Like most of south eastern Australia, Rutherglen experienced dry conditions winter and spring of 2018. Our annual rainfall for 2018 was well below the average 565mm, with only 316mm falling for the year. With such low rainfall, we were forced to commence irrigation in late September to try to build canopy strength. Irrigation continued throughout the rest of the year, constantly throughout the summer and also during the harvest.
We experienced one of our hottest summers on record, with several weeks of temperatures above 40C in January. These exceptionally hot and dry conditions resulted in low yields, particularly in Chardonnay for the whites (which was around 40% down), in Shiraz for the reds (which was around 50%) and in our Muscat and Topaques (which were around 50% down). Overall our yields were 25-30% lower than forecasted.
Vintage commenced on the 21st February, with Pinot Grigio, Frontignac and Shiraz all being harvested on the first day. We experienced yet another compressed vintage, with 90% of our intake being harvested in 5 weeks and the remaining 10% of our intake being harvested in the subsequent 4 weeks. This of course put a lot of pressure on fermenter space, refrigeration and our staff, with such an intense period in the vintage.
Fruit quality is good, with the white varieties showing strong varietal characters and surprisingly good acidity given the hot weather. Our red wines have exceptional deep and dark purple colours, with ripe, generous and concentrated flavours, very much reflective of the vintage. Our fortified wines have performed strongly as well, with our Portuguese varieties for our port styles being particularly good and our Muscat and Topaque wines having great lusciousness and depth of flavour.
