Winter 2015 Newsletter
How cold is this winter? I can’t remember so many frosty mornings both consecutively and cumulatively since we came here in 1987. A few of our more tender plants in the garden look pretty sick but the vines take this cold in their stride.
The cold relates to the dryness of this winter and this in turn is due to the developing El Nino event. Luckily, on the bright side, we have the vineyard pruned, slashed and canes tied down without rain delays. My expectation will be a sudden turn- around in September with an early budburst and possibly a hot dry summer to follow. A bit more rain now would be appreciated to fill our dam (that was enlarged in Autumn), not for vineyard irrigation (we don’t irrigate), but to water our garden.
Very early indications for the 2015 wines in barrel (all our wines go to barrel) suggest a return to our fully ripe style after the cooler 2014 vintage, but in the meantime we have released the 2008 Merlot, 2013 The Mattock and the 2010 Pinot Noir. We are working to finalise our arrangements for a Wine Club to deliver clear benefits to our loyal customers. The survival of small dedicated producers will depend, more and more, on direct sales as margins through wholesalers get squeezed by companies carrying multiple labels across all price points.
The next couple of months will see us showing our wines in Melbourne , Sydney and Brisbane as part of the new VIN Diemen events which have replaced TasUnbottled with a new format combining tasting, glass and bottle sales. For more information and tickets visit http://winetasmania.com.au/vin_diemen
We will also be going to Perth (as we now have distribution there) as part of Perth Food & Wine Expo http://foodandwineexpo.com.au/shows/perth/, so check our website or follow the links for details of these events. We hope you can come along and try our current releases and sign up for our Wine Club.
Stop press…We have just had our first snowfall here at Grey Sands!
We woke on Monday the 3rd to find a winter wonderland outside. Snow flurries punctuated the blue sky till 10.30. Very beautiful and exciting, so lots of photos taken and shared with family and friends. You can see some below…yes, that’s our ‘tasting area’! Despite the steady progress of global warming, we can expect anomalous weather like this in future years.
Looking forward to seeing you all at the upcoming events, or here in Tassie. This year we will be opening the LAST weekend of October to April (inclusive), noon to 5pm both days (+ Monday if it’s a long weekend!). All other times are ‘by appointment’.
Cheers
Bob & Rita
