I know some of the members of the forums are interested in wine.

Well vintage has definitely started in the Barossa Valley in South Australia and has kept me very busy the last week.

After a hot and very dry summer, we have 96 mm (almost 4 inches) of rain in 36 hours and thankfully it was a steady soaking rain rather than fast and furious which results in flash floods. So the dry and thirsty earth was thankful and so are all the plants, vines and trees with the break of the drought after almost 9 months of lack of rain. Follow-up rains will be necessary to ensure the benefits are continued though.

But a combination of rain, ripening grape berries, and warm calm weather also causes problems and may cause disease. We have escaped any disease issues basically 100% but ripe berries can be damaged by rain and moisture. And we have not escaped that having to pick two vineyards earlier than planned but still with considerable ripeness (caused by the combination of berry sugars and added moisture) but down in volumes considerably. A semillon and chenin blanc vineyard have come off.

Another of our semillon vineyards on the other hand is showing great promise of resonable yields (down in volume due to the earlier dryness) but in very good condition and will be picked within two or three weeks. Same with another Chenin Blanc vineyard and a Riesling vineyard.

Red grape vineyards are also down in yields due to small berry size and lesser bunches but I predict that if everything else falls into palce we will have excellent wines from these berries. Smaller berries, less bunches often results in a concentration of flavour and high qualitywines.

Our two oldest shiraz vineyards will probably be picked first mid to late March followed by Cabernet Sauvignon and last our Grenache vineyards.

So my prediction at this point is for average whites, though some always will shine, and the potential for big robust reds.

Cheers to the reds

PS I will try to get some video footage of harvesting in operation and other photograps to put on the web site