March 2007

'BARKING MAD' Season - Vintage 2007

A spattering of rain in early January and a very hot start to February has seen us commencing vintage considerably earlier than usual this year! The first whites were picked in the second week of February and crushing of our reds commenced on that weekend. We have had very low cropping on our old vines that produce our Dry Land Range with no rain in the 40 days leading up to the start of vintage. The lack of rain has also meant that we have no ill effect from moulds or fungus! The fruit we are seeing though has very good colour, and overall fruit quality does not appear to have been compromised. The cabernet in particular is looking pretty great! Picking should be finished by 24th March, yet there will be several weeks pressing still to go.

On the bottling front, our blockbuster 2005 Dry Land Shiraz has just been packaged and will be released in 2 years time after careful bottle maturation.

Overall it has not been a fantastic vintage as far as volumes go, but we are confident that we can deliver some masterful wines from this vintage!

Cheers

Justin Ardill