Uutiset
It's a wrap for 2018 harvest
Following eight weeks of steady picking, the 2018 harvest was completed on April 7, when we hand harvested our Old Block Cabernet Sauvignon under fine sunny skies. The Cabernet Sauvignon fruit harvested this year has been of outstanding quality across all blocks; ripe, concentrated flavours and excellent dry, powdery tannins. The resultant wines are looking terrific and, I expect some of the batches will stay on skins post fermentation for a few weeks, as we look to build structure and longevity into the top wines. I’m quietly confident of it being a Tom Price year.
The organic blocks have fared extremely well this season, and we are thrilled with the quality of fruit which was harvested off these vineyards. We are currently rolling an additional one third of our vineyard area under the organic regime to bring the total area under full organic farming to 80 hectares.
The winery team have been pretty hectic this vintage as I think we are setting a new record for the highest number of different wines being made – last count had us at 30 different wines as we look to explore the nuances of our vineyards and winemaking craft in producing more small batch wines in addition to our main focus wines.
It has been such a nice harvest – with the luxury of being able to pick small parcels of our vineyard blocks on most days over the past eight weeks. As mentioned in previous updates, the yields are lower than we expected, however the quality across the board is outstanding for both white and red wines.
I believe 2018 will go down as one of the great years in Margaret River, producing wines with great flavour, concentration and pure varietal expression from the individual vineyard sites.
Steve James
Manager, Winemaking & Viticulture