WEEK EIGHT
We have now received all of our fruit for Vintage 2024 with our last pick being on Friday, just before the weather turned cold and wet, perfect timing.
We finished with 333 tonnes over exactly 8 weeks, characterised by warm dry weather simplifying the harvest scheduling. This was more than expected after the October frost setback in Silverburn.
Chardonnay was a standout in both quality and yield whilst Shiraz for Bobbie Burns shows excellent flavour over 17 different batches.
The Chardonnay volume will allow us to make another great Sparkling White for release later in the year.
Another favourite returning will be the Hand Picked Shiraz thanks to you all for your morning efforts in the vineyard.
With the harvesting all done, we are now in the next phase of completing ferments, malolactic conversions, racking off lees, minimising ullage, filling barrels and bottling the early white wines which will keep us going until the next vintage begins in approximately 300 days.
WEEK SEVEN
With Easter approaching we always have one eye on the weather waiting for the Autumn break which brings cooler temperatures and much needed rainfall to our dry paddocks.
Looking back, we have been blessed with an ideal ripening season and minimal rain causing disruptions to harvest planning.
Even though Easter is early this year the rain is expected to arrive late on Easter Monday and so this week we have been harvesting most of our later varieties.
Malbec, Cab Sauv, Tempranillo, more Cab Sauv, more Sixties Block options, and Muscats for fortification were all harvested this week by Bernie, Angus, Max and Tanner.
We are now up to 325 tonnes, and we only have one block of Ruby Cabernet still to come into the winery. Ruby is a late ripener and stands up well to the cooler nights and a little rain will refresh the canopy before picking late next week.
Those cooler nights are helping moderate the fermentation temperatures allowing for maximum flavour extraction.
In the winery we continue our pumpovers, pressing and malo checks to ensure all wines finish in balance.
Always one of the first picks (16/2/2024), this year’s Gewurz made it to bottle after 40 days ! Typically full of luscious tropical fruit, sweet palate with a crisp finish.
The winery crew are all looking forward to 2 days off, 2 days on over Easter, their first “weekend” in two months.
Look out April, here we come!
WEEK SIX
Stating the obvious perhaps, but the winery has been busy again this week.
The vineyard harvested 75 tonnes of fruit for us, plus some Muscat for sale locally, plus other contract picks.
We split the harvesting of Grahams Shiraz between Monday, Thursday and Friday to suit our fermenter sizes and enable us to try different extraction regimes to create different components for the ultimate Bobbie Burns Shiraz blend.
A small portion of Red Varieties is fermenting in a bin at cellar door. This will be blended later with two other portions to create the 2024 Sixties Block which will be a blend of over 16 varieties.
Our Durif yields have held up well in this fine weather and we have two new ferments on the go, being pumped over twice daily.
The first of our Malbec blocks was picked on Thursday with the second part, off older vines, coming in on Monday. These will be fermented separately to emphasise their best qualities before blending at a later date.
This has brought our intake so far up to 295 tonnes with about 40 more to come next week and after Easter.
Images – Open ferment of Shiraz
WEEK FIVE
Only Week 5 of vintage yet it seems like we’ve been going forever.
On the Labour Day public holiday two of our largest fermenters were pressed off skins through our old Wilmes press, yielding over 20000 L of new Shiraz destined to become the 2024 Bobbie Burns.
Julie Campbell paid us a flying visit on Monday and Tuesday, giving her the opportunity to taste through all the new white wines and reds still in ferment, making adjustments along the way.
On Tuesday we picked a small portion of our Grahams vineyard Shiraz. Further portions will be picked early and late next week to spread the load through the winery and allow different flavour developments for each batch.
Our early pick from our Red Varieties block has been pressed and will finish off Alcohol Fermentation and Malo-lactic fermentation before maturation in oak as a part of the Sixties Block wine.
We took a break from harvesting during the middle of the week, the perfect weather allowing further ripening for better balance on many of the later blocks. All sampling results point to a great quality vintage.
This also allowed us to spend more time on our whites, putting Chardonnay and Fiano into new French oak barrels, finalising the Gewurz and bottling the Moscato.
All in all, a very productive week.
Once again, we couldn’t achieve all this without the teamwork of all those involved in vineyard and winery.
Images Left to Right: Juice samples in the lab / Campbell’s harvester – Lucy 3 / Mana and Matt hard at work / Pinpoint precision.
WEEK FOUR
Vintage is like going to Bondi beach.
You look forward to it, exhilarating, exciting.
At first those waves keep knocking you down, but you get back up and face them again.
Then you get tired, but those waves of Shiraz keep coming at you.
We’re in that phase now, trying to stay afloat, being pulled along by the rip.
We can’t see the beach now, long time past.
But out the back, the water looks smooth and calm, past the Shiraz, past the Cabernet, the end is almost in sight.
So far, we have processed 213 Tonnes of fruit, with another 120 Tonnes or so to come.
We started on Monday with the last of Jaspers Shiraz.
Tuesday was Silverburn’s turn – the Sixties Block and a small parcel of Durif, typically our Barkly block which is in an open ferment bin at cellar door.
On Thursday we picked our Merlot for the Amelie base wine which benefitted from some pre-ferment blending of 2023 material.
This was followed by Shiraz from BB1, BB2, Silverburn, BB3 and BB4. Yield expectations were low but each block surpassed our estimates and filled our tanks.
Today we made a start over on Graham’s vineyard with the minimal pruned Shiraz, which was again 20% up on average yield.
As well as those new intakes we have been preparing the Moscato for bottling next week.
The Gewurz is also finished and will be bottled once labels arrive.
Further sampling showed most of the Durif, Malbec and Tempranillo blocks approaching peak flavour.
With the continuing hot weather for the next week, we’re heading back to the beach, to surf those waves, keep the sunscreen on and fluids up, ready to go again.
Images Left to Right: Eva on the tractor / Grape marc / Mia doing pump over / This wine has legs…! / Shiraz on its way into the crusher.
WEEK THREE
Another week of ideal ripening weather, sunny, no rain, low to mid 30s, to finish off Summer and start Autumn.
Our older block of Riesling, 48 years young and still going strong, yielded 6 tonnes.
A light pressing and cold settle saw some pristine juice start it’s ferment with perfect wine chemistry. This will be blended later with our earlier picked 1981 block.
We harvested a small amount from our mixed Sixties Block rows, choosing the riper varieties of Mondeuse and Tinta Amarella, into a small open ferment bin.
This batch will be styled to create a lighter weight summer drinking red wine. First undergoing a cold soak for colour extraction it was gently pressed early on Sunday to minimise any harder tannin elements.
Our first Shiraz blocks came in ripe and ready on Tuesday, also yielding higher than expected, and will make the perfect base for the next Bobbie Burns Shiraz.
One small block of Durif was affected by frost in October and consequently had a small crop. But this ripened early, with great colour and flavour, and has now finished primary ferment and has started it’s malolactic ferment.
On Thursday 29th Feb we had the whole Campbells team out in the vineyard hand picking Shiraz off our Bobbie Burns II block. This small batch will be treated specially with cold soak, hand plunging and barrel maturation in carefully selected old and new barrels to create our next HPS – the Hand Picked Shiraz. Our previous HPS from 2019 was very well received and we have high hopes for this “Leap Year Pick”. Climate conditions in the intervening years have prevented us from making this special version of Rutherglen Shiraz and just shows we are constantly at the whims of the weather.
More Shiraz on Friday is being pumped over in our new open fermenter, this batch being a possible Brothers contender.
The weekend gave us the opportunity to catch up on earlier batches and we stopped the Gewurz ferment with a little sweetness left, completed the 2024 Moscato, topped barrels of our MVR (Marsanne Viognier Roussanne) and Chardonnay and prepared the last batch of 2021 Bobbie Burns for bottling.
Phew !
The next two weeks will continue vintage with more Durif, Sixties Block reds, Trebbiano, Fiano and a White Sixties Block trial, more Shiraz, and the Amelie base wine.
That should see us half way through this year’s harvest.
Images Left to Right: Harsh hand plunging / Halfway through hand plunging / Mia doing pump over /Pump over
WEEK TWO
This has been a really great week in the winery, as we harvested many of our white grape blocks and the team capably managed to process over 40 tonnes of fruit, through some hot days, the occasional storm and the inevitable last-minute changes to volumes, tanks or processes.
Things are falling into place nicely.
We will have enough quality Chardonnay to produce both Core Range and Limited Release styles, as well as playing with one batch to create our Sparkling White base wine.
The first of our Riesling blocks is in and fermenting.
The Viognier was harvested, clarified, and blended into the partially fermented Marsanne.
The Roussanne will be picked next week as a separate ferment, then blended back after tasting trials to create the 2024 MVR.
A lot more sampling of blocks shows the reds to be ready, and we will start on our Shiraz blocks in earnest.
This fine weather is bringing everything to ripeness at the same time and will compress the vintage timeline.
Images Left to Right: Light Summer Red, in cold soak, gentle maceration for soft structured wine, open ferment, hand plunged/ Juice samples to taste at Cellar Door/ Durif grapes/ Shiraz arriving at winery/ Light Summer Red progress.
WEEK ONE
We have just finished our first full week of the new vintage with Chardonnay, Marsanne, Gewurztraminer and Moscato grapes being harvested and brought into the winery.
The new vintage crew are gelling together well and there is a good mix of anticipation and enthusiasm for the months ahead.
Near perfect weather over the last few weeks has brought these grapes to ripeness with excellent flavour and good acid retention.
Even the dramatic storm this week didn’t deter the vineyard team from bringing in the Marsanne the next day.
So far, so good then and all our sampling of the various vineyard blocks would suggest the other whites and all the reds will be of great quality and picked a little earlier than average.
Images Left to Right: Chardonnay being tipped in to the hopper / Chardonnay grapes / drone shot of Campbells vineyard (drone image credit – Jack Arthur – Snow Gum marketing)
Video of Marsanne juice in Europress