Louis Latour Agencies

Vintage update from Wakefield

28 February 2017

Thank you to Wakefield, who have sent over a vintage update from their Estate in the Clare Valley.

 

"The weather for January saw reasonably mild conditions with only a 7 days registering a maximum temperature greater than 35°C and temperatures well in line with long term averages for the region.

Overall for the month we received almost 52 mm of rainfall, just under half of that we received in 1 day on the 20^th January!  That day the temperature was also high – around 36°C – which can be problematic as these conditions tend to promote mildew diseases but Mother Nature was on our side and the temperatures quickly plummeted overnight to 21 °C for the next day coupled with reasonable winds – helping to dry out the canopies and dissipate humidity.  In any case, our vineyard team have been working diligently to keep on top of any potential outbreaks and at so far there has been no evidence of any mildew issues on the estate.

As I write this today, we’re back to work after a weekend of quite cool conditions with some rainfall across the valley so that will have slowed ripening again.  Things are definitely looking up though with lovely warm (and not too hot) conditions forecasted for the rest of the week and into the weekend.  Some varieties have Baume’s very close to where we would want for harvesting so hopefully this spate of warm weather will mean we can get on with the business of squishing grapes soon.  This waiting around is making us all a tad fidgety!

Meanwhile, the slow start to vintage has meant the cellar team have had time to clean the winery….and clean the winery, and well, clean the winery…..boy is it clean!  The maintenance team have enjoyed the delay too as they were scrambling to install a new destemmer prior to the commencement of vintage.  As it is, it’s installed well before time and now just waiting for the grapes."