Vintage Report 2015
Published on July 26, 2015
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 2015
- One of our 100 year old trees blown over
The growing season started with heavy rain and gale force winds. Again we lost several trees, and sadly one of our huge 100 year old grey gums was among them.
- spring growth
A generally warm spring with constant rain sent the vines growing like never before. The weather played tropical with thunderstorms nearly every day. Work in the waterlogged vineyard was rather difficult, and on 30th of November we had a thunderstorm with hail causing some damage.
And then, with another 90mm of rain in early December, the vines grew to huge size. Side-shoots, usually small twigs with a few leaves each, reached the size of the main canes, and the leaves all grew to a huge size. Only with constant thinning and trimming by hand and machine could we more or less keep the vines open enough to prevent major disease outbreaks. Downy mildew is the worst infection in this sort of weather and it can defoliate a whole vineyard within a few days. However with constant vigilance and more sprays than we usually need we kept the vines healthy.
- Sacred Ibis visited nearly every day
- Baby birds in the nest of Jacky Winter
- ....grew up to be cockoos this year.
- hail damage
- hail damage
On 18th of December we had another thunderstorm with severe hail. It didn’t last very long, but the size of the hailstones was quite substantial and left the vines a sad sight, with torn leaves, broken canes and damaged young bunches everywhere. This was followed two weeks later by a severe gale which broke a lot of the canes which had been growing so rapidly.
All summer we had not one day above 40°C and only a few above 35°C but a lot of showers and thunderstorms. These ideal growing conditions for plants and fungal diseases produce large, weak leaves and large, watery grapes. They are wonderful for selling, but not desirable for winemaking where flavour is everything and water is nothing.
- echidnas love the vineyard
- showers and rain all spring and summer
- rampant vine growth
Only in mid-summer the excessive rain eventually stopped. Windy and dry conditions followed, leading to an early autumn.
The chickens were as usual the first in the grapes. Surprisingly we saw very few grape-eating birds and later heard that they had stayed up in the high country, devastating the olive groves there.
- rooster inspecting Cabernet Sauvignon
- first into the grapes
- vintage began 2 weeks late
However, grapes were well behind with their ripening process and there was some botrytis.
It was middle of March, two weeks later than usual, that Pinot noir could finally be picked. But after that vintage progressed at a very high speed. The suddenly dry and windy weather with high evaporation rates sucked some of the water from the grapes and left them concentrated, with high sugar, flavour and acid. The last grapes were picked in the first week of April, a whole month earlier than usual. They were in perfect condition and had very good sugar and acid levels and strong flavours, more in the red berry spectrum than usual for our vineyard.
- picking grapes
- picking grapes
