This week: 6th Oct.

Weather Report Week Ending 6/10/06
Maximum Temperature for the week 35.9C (96F) on Fri.
Minimum Temperature for the week 0.2C (32F) on Wed.
Rainfall for the Week 0.0mm (0 points) 0 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Yet again no rain. The outlook for substantial spring rain is not looking good. We went very close to a damaging frost on Wed. night. I am away on holiday at the moment and so will update you on any damage that may have been caused next week.

This week in the vineyard :

I am away on holiday this week so will let you know what has happened next week.

This week: 29nd Sept.

Weather Report Week Ending 29/9/06
Maximum Temperature for the week 24.4C (76F) on Tue.
Minimum Temperature for the week 3.5C (39F) on Mon.
Rainfall for the Week 8.0mm (23 points) 2 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Another teasing amount of rain this week. Just enough to keep everything green but not enough to help the looming problem of insufficient moisture levels.

This week in the vineyard :

We have put out our first fungicide spray this week (a Copper & sulfur protectant). We are also modifying the trellis in some of our white varieties to add a catch wire to help improve shading of the fruit. We have been running trials of this system in a number of different varieties for a couple of years, with very good results.

Winner Barossa Young Viticulturist Fellowship

The winner of the inaugural Barossa Young Viticulturist Fellowship was announced in the Barossa this week. The winner of the $10,000 dollar fellowship is Adrian Hoffman. Adrian is planning to use the money to start a public consultation process that will eventually lead to a voluntary code of conduct for grape growers in the Barossa Valley. I will keep you all posted as to his progress and give you some more details in a later post.

This week: 22nd Sept.

Weather Report Week Ending 22/9/06

Maximum Temperature for the week 29.3C (85F) on Mon.
Minimum Temperature for the week 5.4C (41F) on Thur.
Rainfall for the Week 0.8mm (2 points) 0 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Our dry winter continues with no sign of the substantial rainfall we desperately need. So far this month Nuriootpa has only had 12.6 mm (36 points) of rain, our driest september in the last 10 years (1999) we had 44.8 mm (128 points). We need a big downpour in the next week to get anywhere near that.

This week in the vineyard :

This week we have been doing trellis repairs and continuing to mow down covercrop. I have also been preparing to put out our first fungicide spray. The photo at top shows the same shoot that I photographed last week - things are growing very rapidly now!

Mad dog wines

Now to our own wine. Our label is called ‘Mad Dog’, we have released 5 vintages so far, with the first vintage being 1999. We did not produce a 2000 vintage. The 2005 will be released later this year. Our Mad Dog Shiraz has had some very impressive reviews. We have been growing grapes here for nearly 100 years and that experience is used to select the parcel of fruit that goes to make our Mad Dog. We hand prune the vines to fairly low bud numbers in winter. In spring we carefully monitor for pests and diseases and treat as needed. If needed, before flowering, we will go through and do a hand shoot thin to ensure even light penetration into the canopy. Just before verasion we do a light hand bunch thin, this is to ensure even ripening of the whole crop. We monitor our soil moisture levels using Capacitance probes and only water to prevent the vines going into moisture stress, we continue monitoring each irrigation to ensure we are only watering the known root zone of the vine. We do all this to provide the vine with the optimum amount of water without wasting water or over watering our vines. As harvest approaches we work closely with our contract winemaking team, sampling the whole block regularly to ensure that we pick at the optimum time to get flavor ripeness rather than just picking when we achieve a predetermined sugar level. We carefully harvest and deliver the fruit to the winery usually in less than 2 hours to ensure the fruit arrives in the best possible condition for our winemakers to work with. So far this philosophy has worked very well for us and we have only positive feedback on our wines. Because of the very small quantity we produce it is quite hard to find our wine for sale, if you would like to try some drop me an email and I will try to let you know where it is available near you. The picture at right shows some of the Mad Dog brains trust sampling the yet to be released 2005 and 2006 Shiraz and the very limited 2006 Sangiovese that will be bottled later this year. From left are my sister and her husband and my father.

This week: 15th Sept.

Weather Report Week Ending 15/9/06

Maximum Temperature for the week 24.0C (75F) on Fri.
Minimum Temperature for the week 3.0C (37F) on Tue.
Rainfall for the Week 1.6mm (4.5 points) 1 day of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Very dry again this week. Our vines are really starting to grow now. The warm weather is certainly getting things moving - we just need some more moisture. It is looking like we will be relying on our irrigation quite a bit this year. Anyone without the ability to irrigate in the Barossa this year could be in very serious trouble. I have now got Weather records for Nuriootpa that date back to 1952, last month was our driest Aug. on record and we still need 6 mm of rain this month to beat our driest Sept.

This week in the vineyard : We continue to mow covercrops. There is still a risk of frost - although probably not for another couple of weeks, closer to the next full moon. Our block of Shiraz and Cabernet that we are going to top graft over to Sauvinon Blanc is now ready for our grafting contractor to come - all the vines have been cut off and treated to prevent Eutypa. This weeks photos are at the top of a Shiraz bud and at right of some of our young Chardonnay.

This week: 8th Sept.

Weather Report Week Ending 08/9/06
Maximum Temperature for the week 25.8C (78F) on Sat.
Minimum Temperature for the week 3.4C (38F) on Tue.
Rainfall for the Week 10.2mm (29 points) 2 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Some rainfall this week - still not enough to make a difference to the season. The rain that we have had was just enough to green everything up again, but still not enough to replenish our subsoil moistures.

This week in the vineyard :
We have now finished mowing our covercrops down, some of it has now been done a second time. The forcast is for some very cold nights coming up this week, so we are keeping our covercrops as short as possible. We have just had a full moon which also increases our risk of frost damage. This weeks picture shows the same view as last week but the covercrop has now been mowed.

This week: 1st Sept.

Weather Report Week Ending 01/9/06
Maximum Temperature for the week 24.0C (75F) on Fri.
Minimum Temperature for the week -0.7C (31F) on Sat.
Rainfall for the Week 0.2mm (1 point).
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.


Still no rainfall to report. This week I have seen the first signs of covercrops dying from lack of moisture. A couple more frosts this week, although not severe enough to damage the new buds that are starting to burst now. Last month was one of the driest Augusts on record for the Barossa Valley and that follows the previous two winter months also being well below average. Overall probably our driest winter on record.

This week in the vineyard : Our new block of Sauv. Blanc. has now been put in growtubes (as the picture above shows). We have also been out mowing down our cover crops, to reduce our frost risk and also to preserve the little bit of moisture we have in our soil. Below is a picture of one of our 16 year old Shiraz with it's first shoots just starting to burst. We also have young Chardonnay now at second leaf stage.