Hayes Family Wines - Who would be a Farmer? REVISITED
Estate Block 12, Vineyard has dried, and Grenache Blanc is flourishing
Summer in our Organic Vineyard
Spring is normally a time of renewal, of regrowth and a time to be positive about the season ahead. But for us, spring 2021 will be remembered for hail! But thankfully, after that event, the season has been excellent. Summer has been characterised by warm weather, a few hot days, but nothing outside the norm plus good moisture levels. But the vines? How have they recovered?
Spring Hail
On 28 October 2021, a big hail storm moved through the Barossa. Hail has a way of being indiscriminate, this time Tanunda, Eden Valley and further South were hit. The Northern Barossa escaped much of the damage. Some vineyards were completely stripped. For us, we got some structural damage, and most of the vines had some damaged canes and leaves.
But where there is a will there is a way!
Vineyard Repair Work
Grape vines are incredibly resilient. This is no more obvious than in the Barossa where the vines have outlived more than 6 generations. But sometimes, they need a bit of help, for this season and next. For us, this meant a little clean up work post the hail damage. Removing damaged canes and shoots and trimming back some of the regrowth will mean we will get a healthy small crop this coming vintage. It will be down by as much as 50%, but hopefully we have set up for this year and importantly our next vintage in 2023. Time will tell but at this stage, the vines look good, very good.
The Months Ahead
The weather these past few months has been near perfect - warm, dry with a few days of heat to get things moving along. No veraison as yet (colour change of the red grapes) but I would anticipate that in the next 2 weeks we will see that occur and the march to vintage 2022 will be underway! Now, we are wishing for dry or relatively dry conditions (no big downpours please) after the end of January!
The busy times are almost here!