many years we are planting a new vineyard - quite an investment I can assure you! Starting with Rutherglen Durif - based on our own rootstocks and then Barossa Old Vine Shiraz - an clone grown by Yalumba that we believe will be a great match for our own Shiraz. This is the start of a renewal programme across our estate vineyards.
Spring in a Southern hemispheres winery is usually a relatively quiet time after the wines from the previous vintage have completed their fermentations, stabilisation, racked into barrels, and some whites filtered and bottled. At Campbells we take this time to blend and update all our fortified wines for the next year.
Each of the Muscat and Topaque batches from the 2021 vintage are tasted and allocated to one of the four classifications, Rutherglen, Classic, Grand or Rare based upon residual sweetness, flavour complexity and ability to age. These will then be tasted with, and blended into, the youngest soleras to begin their long maturation in old oak casks over many years until they are ready for bottling.
The winery continues to get other white and red wines ready for bottling, transferring from barrels, fining and filtering as required.
The laboratory supports this work with regular and targeted analysis of acidity, sweetness, alcohol, stability, clarity and dissolved gas levels.
With over 100 separate batches of wine on site there is always something to check on.
There is also a lot of preventative maintenance and servicing of the equipment used through vintage to ensure the crusher, press and pumps are in the best shape to handle another 500 tonnes of fruit.
Cellar Door
At this stage we are still in lockdown however we are hoping to be ‘freed’ in two weeks time. We expect a large influx of visitors and we will hopefully enjoy a very busy Summer season!
