Brokenwood End of Vintage Report 2012

 Brokenwood End of Vintage Report 2012

Exactly two months on since the previous report and the arrival of Nick Bulleid and his Pinot Noir, I think we can safely say that the last fruit is in, 91 days after we started on Hunter Valley Semillon.

The 40^th Brokenwood vintage, the 30^th vintage of Iain Riggs at the helm, the 20^th for vintage manager Keith Barry and the 1^st for Simon Steele, has been one full of interest and challenges.  

The last two months have seen every berry of our Hunter red picked, probably the only Hunter winery to do so.  Simon and Stuart and the winery team have delivered an excellent range of wines from Hunter Valley Semillon and Shiraz to the full complement out of Beechworth, the Chardonnay and Pinot are particularly exciting), rich robust reds from McLaren Vale and cool climate Sauvignon Blanc from the Forest Edge Vineyard at Orange.  However the rain and disease pressure did get the better of the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay at the Forest Edge.  Interesting to see that the Southern Oscillation Index returned to negative or El Nino territory in mid April 2012, bringing up exactly two years of La Nina conditions. Hunter Valley winemakers can work with the odd break in the weather to turn out top wines but a rain free vintage would be welcomed I’m sure.

Of course El Nino could mean days on end of 40C plus weather, so to keep one step ahead a 100sqm blast chilling room is being built, along with a complete upgrade and relocation of the refrigeration system. 

The winery waste water is now being recycled for growing jumbo grass and then harvested for vineyard mulch.   

Wines going into bottle in the next few weeks include three Single Vineyard 2012 Semillon’s, one of which will be released at 6 years as the ILR reserve as well as a very fresh and vibrant 2012 Hunter Semillon.  The other early bottling will be the 2012 Beechworth Pinot Gris.  With all the 2012 grapes in the winery, work swaps over to getting the 2011 reds out of oak and the most important of all being the 2011 Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz.