The start to the vintage 2018 growing season was just the opposite to the year before, dry, dry, dry. We had virtually no moisture in the soil at the beginning of spring and this is still the case at the end of April. The summer storms were hit and miss which meant our vineyard at Mount Panorama received significantly more rain than our home vineyard at O’Connell.
The temperatures were consistently hot with cooler nights, but we didn’t receive any extremely hot days (ie in the 40s). This meant we did not have to do as much thinning (shoot and bunch) as in previous vintages and that the grapes ripened reasonably quickly and early.
Vintage started with a bang on 12 February (Chardonnay for Cobbers Sparkling) and we harvested our last grapes on 30 March.
Without getting overly excited, let me just say that, although the quantity was down, most of the fruit was in pristine condition and I have high expectations for many of the developing wines including the Chardonnay and Cabernet/Merlot from our home block and the Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon from Mount Panorama Estate.
We have been blessed with several good to excellent vintages over the past 4 or 5 years. Now all we need is a bit of rain to fill up the soil profile and set us up for another great year in 2019.
