Harvest 2022 - the results are in!

Short and Sweet is a very apt term for our 2022 harvest. It was the shortest harvest since we opened our winery ....and the fruit was sweet with intense flavours -  lovely and ripe with excellent sugar levels and phenolic maturity across all varieties. It was easy picking as there was no botrytis or disease on the grapes making quality control in the vineyard almost unnecessary. We hand pick all our grapes and so quality control is usually done in the vineyard when we are picking. In wetter years we may need to remove any berries with disease or botrytis (grey mould) from the bunches before putting them in our buckets. Clean grapes are important for wine quality.

Is this too good to be true? No. It is just that 2022 is shaping up to be an excellent vintage.

Staring on the 21st September, it was not the earliest start but with just 4 weeks of picking, it was much shorter than our normal 6-8 weeks. Harvest finished on 18th October, a good 2 1/2 weeks earlier than 2021. The harvest was however as intense as some of the flavours in the grapes, as we picked virtually everyday from start to finish with only a few breaks for the odd rain shower. 

For those of you who entered our harvest sweep stake, I expect you are keen to find out how many tonnes we picked in 2022. I can now reveal that the 2022 harvest finally came in at 119.83 tonnes slightly lower than 2021 which was 127 tonnes. Good luck to all who entered.

A full break down of harvest 2022 will follow in our January news letter.

 As always, it’s a very busy time of year on the winemaking side. All the grapes have now been processed, safely in from the inclement weather. The job now is to turn the excellent quality we’ve received into great wines.

The majority of the tanks are full with fermentations at all stages, some finished, some mid-way through with only a couple now still in the early stages.

This time of year there is always a myriad of aromas, with all the varieties releasing a wide range of enticing aromatic compounds. Current tanks/varieties of note: to start with is Bacchus, of which we’ve got 6 tanks all showing excellent precision of flavour and a nice variety between the earlier, more floral picks through to the later riper fruit. This year the Sauvignon Blanc reached perfect sugar and phenolic ripeness and is approaching half way through ferment with the extremely distinctive aromas and flavours developing nicely. Due to the excellent weather we’ve had we are also making a fair amount of red wine this year: that will be going into barrel in the coming weeks to mature for a year. So, all happening in the winery, with a few more weeks before things begin to settle down. The next phase is deciding which tanks are destined for which wines, this begins in December.