When we say, “Wine created from the soil up” we mean it literally. We are serious about nurturing the soil in our vineyard believing good soil health equates to good vine health and healthy vines produce the best fruit flavours. This isn’t something which happens overnight but every year we continue to replenish the soil and every year the vine health improves. And vintage by vintage our wines improve, this is our dedication, we are doing it for ourselves and we are doing it for you, our customers to enjoy, so as the French say, “to your health.”

The Rosato experiment continues with our tasting all the combinations we have made. The initial Rose made from thinning the unripe fruit, the sangree taken from the first fermentation and the sangree taken from the second “family and friends pick” fermentation. Sangree is when you take some of the juice out of a red fermentation so the remaining juice to skin ratio is higher and the wine subsequently more intense. It is a technique which is more about the finished red wine than the Rose which is it’s by-product. For while it can produce a good Rose it does produce one with high alcohol, which was the reason for the first “low ripened – low alcohol pick”. I think it worked, I rather like the first thinning pick by itself although it is just a little “thin” however when blended with surprisingly little sangree it fills out nicely. We’ll clean it up and put it in a bottle ready for summer.

On Saturday the 11th. of April we held a friends and family pick of the 2015 Sangiovese. I love picking. It is the culmination of a years work, it’s a great social day and a day we can celebrate everything we have done. thank you everyone who participated. We managed to get the fruit off before lunch, the weather was great, the picking easy and lunch was brilliant. Good food, good wine, good cheer and a great day in the paddock and in the cellar, this is exactly what winemaking is all about. We make wine for times like these so it’s only right that we should make wine with times like these. Cheers!

We picked small Sangiovese on the 4th. of April the day of the blood moon and before the European Wasps destroyed the entire crop. A patient pick cutting away all the wasp damaged fruit and trying not to get bittern. I am wondering about the significance of the blood moon as Samgiovese means blood of Jupiter, well this years Sangiovese is surely blood of the moon. It tastes quiet celestial in fact, anyone think of an appropriate name for a blood moon Sangiovese, the best I can think of is “Sangioluna” one dozen 2015 Sangiovese for the best name.

It may or may not be a good idea, only time will tell. We are attempting to make the 2015 Rosato in two halves and yesterday we picked the first half. We had waited until the Sangiovese had ripened to just over 11 Baume and thinned the fruit to process into a rose base. Latter when we pick the Sangiovese at full ripeness, we are aiming for just over 13 Baume, we will take some juice out of the fermentation what is called a sangre. This increases the proportion of skins to juice in the fermentation to produce a denser, richer wine. The sangre is then fermented out as a rose. However sngre’s are always too ripe for a true Rose so blending some of the not quite ripe thinned fruit back into the sangre should in theory produce a fresh but luscious Rosato. Should, might, maybe, we shall see.

We picked the Pinot Grigio on the 28th. of February, one week earlier than last year and amazingly in February. we never pick anything in February. We were aiming to pick the Pinot Grigio before it reached 12.5 baume to achieve a true Grigio style, Fruit driven and vibrant with a tingly acid structure that is fresh and clean on the palate. I wanted the more tropical aspects of Pinot Grigio, the inviting passionfruit, lychee and green apple rather than the broader pear and peach. Don’t get me wrong I love the other characters in a rich Pinot Gris but in keeping with our Italian heritage and to complement the Sangiovese I wanted to be unashamedly Italian in style. So far so good, this is a lovely Grigio, the juice was clean and fresh and while it is still fermenting and tastes largely of yeast you can still taste the fruit driving this wine. I have high hopes.

It has been a coolish summer so far, a couple of hot days and then the rain coming in from the north. Hot and humid tropic rain which we all are wary off, for with it often follows the mildews; powdery and downy. This year, so far we have been lucky, the odd leaf showing signs of downy mildew but nothing more. We check the fruit every couple of days for any sign of disease and measure the ripeness of the fruit. The Sangiovese is, not surprisingly, less ripe than it was at the same time last year while the Pinot Grigio is about the same. The Sangiovese is at 8.6 baume and the Pinot Grigio at 10.9 baume, one degree of baume is equivalent to one degree of alcohol so you can see the Sangiovese has a long way to go. The cropping levels on both are good and the fruit is in very good condition. This time of the year is all about patience and not panicking, or in the words of the Hitchhiker’s Guide “panic very slowly.” Every time it rains, every cool day, every day it is cloudy, overcast and close we try not to wonder just where the ripening is going to come from. You have to trust what you have done, we have removed leaves from around the fruit, rolled the canopy onto the top wire so we have plenty of leaves to drive the ripening and the fruit condition is good. The worry always is the the fruit condition falls away before the fruit is ripe enough, lets not think about that yet. The Pinot Grigio is a couple of weeks away and that will be one thing off, one wine in the tank and not in the vineyard, and no reason to think that a long cool ripening period might not just be the thing to produce a fantastic cool climate Sangiovese. So come on vintage 2015 lets see what it’s all about.