Stefano Lubiana 2012 Part 5
Diary note for March 27th, 2012
Mark Twain was right. Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.
That’s surely been the case across southern Tasmania during the past few months. Indeed, the growing and ripening seasons that led to vintage 2012 presented wine producers at this end of the island with plenty of reasons for talking about the weather – the warmest November month since 1982; heavy rain and flash flooding around Hobart on December 19th; and a January that on different occasions set records for both cold and warm temperatures.
High humidity and minor outbreaks of both powdery and downy mildews provided additional topics of conversation.
As we work our way through our third week of harvesting at Stefano Lubiana Wines, we’re finding that some of the effects of those previously mentioned weather chickens have really come home to roost. In fact, it so happens that one of those effects is itself called ‘hen and chicken.’
You see it all through our Pinot Noir harvests this year. It’s the predominance of imperfectly formed grape bunches. These are characterised by a mix of small, seedless berries nestling alongside larger seeded ones. (Check out the accompanying image.)
Such bunches generally produce fruit and wine of outstanding quality. The phenomenon is often the result of bad weather when vines are flowering in the vineyard. Just a few ill-timed cold days, rain or wind during late November, and fruit set can be significantly compromised.
On the downside, bunches with ‘hen and chicken’ invariably result in significant yield reductions.
These bunches also run the risk of receiving considerable damage in the event of a rain-affected vintage. In really dire circumstances, the ‘little chickens’ can swell up with water and split, further reducing crop production, and opening up new pathways for disease.
With plenty of fine weather now on the horizon, our hardworking vineyard and vintage teams have been forging on with their tasks this week, and look to have picked and processed roughly 30 tonnes of Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir from our biodynamically managed Granton Vineyard, 20km north of Hobart.
On top of that, we’ve processed just under 10 tonnes of Pinot Noir we’ve purchased for sparkling wine production from another vineyard in the north of the State. The quality there looks pretty good too.
Purchasing fruit is something we’re never really keen on, but with production levels being significantly reduced this year on our own site, we’ve needed to make up part of the shortfall by buying in a bit of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir fizz material.
Next season, we’ll be able to play our ‘get out of jail free’ card as the 7ha of Pinot Noir we planted in 2010 comes on stream.
Our 2012 vintage team looks forward to a big week
After spending the weekend touring and tasting their way through the nearby Coal River Valley, our team of international winemakers – Tyler Eck (from California in the US), Gavin Robertson (from Ontario, Canada) and Daniel Schmitt (from the Rheinhessen in Germany) is looking forward to a busy week in the winery.
With four or five days of settled weather being forecast, and ripening all but completed across the property, we’re going to be bringing in as much fruit from the vineyard as we can manage in the time that’s available.
All our ‘blow-in winemakers’ have commented on the fabulous quality of the fruit they’ve seen pass across our triage table. With this vintage being a year of reduced yields, that’s exactly the kind of talk we want to hear going on at the moment. Bugger the weather.
PS We’ve been posting photos of vintage 2012 on our Flickr pages. You’ll find them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefano_lubiana_wines/
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