The past few days has been a seriously cool experience. There has been a few firsts and there are a couple of tasks that i haven’t done since high school. A quick update on the conditions… There has been strong ripening conditions this week with limited precipitation around the Mudgee valley. it has been nice and warm during the day around the 30 degree mark, limited humidity, and nice cooling winds in the late afternoon. the forecast for the coming days is not as healthy but we shall see what the weekend brings.

Too the vines…In an organic vineyard it is interesting to see how little intervention there is for weeds or diseases. There is no irrigation here at Lowe Wines, so the vines rely on their own natural state to feed and reproduce and stay healthy. Obviously with the immense amount of rain int he past month the water table is very high, so the vine roots have no trouble in this area. But what if there wasn’t so much rain? The vines start to get a little physically stressed, and have to work a little harder, and in the simplest explanation i can give, this will, over time, produce a fruit with higher concentration or flavor, sugar, acid etc.

If you couple this hard working vine, with good soil, hopefully good weather conditions and limited effect from disease, the end result should be an intense palate, something with depth of character, and will more than likely be a better wine overall. This has been a lesson learnt over the past few days, seeing the difference between vineyards around the area, and the flavor of the fruits as i walked through different areas. I am in no way suggesting that everyone should plant bush vines and stress the living daylights out of them, it has just been an interesting observation.

Other than the horticultural observations this past few days has seen some fruit come into the winery, so i got my first taste of crushing and pressing fruit. I got to work all the machinery yesterday, and for someone who has never been involved with this side of production it was so exciting to see it all unfold. As i has said in previous posts this is a very hands on winery and so when the Chardonnay arrived yesterday it was all hands on deck to coax the machinery through their first press for harvest.

This is the final week before it all kicks off here so i can feel that this is the calm before the storm. I am excited for next week we are having some big days with a lot of white fruit to come in. I’ll keep you posted from Mudgee.

Enjoy The Day

Nicko