Vintage Report: 2020

Pinot Noir destined for sparkling was hand-picked on a blistering day. 

The 2020 vintage won’t be forgotten anytime soon. It saw frost, fire and a pandemic, but will still go down as one of the better vintages for fruit quality.

September 2019 marked budburst and the usual concerning spring frosts that keep us up at night with one eye open. Fortunately there were only two nights of patrolling the rows looking for blocked sprinklers in subzero temperatures this year.

In October, during flowering, it was dry and windy with a resulting low fruit set. This meant there was no need for bunch thinning this year.

November was looking good until a late frost on 27th kept us up for another of those challenging nights in the cold, but hopefully the end of frost season.

In December we realised we’d seen nothing yet as a very late frost on 7th caught us off guard with pump problems. This resulted in swathes of the vineyard (already flowering in full bloom) losing all it’s fruit. It set the stage for a very low yielding vintage, much like 2019.

Plenty of green ‘second fruit’ as a result of the December 7th frosts. 

Late in the month the desert winds gave us 3 days of heatwaves above 40 degrees and then on the 20th the Cudlee Creek bushfire began. For the next 2 days we watched in horror as it progressed across the far horizon with several flare ups that had us manning the pumps in anticipation.

The end of the season was kinder with mild late summer temperatures and those lovely chilly hills nights helping to slow ripening.

Most of Lansdowne vineyard was handpicked in the first and second week of March. It was a long and arduous task due to the hunt for grapes in such a low yielding year. Thankfully we were rewarded with good quality fruit and one of the better quality vintages, but sadly very little wine and greater unease over Mother Nature.