1969

For a 60th birthday party, gift for 60 years of marriage, corporate gift or other, offering a bottle of wine from 1969 is an excellent gift idea. In Bordeaux, the 1969 vintage is much better than 1968 despite a rainy September. The most beautiful achievement is Petrus in Pomerol. In Burgundy, it is an excellent vintage with classic, solid and full-bodied wines. These are wines of very good and long aging, Chambolle-Musigny are remarkable. In t...

Australia / The third wettest winter in half a century followed onto a wet, late vintage with growers and wineries fearing a disaster. While the season produced record yields it also led to disease pressure and poor set and the resultant red wines were “ordinary” and have not lasted.

In 1969 there were 7,076 hectares of vineyards in Barossa and 30,273 tonnes of wine grapes were crushed in that vintage.

The widespread appearance of downy mildew in the Barossa, which was traditionally a low-disease risk grape growing region, caused such severe damage that some leading wines were not made that year and many wines were subject to lactase attack.

The Riverland led the Barossa in the development of new labour saving technology such as machine harvesting and also the introduction of drip irrigation. Nevertheless, more than 60% of Barossa growers were using some form of supplementary irrigation in 1969, particularly furrow irrigation from creeks. An awareness of the negative aspect of irrigation was noticed following measurements of salinity fluctuations.

Marginal increases in grape prices were paid in 1969, due to the demand for better quality fruit grown in the Barossa compared with the Riverland.

A major expansion took place at Leo Buring raising capacity from 1,700 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes. This included a new vintage cellar, new crushing facilities, a new concept in red fermentation using stainless steel jetting tanks, new pressure fermentation vessels for the production of Sparkling Rhinegolde, a new bottling line and extra refrigeration.

Tollana planted the largest contoured vineyard in Australia at Woodbury in the Eden Valley, to prevent soil erosion and moisture loss.

Kies Family Wines was established at Lyndoch.

Rhöne Vintage Report by Jaboulet: The total harvest of the Côtes du Rhône wines is 678,345 Hl. In the northernmost part, the grape harvests began on the 23rd. September and finished on the 18th. October. Winter not cold enough, not too cold in Spring. In June, the heating has to be put back on: something unheard of in living memory. The warm days arrive in July and August is a good month. The harvest goes well. There is a large crop and the grapes are healthy. We have good red wines that will keep well, with rich colour.
The white wines are correct: fruity and well balanced with acidity. They are elegant

Burgundy vintage Report:  Classic vintage of well-constituted wines. 

A cold rainy spring was followed by a hot dry summer with some drought problems here and there. The ripening of the grapes was slowed down by wet and cold weather until mid-September, but fine and dry weather leading up to the harvest enabled optimal maturation. 

The 1969 reds were never charming and always a bit reserved behind their tannins. Now fully mature, this is a vintage to look out for, especially bottles from cool cellars — as always, storage conditions are key to the development and survival of old wines.

Bordeaux: An unexceptional winter was followed by bad spring weather. June continued cold, but July and August saw a rise in temperatures and reasonable amounts of sunshine. Rain fell throughout the first fortnight of September, but warm, sunny weather afterwards continued until the harvest – of a very small crop – in early October. Most of the reds proved to be a great disappointment, dry, short and acid.
 

1969 On July 20th one of mans crowning achievements occurred when American Astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon and uttered the immortal words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." . The opposition to the war continued to increase with more and more attending anti war demonstrations and demanding that the US withdrew from Vietnam. The music came from groups including the Doors, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin and the Beatles and the most famous music festival of modern times "WOODSTOCK" took place on a New York Farm on August 15th to August 17th with more than 400,000 avid music fans attending to see the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby Stills Nash and Young and others perform live. fashions reflected the anti war sentiment with military jackets adorned with peace signs, and other trends including long unkempt wild hair and headbands showed the feelings of anti establishment felt by the youth.