Autumn 2020
The beginning of Autumn was kicked off of course by the beginning of vintage, marking the end of another growing season. A season with its share of challenges, frost on the first full moon of spring 2018 and a windy and erratic flowering period meant fruit-set was poor. This was followed by extreme heat at the beginning of summer which stressed the vines - all this resulting in small bunches. The bushfires in December, claimed some of the years’ harvest through smoke-tainted grapes in the Sparrow’s vineyard at Mount Torrens. It also oddly enough caused an intense powdery mildew outbreak in the Chardonnay. By the end of December we were asking ourselves what next?
…And the answer was rain, beautiful rain and very mild conditions for ripening, some of the best we’ve had in years. There was no rush to pick, we were able to take our time, and with the meagre yields (2 tonnes to the hectare), the quality was quite special. The struggle of a season had once again found its way into the grapes and the results were very pleasing.
The same month elsewhere the pandemic was finding its way to Australia, and as we were picking chardonnay on the 10th of March a news report signalled a premature end to the harvest. It was for the first half of march largely ignored until we found ourselves evacuating one of the vintage team back to Slovakia before airports in Europe closed and at the same time preparing the others who were from France, for staying for months longer than anticipated.
The vintage finished abruptly in the first week of April when the Nebbiolo was picked and pressed off for a delightful rose. Almost no rain fell in the months of February and March, January on the other hand became the second wettest on record, resulting in green pasture filled vineyards. The shortened harvest and fertile soil meant we could head straight back out into the vines cultivating the rows and mounding before winter, a task always sort after but sometimes not possible in some years.
We were also able to put out Cow pat pit for the first time a ferment that was put to ground on the 6th of June 2020, on the first full moon of Autumn. This years Autumn light was incredible for a period, with long afternoons of sunshine and fading warmth, the leaves taking their time to turn and fall to the ground. The vines entered dormancy without stress undertaking their last little bit of growth underground before the end of another season.
We collected golden kelp from a nearby beach and made a seaweed ferment for the coming spring, and tree-paste for the pruning season (1 part lees, 2 parts manure, 1 part clay (bentonite). Time with the family walks around the vines. It was the best year for mushrooms that I can remember, wood blewits porcini, ceps, milk caps, but terrible for walnuts too wet with too many parrots! Our French friends who stayed on were no trouble at all, we became a real commune with slow starts to the day and a good breakfast followed by the weekly projects of building a shed, painting verandas or sanding and oiling the vintage table we had all shared lunches on.
A productive time indeed! And as the days grew shorter and the home fires burned longer we bagan to think of pruning, and talk between producers turning to Sap flow and Simonite as we left another growing season and harvest behinds us….