Picking Pipers at peak

Too cool for viticulture. That was message being given to prospective vineyard owners in Tasmania back in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, few people would doubt our island's capacity for producing elegant, European-styled wines. 

But even so, the maritime nature of our climate gives rise to weather patterns that can be notoriously unpredictable. Vintage is a nervous time for winegrowers. The suspense is invariably maintained until the last picking bin is emptied. 

The journey to harvest this year in northern Tasmania began with promise, but proved to be a bumpy ride.

Winter and spring were both warmer than usual in 2014, and lead to the creation of some powerful vine leaf canopies in our Tamar Valley and PIpers Brook vineyards. These felt the full brunt of strong and occasionally gusty winds throughout September and October, and again in January. 

Gladly, vine damage was minimal.

Further challenges arrived in December. Markedly different weather patterns across Tasmania's north coast resulted in significantly above average rainfall in the Tamar Valley and significantly lower than average rainfall in the north-east. Flowering and fruit sets on sites closest to Launceston were the most adversely affected. Much more settled December weather on home turf brought very respectable fruit sets and crop yields to our Pipers Brook vineyards.

The beginning of 2015 saw a brief spell of warm weather, before periodic rain events punctuated the remainder of summer. January, February and March were all wetter than normal. Fortunately for vineyard owners, the region's unseasonal rainfall petered out as harvest approached.

Differences in summer temperatures this year were far less marked on paper than seemed likely. Average daytime temperatures were close to normal in the north-east and indeed were around 0.5°C higher than normal on sites nearer Launceston, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. 

Picking for Kreglinger Wine Estates started right on schedule during the first week of March. 

Some wonderful parcels of sparkling wine base were among the early highlights, picked right on peak. Acidities fell away quickly towards the end of harvest but are right in the zone for stylish, bottle-fermented wines destined for a long spell in the cellar.

April was cool but kind to pickers. Daytime temperatures were slightly below average in spite of the welcome autumn sunshine. More importantly, jackets and coats were inclined to be seen hanging from trellis posts than from the backs of vineyard workers. Rainfall totals in the Tamar Valley and Pipers Brook were both close to 60mm, around 50 percent of the month's long-term averages for each sub-region.

Harvest across all of our sites in northern Tasmania ended on May 1st.

Many of our oldest vines at Pipers Brook offered some of the highlights of vintage 2015. Gewürztraminer from our 1974 plantings came in six days earlier than in 2014. The fruit is typically exotic and varietal in aroma and flavour and will become a welcome short-to-mid-term cellar companion for the lovely ripe parcels of Riesling harvested on our Tamar and Pipers Brook sites. Moderate yields of Pinot Gris already display lush and very persistent fruit characters.

Fine, intensely structured Chardonnay with good acid retention will find a safe and secure resting place in barrel over winter.  

Pinot Noir table wines came in quickly this vintage, reflecting their genuine flavour ripeness and superb fruit intensity. They are almost too good to be true. This has been our fourth successive vintage of excellent Pinot Noir.

Vintage 2015 at Pipers Brook Vineyard also provided us with a valuable opportunity to replace an ageing harvester that needed almost constant maintenance. Our new state-of-the-art Pellenc 8390 brought significant improvements in removing MOG ('matter other than grapes') from the winemaking process.  Must quality this year was quite beyond compare. Come spring, the proof will be in the bottle.

Like Stelvin screw caps and airbag presses, machine harvesters were once derided by wine lovers who yearned the passing of low-tech basket presses and perhaps even vineyard draught horses. The truth is, machine harvesters are now responsible for delivering to weighbridges more than 90 percent of Australia's total wine grape crush each year.

Many industry practitioners and commentators attribute the seemingly exponential increases in wine quality in this country to the widespread use of machine harvesters. Wine grapes can now be processed faster, colder and cleaner, with substantial energy savings, reduced wine oxidation, and less frequent demands for the kinds of fining and filtering that degrade highly-prized wine aromas and flavours.

Besides, busy vineyard workers can only snip and sort so much fruit during sunlight hours. When picking by hand needs to finish for the day, fresh crews can take over and continue harvesting at night by machine. Wine grapes that are quickly and carefully picked provide the perfect raw materials for making world-class wines.

First published Autumn 2015: Pipers Brook Vineyard Newsletter No 98