Vintage Report 2013
Published on October 13, 2013
About
Sarsfield Estate is a small farm in the Lakes and Wilderness area of
East Gippsland, in the South-eastern corner of Australia.
We use solar and wind energy and depend entirely on rainwater.
Our wines vary naturally as the seasons change, and it is a fascinating challenge to understand how a season is reflected in the wine it produces.
This is why we write vintage reports.
Vintage Report 2013
- A near-full dam to start the growing season
The growing season began very promising with a full dam, which is always very reassuring.
Spring was warm, dry and very windy.
Severe gales hit us just when the shoots were long but still very tender and hardly a single vine came through unscathed. It is sad work to pull out broken shoots and wilting flowers by their hundreds, to prevent them rotting next to the healthy shoots.
Especially the sensitive cane-pruned canopies of Pinot noir suffered. Unfortunately it is usually the canes required for the next year which break off, so that pruning the next winter is slower and more difficult and yield may be affected for two years.
- broken shoots
- wilting shoot and inflorescence
The wind also interfered with flowering. As grape vines are self-pollinated they need calm weather for a good fruit set. So this season grape bunches remained smaller than usual.
It was however a good year for wildlife. Birds, especially the smaller ones were nesting everywhere, but there were also many large birds of prey and owls. Rabbits achieved an all time high, reptiles of many different kinds enjoyed the warm weather and frogs were breeding by the hundreds in our winery wastewater pond.
- Juvenile Dragon
- Superb Blue Wren
- Bush rat (they love grapes!)
Spring and summer were generally very dry, with only 50 to 60% of our usual rainfall from September onwards. Until we finally received some decent rain at the end of February we had to irrigate every second day. Our sandy soil needs frequent but small amounts of water to keep the vines reasonably happy.
- Netting the vineyard against birds
- Cattle grazing dry paddock
Summer, too, was hot. January till mid-March again well above our long term average temperature, and actually the second warmest season we ever recorded here.
We also had to control a powdery mildew outbreak. This fungus, which lives on the leaf surface, survives happily in very dry weather as dew supplies it with sufficient moisture to thrive. However, we finally got on top of it.
- Cabernet Sauvignon
- picking grapes
- picking up grapes
Vintage started immediately after a long hot spell, on 15th of March, and finished very early, on the 7th of April. Grapes were of very good quality, with high concentration of flavour and colour due to the dry conditions. We actually expect some fairly spectacular wines coming from the 2013 vintage. The yield however was disappointingly small.
- finished for today
- our cattle get the grape stalks
- they love them.
