Tuesday 27th March 2012
It has been a busy couple of weeks with all of our Shiraz harvested, and we are presently picking Merlot and some Cabernet Sauvignon.
The weather conditions have been absolutely perfect for finishing off the reds - sunny warm days around 26 degrees celsius with cool nights around 11 degrees.
The quality of the reds appears exceptional, with excellent early tannin ripeness and beautiful freshness in the fruit flavours. The Cabernet Sauvignon particularly looks outstanding, with nice small berries and thick skins, which will enable a long period of skin contact post fermentation. This helps to build complexity and structure into the wine.
A recent tasting of the whites from 2012 also revealed a very high quality harvest. The Chardonnay is nearly all through fermentation and is showing lovely balance with the trademark tight citrus fruit elements we look for. The early batches of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon have been blended and are also displaying crisp citrus and white stonefruit flavours with lovely structure and balance.
If this perfect weather continues we will go close to completing harvest in the next couple of weeks.
The team is really happy with the overall quality and the yields have also been on target or slightly above, which all points to another great vintage in Margaret River - provided the yields were managed carefully.
Cheers,
Steve James.
Wednesday 28 March 2012
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