Welcome to the Gapsted Estate 2024 Harvest Diaries. The best description of the 2024 growing season has been nervousness - a wet winter and spring followed by unusual weather patterns. As we commence the 2024 harvest the nervousness has fallen away and has now been replaced with the promise and potential of what lay ahead. We are anticipating something special: intense, powerful fruit with fresh acidity and a wonderful potential to age.
The 2024 harvest officially commenced for Gapsted Estate today, 21st February 2024, with Pinot Noir destined for our sparkling program, picked from the King Valley Vineyard. This was picked during the coolest part of the morning to maintain the pristine sparkling Pinot Noir flavours and the fine natural acid backbone and structure which is essential for making world class sparkling wines. We also harvested our first batch of Pinot Grigio from a wonderful vineyard located outside of Whitfield. Harvest will continue on Thursday morning with the picking of a parcel of delicate Prosecco fruit destined for the Alpine Road range. On Friday we will harvest our prized Pinot Gris fruit from the Alpine Valleys for our award winning High Country Pinot Gris.
“Wine is life. It's the union of the earth with the sun; it's the essence of time captured in a bottle.” – Victor Hugo
Every year we love to introduce you to our international vintage crew. First up we have Lewis, originally from Devonshire in the UK! This is Lewis’ first ever vintage and his second visit to Australia, he was here for a short time last year to visit his fiancé’s family in Melbourne. This fortuitous visit is what lead Lewis to a vintage at Gapsted Estate, through a connection that his fiancé’s family member had with one of the Gapsted Estate team. Lewis has keen ambitions to become a winemaker himself one day, with the ultimate goal of owning his own vineyard, perhaps in the south-west of England where he is from. While the UK makes a lot of sparkling wine, he’d love to be a part of the growth of still wines in the country. Lewis is really looking forward to learning as much as he can while at Gapsted Estate, experiencing working directly with the product and enjoying a job in the great outdoors after working in an office for the past 7 years in LA. Most importantly, he is loving his new life in Australia!
