Our vineyards are situated across the north coast of Tasmania, on the western banks of the scenic Tamar River slightly north of Launceston, as well as within the Pipers Brook and Pipers River regions.
Climatically each vineyard site is different from the next. Its the subtle differences in climatic conditions between sites and between vines that becomes part of the complex answer to the production of cool climate wines of the highest quality that we strive for.
An example being that vineyards along the banks of the Tamar River are located inland, slightly less exposed to the prevailing NW winds blowing off Bass Strait which create temperature cooling effects. The Tamar River vineyards experience slightly warmer average temperatures than the more coastal Pipers Brook and Pipers River regions. As a consequence grapes generally mature some 10 days earlier with slightly higher yields from the vineyards in the Tamar region. This increases ripening potential and creates a useful spread of harvesting and processing times. These vineyards provide quality and quantity as well as being ideally suited to the production of later ripening varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc.
The cooler climatic conditions experienced by the more coastal Pipers Brook and Pipers River regions create a perfect environment for the production of sparkling wines due to the fruits’ retention of naturally high acidity, lower sugar accumulation yet early flavour ripeness. Let the fruit hang on the vines a little longer and the premium table wine production of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay begins.
It is hard to believe that such an ancient form of agriculture has new systems of trellising vineyards evolving every year, but it is true. The modern vineyard systems assist quality and tend to manipulate vines so that vine architecture which arises naturally in great vineyard sites can be approximated on less privileged locations. Pipers Brook Vineyard helped to pioneer close-planted VSP (vertical shoot positioned) vineyards in Australia and even now has some of the largest areas of close-planted vines. The Kreglinger sparkling wine is produced on close-planted vineyards. Close planting provides one way to display a large leaf canopy and keep fruit from being too shaded. The newer Scott Henry system, named after the eponymous grower in Oregon, more intensively arranges vine shoots to expose grapes to the sun. We are now using this system on a majority of our sites as it appears to optimise fruit quality in our locations. It is the best system for minimising bunch rot in grapes.