"If you had whites, particularly Chenin or Semillon, then you would have got a lot of cracking and rotting in there," Mr Standish explained. White grape varieties in particular have suffered from heavy rainfall. However, a number of unseasonal downpours have taken the shine off the vintage. "And this year - although it's a little bit challenging I guess - to have that sort of yield, it's great." Unwanted rain takes the shine off "But to get to this point now where we're harvesting, it's probably the best time of the year because you're actually reaping the rewards of all that hard work. "It was a long wet winter, we were out there pruning it, we were out there trying to get our sprays on, keeping the weeds under control, and it was a bit onerous at times because the vineyards were so wet to try and get into," he said. Wine grapes are generally paid per tonne, and Mr Standish said growers could be in for a windfall. "But I think it's a number of factors lined up which helped us out." "Unless you take your vines back to cane-pruning, each year you have a slight difference in yield up or down - but doubling like that on spurs, it's very unusual. It's not usual, I don't think I've seen that before. There's simply a lot of it."Īccording to Mr Standish, such a yield increase was very rare. "It's coming off at exactly the right states - pH, TA and Baume, good flavour. "And it's still good quality fruit, there's nothing wrong with it, because it's a high yield it's not detrimental. "I know of three blocks where we were getting, for example, 23 tonne last year - this year we'll easily get 50. Mr Standish said on some properties in both the Margaret River and Swan Valley regions, yields had doubled, which is something he had never seen before. "But then because the groundwater was there, we didn't have any stresses on the vines through flowering and fruit set, so flowering and fruit set's been exceptional, and because of that, we got a lot higher yields than we normally would have." "And bud burst was slower because it was cooler temperatures afterwards, so that was not necessarily a negative but an unusual thing for us. "Because there was so much more groundwater, the soil temperatures were cooler so bud burst was delayed up to three to four weeks at some stage.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |