The 2007 growing season was characterised by a significant lack of rain with only approximately 40 ml falling between mid May last year and the commencement of picking at the end of February this year.

As a result this year’s growing season posed some significant challenges for our Vineyard Manager Daniel Tschirn and his team. However, the company’s philosophy of working with dry grown old vines and lower yields helped immensely. The well developed root structure of the old vines was better able to cope with the arid conditions and the lower yields that resulted from the weather merely allowed us to remove less fruit during the two runs of green harvesting we carry out during the growing season.

Due to the weather, picking commenced around three weeks earlier than normal with the first white fruit in the door in the third week of February. Milder conditions during March allowed for good ripening and while lower yields did lead to less volume on some varieties, the resulting concentration of flavours and overall quality was excellent across the board. 2007 was a particularly good year for varietal definition on Mourvedre with Grenache, Cabernet and Shiraz all there or thereabouts.

Vintage was completed on 16th April, a full 3 weeks earlier than 2006 and at the time of writing, the winemakers are busy draining and pressing juice off skins and surveying the results of a another successful vintage.

The 2007 vintage was a truly international affair for the company with two French men, a Scotsman , a South African and a host of Australians all making up our young and hard working team.

It also saw the company trialling some new yeast and wine nutrients as well as expanding our list of barrel manufacturers slightly all in an effort to perfect the “blends”. In addition “Mistral” our automatic grape sorting systems was put through its paces for a second year and continued to show its worth.