2023 Riesling

The 2022/23 season gave us a cool winter and later bud burst than average followed by a cooler and wetter Spring and Summer driven largely by the warm waters North off Australia in the Western Pacific. Heat Degree Days (HDD) for the season was 1244 against an average of 1275 and we picked our Riesling on 14th April which is 5 days later than our average harvest date of 9th April. The late bud burst from the cool wet winter and slow start to the growing season with a very cold October had a major influence on the harvest date. Growing season rainfall was 353 mm. This is 80mm more than our long term average of 275 mm influence by a very wet November 22 in which we had 149mm of rain. Crop levels were extremely low at less than 1kg per vine. Our average Riesling crop is 2.4kg per vine. Mercifully we were free of fungal diseases and lovely ripe, high acid fruit was harvested in fine weather beginning 14th April. Our old largely dry grown vines do show the benefit, I believe, from deep roots sustaining them rather than more shallow ones subject to downpours and dry spells.