2018 VINTAGE REPORT: CHARDONNAY PERFECTION
The 2018 vintage started three weeks earlier than last year, which caught us off guard a little, but in a good way. As usual the Chardonnay was the first cab off the rank, our smallest block. This normally is a nice and gentle start to vintage which tends to pick up pace pretty quickly after that. Not long after came our Bernard clones of Pinot, followed by Gamay, our other Pinot clones and finally our Riesling.
Chardonnay
We changed our pruning style a couple of years ago in order to gain better consistency and improve canopy coverage. It has paid off in spades, the fruit this year was picture perfect, mostly because the canopy was dense enough to cover the bunches and reduce sun burn but more importantly thin enough for dappled light. This helps air flow and reduces disease pressure. Flowering was consistent, the season had good rain which meant no irrigation was needed and the temperatures were neither soaring or cold. In fact, I would say the main factor behind such early ripening across all varietals was probably due to the slightly warmer than normal autumn evenings this year.
The Chardonnay was pulled off without a hitch this harvest, the fruit was blemish free and by far the best vintage we have seen. I expect a lot from this wine – low handling in the winery means that if the fruit is anything to go by, we will have a long lasting classic on our hands. I’m very excited by its potential.
Pinot Noir
A tale of four clones once more. 115 and D4V2 come in a good two weeks before anything else. They are followed by the MV6 and finally the D5V12. 115 and D4V2 have such sweet and fruit forward flavours that we need to get the fruit off before other creatures besides humans do. Smallish bunches, hard canopy to control but great flavour, and plenty of retained acids. 115 and D4V2 are a pleasure to work with, they complement each other well, one a bit more racy, the other more fruit forward.
The Mother Vine (MV6) rows do their own boisterous and out of control thing, great classic tight mid-sized bunches. Again, plenty of air in this canopy meant that it’s had little to no disease pressure and the fruit was pretty much intact.
And finally, the bane of my existence, the D5V12 block. It makes up about 60% of our crop and grows amazing well, upright and without a hassle, with or without water. This year, we didn’t irrigate at all, and yet it still had the tendency to overcrop. Instead of shoot thinning we decided to drop about 20% of the crop during veraison, in an effort to bring forward maturity and more importantly increase concentration of flavour. We tend to pick the D5V12 at around 12% potential alcohol as it can go quite jammy beyond 13%. The beauty really rests in the aromas it produces, intense florals, a handsome and distinct bouquet. The trademark Lyons Will nose is derived from this clone and despite my constant moaning and annoyance with it, it’s the corner stone of our wine.
Overall the quality was very good and I’m looking forward to the final product, great colour intensity during pressing and nice fine tannins indicate that the fruit has plenty of texture and complexity. A good example of what Macedon Ranges Pinot Noir is all about. All our Pinot Noir clones are processed separately and will live independently in barrel for 11 months.
Riesling
These vines are only four years old and already they show signs of excellent potential. Last year’s vintage produced a 95 point scoring Riesling which sold out three months after release. This year the fruit was even more balanced and consistent giving us even better material to work with.
The site is on top of a grey clay ridge, exposed to both southerly and northerly winds, I’m not sure why we planted it there, madness I guess. Most people would say it would be affected by such a harsh site but perhaps Riesling is perfect for that spot. Its hardy and its tolerant to environmental abuse, after all it is planted on the steep hillsides of the Mosel.
This is the last fruit to come in and it’s always a lot of fun. Renata is the Riesling winemaker and her old world style will complement this block really well.
Gamay
The bastard cousin of the Pinot Noir it might be, but it’s no bastard around here. Yes, it’s a little fugly in appearance and the fruit is all over the place, some grapes are massive, some are tiny, some are green and some are so sweet. Either way, this plant’s beauty is in its inability to conform. Unlike our other varietals we use nearly 50% whole bunch when making our Gamay, so we take no prisoners when bunch picking, any blemishes then it doesn’t make the cut. Again these are young vines finding their stride. So far our first vintage has been received warmly, I think the more people get exposed to this great grape varietal the more people will be enamoured by it great ability to give you fruit, savoury and excellent drying tannins.
In total we managed our way through 17 tonnes of grapes, all in great condition and all processed without a hitch. The short season, with regular heavy spells of rain meant that canopy management was key to disease control, luckily we managed to pull it off without any hiccups along the way and produced some of the finest fruit we have ever handled. I would like to call out the Chardonnay, every bunch was picture perfect, which doesn’t happen all the time, just one of the reasons I’m super excited for the final product.
Chardonnay
We changed our pruning style a couple of years ago in order to gain better consistency and improve canopy coverage. It has paid off in spades, the fruit this year was picture perfect, mostly because the canopy was dense enough to cover the bunches and reduce sun burn but more importantly thin enough for dappled light. This helps air flow and reduces disease pressure. Flowering was consistent, the season had good rain which meant no irrigation was needed and the temperatures were neither soaring or cold. In fact, I would say the main factor behind such early ripening across all varietals was probably due to the slightly warmer than normal autumn evenings this year.
The Chardonnay was pulled off without a hitch this harvest, the fruit was blemish free and by far the best vintage we have seen. I expect a lot from this wine – low handling in the winery means that if the fruit is anything to go by, we will have a long lasting classic on our hands. I’m very excited by its potential.
Pinot Noir
A tale of four clones once more. 115 and D4V2 come in a good two weeks before anything else. They are followed by the MV6 and finally the D5V12. 115 and D4V2 have such sweet and fruit forward flavours that we need to get the fruit off before other creatures besides humans do. Smallish bunches, hard canopy to control but great flavour, and plenty of retained acids. 115 and D4V2 are a pleasure to work with, they complement each other well, one a bit more racy, the other more fruit forward.
The Mother Vine (MV6) rows do their own boisterous and out of control thing, great classic tight mid-sized bunches. Again, plenty of air in this canopy meant that it’s had little to no disease pressure and the fruit was pretty much intact.
And finally, the bane of my existence, the D5V12 block. It makes up about 60% of our crop and grows amazing well, upright and without a hassle, with or without water. This year, we didn’t irrigate at all, and yet it still had the tendency to overcrop. Instead of shoot thinning we decided to drop about 20% of the crop during veraison, in an effort to bring forward maturity and more importantly increase concentration of flavour. We tend to pick the D5V12 at around 12% potential alcohol as it can go quite jammy beyond 13%. The beauty really rests in the aromas it produces, intense florals, a handsome and distinct bouquet. The trademark Lyons Will nose is derived from this clone and despite my constant moaning and annoyance with it, it’s the corner stone of our wine.
Overall the quality was very good and I’m looking forward to the final product, great colour intensity during pressing and nice fine tannins indicate that the fruit has plenty of texture and complexity. A good example of what Macedon Ranges Pinot Noir is all about. All our Pinot Noir clones are processed separately and will live independently in barrel for 11 months.
Riesling
These vines are only four years old and already they show signs of excellent potential. Last year’s vintage produced a 95 point scoring Riesling which sold out three months after release. This year the fruit was even more balanced and consistent giving us even better material to work with.
The site is on top of a grey clay ridge, exposed to both southerly and northerly winds, I’m not sure why we planted it there, madness I guess. Most people would say it would be affected by such a harsh site but perhaps Riesling is perfect for that spot. Its hardy and its tolerant to environmental abuse, after all it is planted on the steep hillsides of the Mosel.
This is the last fruit to come in and it’s always a lot of fun. Renata is the Riesling winemaker and her old world style will complement this block really well.
Gamay
The bastard cousin of the Pinot Noir it might be, but it’s no bastard around here. Yes, it’s a little fugly in appearance and the fruit is all over the place, some grapes are massive, some are tiny, some are green and some are so sweet. Either way, this plant’s beauty is in its inability to conform. Unlike our other varietals we use nearly 50% whole bunch when making our Gamay, so we take no prisoners when bunch picking, any blemishes then it doesn’t make the cut. Again these are young vines finding their stride. So far our first vintage has been received warmly, I think the more people get exposed to this great grape varietal the more people will be enamoured by it great ability to give you fruit, savoury and excellent drying tannins.
In total we managed our way through 17 tonnes of grapes, all in great condition and all processed without a hitch. The short season, with regular heavy spells of rain meant that canopy management was key to disease control, luckily we managed to pull it off without any hiccups along the way and produced some of the finest fruit we have ever handled. I would like to call out the Chardonnay, every bunch was picture perfect, which doesn’t happen all the time, just one of the reasons I’m super excited for the final product.