It’s that time of the year again, and the vintage season is officially upon us!
While vintage is the onset of chaos, wine stained hi-vis uniforms and longer working weeks for many in the industry, it’s like a breath of new life brought into the valley for a few months of the year. Travellers flock in for the seasonal work, wineries buzz around the clock and harvesters can be spotted at all hours of the day and night throughout the vineyards.
It’s this time of the year however, just before vintage goes into full swing, that the Barossa Valley, and any other wine region we can imagine, starts to go slightly crazy with many different opinions and perspectives about the upcoming vintage/harvest season. It’s hard to know what is right and what is just speculation, and what is relevant to one vineyard might be completely different just a few kilometres away.
So, here’s our thoughts, perspective and outlook on the 2020 vintage for Quin Wines.
While the months leading up to vintage haven’t exactly been ideal growing conditions, we’re still optimistic for a great vintage season ahead. Heavy winds at flowering and dry conditions throughout the growing season have unfortunately produced quite low crops, particularly in Shiraz.
Despite a couple of smokey days following this year’s fires, we were incredibly lucky that the minimal exposure of predominately old smoke hasn’t left any smoke taint in our fruit. We know so many vineyards have been affected by this and our hearts go out to all those whose crops have been tainted, and especially those that have lost their entire vineyards to the fire.
The verasion period (the onset of ripening in the fruit) has been 3-4 weeks late, but the perfect ripening conditions that are forecasted over the coming fortnight, paired with the low crops should result in a fast, late ripening curve. This will mean a short, sharp vintage once it kicks off (fingers crossed).
While we’re always excited to produce a great range of wines across the board, we’re quietly very excited with the way our Grenache grapes are shaping up. This variety has again proved that it is most suited to the hot, dry conditions with balanced crops and healthy canopies. We’ve got a funny feeling that it could be the star of vintage 2020!
We’ll keep you updated over the vintage season with how we’re tracking, but here’s cheers to those nice, cool ripening conditions ahead that will assist with producing wines with lots of richness and power.
Stay tuned – more great Quin wines to come!
Andrew & Skye Quin