Vintage 2021 is underway - we're already a couple of weeks in! Here’s how Senior Winemaker Toni Plabou sees this vintage so far -
"Vintage is always a time of great anticipation. The possibility of another great vintage stirs the juices of creative possibility and this year is no exception. We are on track for a great vintage.
We experienced a spring of abundant rain and warmth. The vines are in supreme good health. We measure amino acids levels in our juices to foresee fermentation health and this year the levels are through the roof, which augurs well for wine quality. We are a week into our whites and we’ve already picked a fruit salad of varieties. Pinot Grigio is almost all picked, we are well on our way into Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, we are just starting with Prosecco, and Chardonnay, Fiano and Viognier are the last grapes off the block. The red varieties will be picked in the following weeks; Pinot Noir first, with Durif a lonely last, picked around Anzac Day in most years.
Puzzle: When is something not what it is?
This year we will be picking for the first time a new variety that we have picked many times before. It’s a variety that we know so well and yet never knew that we were already acquainted. That’s right, due to the mother vine being erroneously labelled at the Monash Collection in SA, what we thought to be Petit (small) Manseng is in fact Gros (large) Manseng. Ironically, the berries on our Gros Manseng are indeed very small so on superficial level the grapes did plausibly pass as Petit Manseng. So, to the devoted cultists of Petit Manseng, you may yet be reacquainted with your favourite tipple sometime in the future, however it would be under its true moniker: Gros Manseng."
