Description

A mild spring free of frost alerts, resulted in an extremely good budburst with nice even growth across all varieties. Above average early/mid-summer temperatures with generally settled weather ensured an excellent flowering and fruit set, with January the warmest in over 60 years of statistical records. This led to one of our earliest harvests, however the month also produced another climatic record with by far the highest rainfall recorded for February, necessitating additional canopy management, under vine weeding and inter row mowing. Low cropping with good open canopies allowed sunlight and wind penetration to do their job, which certainly won the day in a testing, but rewarding vintage.