Vintage Report 2016
Published on July 26, 2016
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 2016
- Feeding our cattle
A cold winter with an unusual amount of frost and constant showers made pruning somewhat slow and difficult.
- raking out the prunings
Budburst was right on time, but early spring again was cold and showery with some hail.
In early October the temperature suddenly soared and Victoria saw early bushfires with property loss. But while western Victoria went into drought we received good rain at the end of October.
Overall spring was good and wildlife on the farm was flourishing.
Here are some of the photos we took.
- echidna mating season
- No, I'm not blue yet but I check every day in the mirror!
- and I'm proudly getting there a few weeks later. (Superb blue wren)
- A tiny puggle (baby echidna) was raised at the chook yard. See pictures here
- Long necked turtle burying eggs
- Jacky Lizards in love
Early summer brought us frequent cold drizzle and rain, interspersed with sudden very hot, tropical days which caused everything to rot and decay.
January was cold, well below average, and often overcast. While bushfires and drought raged in other parts of Australia and the bushfire smoke from Tasmania drifted over to us, we had severe thunderstorms, more than double our average rainfall, and hail with a 10 minutes belting with the size of walnuts.
- an unusually green summer
- 10 minutes of hail the size of walnuts
- worried about fire danger
The strange weather continued into February, with little rain but constant drizzle, fog and heavy dew. Soil moisture decreased, but the foliage was always wet and it was much too cold for summer. The grapes ripened very slowly.
Farmer’s Rule: Expect the worst.
Our gambling with leaving off the bird nets on some of the Pinot noir did not pay off. Windy weather coincided with the early arrival of one of the largest flocks of Currawongs we have ever seen. More than 500 birds tried to harvest ahead of us. Fortunately our new toy, the quad bike, proved fairly efficient at chasing the flock out. Racing around and doing gun noises kept them at bay, but only just.
- Currawongs greedy for grapes
- first in - first served
- windy weather and slow to ripen grapes
With great relief we welcomed our pickers on February, 29th at dawn, to get going on the Pinot noir. We had the Pinot all picked by March, 5th.
- summer finally arrived....
- ...with overheating ferments;
- the rest was rain.
That’s when summer finally arrived. With the sudden heat the fermenting grapes started to overheat and we run out of cooling capacity, which is limited at Sarsfield Estate, as we have only solar energy and no grid connection. But the fermentations still went very well and to our great surprise all finished cleanly.
Shiraz was picked a week later, about five days before its best, but the rain hit soon after and we had to wait for more than 3 weeks with a lot of rain before the Merlot, usually ripe at the same time as Shiraz, had recovered somewhat. It was picked in perfect condition, with Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon following 2 days later with very good sugar levels and very nice flavours.
- picking grapes
- Merlot
- picking grapes
Vintage was over before the middle of April, a very early finish.
Overall: Another strange year with a lot of rain, high yield in Pinot noir and low in Cabernet Sauvignon and surprisingly good quality.
