Sunday, February 11, 2007

This week: 9th. Feb.


Weather Report Week Ending 9/2/07
Maximum Temperature for the week 40.1C (104F) on Sun.
Minimum Temperature for the week 10.5C (51F) on Wed.
Rainfall for the Week 0.0mm (0 points) 0 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Another glorious week for ripening grapes here in the Barossa. Warm dry days with quite cool nights - just what the vines need for maximum flavour development. Unfortunately the rain of last month has caused some problems for the vines, some baumes are rising far too quickly. Some blocks are ready to pick now, but the flavours have not developed properly yet. It means a lot of wine makers will be agonizing over picking grapes now and possibly having under ripe characters in their wines, or waiting for the flavours to develop and produce higher alcohol wines. In our own vineyard we have seen baumes jump 2 points in under a week - but we still have very green seeds and lack of full flavor.

This week in the vineyard:
Grape picking continues at a frantic pace. This week we have been picking Chardonnay and Riesling, for Yalumba, Barossa Valley Estate and Peter Lehmann. I now have all of our white varieties booked to be be picked in the next week - so hopefully next week I can report on the end of our white harvest. The first red deliveries (Shiraz) will also occur in this coming week. The picture shows a bunch of Semillon that will be picked this week.

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