This week: 27th. April.

Weather Report Week Ending 27/4/07
Maximum Temperature for the week 23.0C (73F) on Wed.
Minimum Temperature for the week 9.2C (49F) on Mon.
Rainfall for the Week 40.0mm (114 points) 3 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Rain, rain, rain. At last we have had a large amount of rain, and it is continuing to fall as I write this. It looks like we may go close to some of our longstanding rainfall records for April. We have had very steady soaking rain Thurs. and Friday. The graph above shows the steady rain we had all day on Friday. Graph with thanks to Weatherzone.

This week in the vineyard:
We have started spreading fowl manure in the blocks we have identified that will need it. I have also been working up, where I could. Now that we have had all this rain we now need several dry days to enable us to get out in the vineyard - not normally a problem in our soil types. This rain has been so welcome to us coming just one week after the announcement of very severe water restrictions for next year for all Murray Darling irrigators. This has not solved the water issue for us, but it is a very good first step in the right direction.

This week: 20th. April.

Weather Report Week Ending 20/4/07
Maximum Temperature for the week 25.1C (77F) on Sat.
Minimum Temperature for the week 4.8C (40F) on Wed.
Rainfall for the Week 0.0mm (0 points) 0 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Another beautiful Autumn week in the Barossa. No rain at all this week. There is a promise of some rain in the forecast for the end of next week - I'll keep you informed.

This week in the vineyard:
Not a lot is happening in our vineyard at the moment. My staff have been on holiday still this week. We have not been able to keep working with the Grizzly disk as it has been too dry. With the possibility of some rain next week we are getting everything ready to go as soon as the season breaks properly. Once we get some rain I will finish working in the summer weeds, then we will spread fowl manure in the blocks we have identified as needing a Nitrogen boost. Then the fowl manure will also need to be worked in. We are also about 2 weeks away from starting our pruning - just waiting for enough leaves to fall off so we can see what we are doing.
During this week the Federal government announced that for the start of the next irrigation season all irrigators on the Murray Darling river system will start with zero water allocation. While this will be an inconvenience to us (we have sub-surface water available to us), it will be an absolute disaster for a lot of grape growers all over Australia. The possibility of no water for the whole season could see large areas of vines dying both here and in the warm inland regions of Australia. Most grape growers will not have the finances available to them to replant if vines do die, not to mention the total lack of income for about 5 years while young vines reach maturity. Our vines will be able to survive on our bore water however we will see some salinity effects in the longer term, as it is considerably more saline than the water we have been using for the last 6 years. We will not want to use this water for more than one growing season as the salt gradually builds up in the soil. As our Prime Minister John Howard says 'we should all pray for rain' as this is the only thing that will end our drought here in Australia. For more detail on the condition of the Murray Darling river system see my link 'Murray River weekly report'.

Vintage Report 2007

This vintage has been a real challenge for all growers in the Barossa Valley. We started the growing season with record low winter rainfall - in fact the whole country has been severely affected by drought. As is usually the case, after a very dry spring, frost is a major risk to us. On Sat. 21st of Oct. while most of our vines were still flowering we had a very short frost event (less than one hour). We still do not know how much crop we lost to this frost - most visible damage was to our growing tips.

In the middle of Jan. we had just over a week of heavy rain which caused severe splitting in some varieties, worst affected appeared to be Shiraz.

Harvest was the earliest this year we have ever had. We started picking Sauvinion Blanc on the 23rd Jan this is 8 days earlier than we have ever picked before. Most blocks were picked 2 -4 weeks earlier than usual. We finished our smallest vintage ever with our Grenache on 26th March. We harvested just 37% of what we picked in 2006. Some of our worst blocks only produced 10% of last years crop. The one positive from the low crops was that we had no problem selling all of our grapes - last year we had to pick some of our crop on to the ground.

Wine quality appears to be fairly variable despite very low cropping levels. There will be some very good wines produced out of the Barossa this year, but I fear there will also be some only average wines produced. This year cropping level does not appear to have been a good indicator of grape quality. The photos I have included show frost damage to Shiraz growing tips 3 days after the frost, and splitting also in Shiraz about 4 days after the rain that caused it.

This week: 13th. April.

Weather Report Week Ending 13/4/07
Maximum Temperature for the week 32.2C (90F) on Tue.
Minimum Temperature for the week 7.2C (45F) on Sun.
Rainfall for the Week 0.0mm (0 points) 0 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Another beautiful Autumn week here in the Barossa. A warmer week for us in fact we look like we may set some new average maximum temperature records for April, if it stays much like it has been for the next 2 weeks. No rain recorded this week but we have had a couple of foggy/dewy mornings this week to keep things a little moist.

This week in the vineyard:

The rain we got 2 weeks ago is now just a distant memory. The upside of this is that we have had glorious weather for the 2007 Vintage Festival. I have included some photos I have taken this week. The first two were taken at the street parade (the longest in the southern hemisphere, we are told), it's route runs between Tanunda and Nuriootpa (approx. 7km). The second photo was taken at the Barossa Airshow and shows part of the crowd and flightline. We have not been doing a lot in the vineyard this week. We are still cultivating summer weeds, however we are now limited to our lighter soils as the Grizzly disk will not penetrate our heavy soils. Until we get some more rain those areas will need to wait. Both of my vineyard staff are away on holiday this week - it is the break between harvest and the start of our winter work.

This week: 6th. April.

Weather Report Week Ending 6/4/07
Maximum Temperature for the week 25.6C (78F) on Mon.
Minimum Temperature for the week 9.0C (48F) on Fri.
Rainfall for the Week 0.4mm (1 point) 2 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

A beautiful Autumn week here in the Barossa. Virtually no rain this week - the moisture from the last two weeks has all but evaporated now. The change of season is really starting to set in with much cooler temperatures all this week.

This week in the vineyard:
We have started working in the summer weeds now. We have also started spreading fowl manure in most or our white varieties. This is the only surface applied fertiliser we put on our vines (we top up with foliar applied nutrients where necessary). There is little sign of change of colour in the vine leaves, although some of the local glory vines are just starting to change, just in time for our local vintage festival. The vintage festival is starting this weekend - approx 100 events spread over a week in the Barossa. Events range from Art and Craft exhibitions to musical performances to a major wine auction (Fri at Nuriootpa) and even a full on air show (Sun 15th 10am-4pm at Rowland Flat). There are individual town days (Lyndoch Mon, Angaston Wed and Tanunda Sat). There will also be a huge float procession on Sat between Nuriootpa and Tanunda. For more details see the web link to the right look for Barossa Vintage Festival.

Email Cash

Recently I discovered the Emailcash web site. I have been responding to surveys for a while now. Emailcash is a lot more than just being rewarded for surveys. You get points for responding to surveys, reading emails and even shopping. If you use Emailcash retailers and then claim your points, you can very quickly accumulate a large number of points, which you can convert to real money. The money can be used for bidding in auctions for things like DVDs, board games, even Ipods and Play Station Portables. You can give money to charity. You can request a cheque to spend on whatever you wish. You can even bank your points at a very attractive interest rate. There are forums to air your views, and classified ads to help you buy and sell trash and treasure. There is even a section to play games against other members. Why not use the emailcash web link to the right or below to join up and have a look for yourself. If you join up and earn 400 points (not that hard to do), then I will also be given 200 points. Give it a go!

www.emailcash.com.au/join.asp?refer=K98282

This week: 30th. March.

Weather Report Week Ending 30/3/07

Maximum Temperature for the week 29.5C (85F) on Tue.
Minimum Temperature for the week 6.6C (44F) on Sun.
Rainfall for the Week 13.4mm (38 points) 4 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

All except one day this week below our long term average. Another 13mm of rain this week has now got everything looking nice and green. We have now had more than 30mm of rain in the last fortnight, as long as it keeps raining now, this is beginning to look like a very good (and very timely) opening to the season. Just what our vines need after a couple years of drought conditions.

This week in the vineyard:
We have now finished all of our grapes - the picture above shows us hand picking our 40 year old Grenache vines. This was our last parcel of fruit to be picked this year. We have had one of the lowest tonnage vintages in living memory this year. I will do a vintage wrap-up in a later post. I have now started cultivating the mulch we have on the surface of the soil, we are also trying to control the weeds that have started to germinate since it started raining. With the same pass we are also spraying under the vines, to control the weeds that have started to germinate. We have also started work on clearing non-native trees (mostly almond and olive) from one of the creeks that run through our property. We will eventually be planting native trees in the creek to try and stop the non natives from coming back again.