Louis Latour Agencies

Wakefield Vintage Update 2022

07 March 2022

Cherry Stowman, Senior Brand Ambassador with Wakefield gives us the current vintage update.

The weather gods have been kind over the last few weeks with mild conditions prevailing through February so far. It’s warmed up over the last few days of this short month – a last hurrah for the end of summer it seems.

Meanwhile, down in Wrattonbully, things are progressing well with similar mild conditions delaying the ripeninig somewhat. Yields down there, whilst not the highs of the last vintage look good and so we’re expecting a lovely crop of fruit from our Faraway vineyard with harvesting to commence in March.

Visitation to Cellar Door has quietened off for February, which is usual, and this allowed the team some time to revamp their tasting experiences and the layout of the seating area inside and out – ready for mad March! Despite having fewers guests, our own Karen Cavalier, Customer Experience Manager, made the most of every interaction, selling a bottle of the Legacy to a very impressed visitor!

Taylors/Wakefield Estate Vineyard Temperatures and Rainfall

So far, we have received just over 650 tons of fruit into the winery. The first grapes came into the winery on the 4^th of February – Chardonnay from the Riverland region. On Valentine’s Day our special gift was some lovely Pinot Grigio grapes, again from the Riverland region and this was quickly followed by Pinot Noir for our sparkling base. Our own vineyard team have given the harvesters a run- picking some Pinot Gris from up on the hill of the ‘Angela block’ in the St Andrews Vineyard. So far those are the only three varieties we have processed for vintage 2022.

The cellar hands have the winery in tip top condition and are raring to get stuck into the sticky work of vintage. We just need the grapes to ripen for us! And judging by what is planned to come in over the next week or so, that is starting to happen. Our first red grapes (for table wine) are due to come in on Monday – Shiraz from Riverland – and then vintage will get into full swing pretty much after that. Our winery will commence 24-hour operations from this weekend. It’s so exciting to see the glow of the harvesters in the field at night, along with the winery lights as the team work hard in what is the first and most important step to crafting our award-winning wines!