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Cannibal Creek Vintage Report 2007
Vintage this year has been testing to say the least, I will start with the major event on October the 16th 2006 but firstly a brief reminder of the 2006 winter which was the driest year any of us had seen in this district. This made for an early budburst and a picture perfect vineyard, until these dry conditions caused a late, black (no visible ice) frost which caused 100% of the vineyard being burnt off at the stage of the shoots being about 300ml long, let’s says six weeks in to the growing season. Devastating!
What we decided to do within days was to call the winter pruners back in and cut off all growth and force the vine to call on its second shoot to grow.
This was unknown territory for me and my focus at that stage was to gain enough shoot growth so as the vines would be fruitful the following year (dictated by sunlight on the shoot the previous season).
As it turned out, after much watering and some fertilizer we managed to set a crop and ripen successfully a small vintage of less than one tonne an acre and from what I see at the moment it’s looking pretty good. As they say ‘it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good’, as due to being six weeks retarded in the growth cycle we managed to miss the smoke taint problems suffered by so many.
Another eventful and challenging year put to bed!
Cheers, Pat
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