Vintage 2008 A season of extremes
Posted on: 17. Jul. 2008 - 23:25
January this year was one of the coolest for some time and everything was looking good in the blocks from which we source our fruit.
Routine inspections revealed well formed bunches of good weight with no overcropping or signs of disease. In short, potentially a great year in the making . As February progressed the flavour profiles in all of our fruit were developing as expected. At this stage in the vintage we are out ‘walking the blocks’ once a week just to keep an eye on things and ensuring all is as it should be. Closer to harvest we will sample more frequently, sometimes up to every third day so that we don’t miss that all important window of perfect ripeness to which we aspire.
We picked our first fruit on February 25th (about 2 weeks earlier than is usual) from a block known as Mongrel Hill in the centre of McLaren Vale ( if you have had to sample this block , you would understand the name!!). The fruit came in to the winery at 14.6 Baume showing strong dark berry and savoury olives and spice. Our first pick from this block and the resulting wine is impressive.
Shiraz from the Hahn Road block was picked on March 3rd at 14.3 Baume and showed the flavours we have come to expect from this area, vibrant blackberry with liquorice and a fine tannin grip.
Our Malbec was also picked on March 3rd at 13.5 Baume , showing bright blueberry and all spice together with a really pleasing deep colour.
By this date things were getting a little warm throughout the district! The beginning of 16 consecutive days of temperatures above 35 dec C. A record for this part of South Australia, and one many growers and winemakers could have done without. We managed to take off our Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon on March 18th. The Sangiovese at 13.5 Baume exhibited strong varietal character of dark cherry and rhubarb and the Cabernet at 14.0 Baume showed beautiful lifted black fruit, very varietal. We were fortunate in the quality of our reds as many vineyards were simply not coping with the sustained heat.
Finally on March 23rd we picked Sauvignon Blanc from Myponga on the Southern Fluerieu Peninsula for our new white, The Silver Minnow due for general release in July this year. Overall vintage 2008 has been very good to us here at Minnow Creek with strong and balanced flavours being achieved in all of our wines.
Now all we have to do is get last years wines ready for bottling, finish this years and get them safely to oak and we can get set to anticipate the next years vin… nah its way to early to use the V word yet!!
