vineyard

Following the devastating frosts in October 2006 we thought the vineyard would take considerable time to recover. Well to our surprise the vineyard has rebounded with a vengeance‚ with good crops and above average quality. It was looking as though we would continue to suffer from the drought but fortunately we had good rains at the right time in the season — prior to veraison and small follow up rains since to see the fruit through to maturity.
Other news — we recently completed a kangaroo fence around the vineyard. You may recall that we were experiencing significant crop losses, due to the ever increasing numbers of kangaroos who had taken a liking to our grapes. This has been highly successful without being too imposing on the aesthetics of the vineyard and surrounding views. Our biggest pests are now the birds and the foxes. The birds are controlled by netting the vines but this does not stop the foxes that go under the nets and reach up and chew the lower hanging grape bunches. Needless to say we have reduced our crop losses significantly by the installation of the fence.

Winemaking will again be restricted to our white wines (Colombard and Chardonnay) as we received excellent offers to purchase our Cabernet and Shiraz fruit. This will mean we will be reducing our stocks of our red wines again but hopefully we can see it through until next vintage to once again replenish our red wine stocks.