This has been the best start to a vintage we have seen in the vineyard.
Heavy late winter/early spring rains have soaked in deep and the weather has progressively dried off with gradually rising temperatures. Growth across all our varieties has been uniform and very good. Bright breezy days have kept disease away and flowering has started very early.It’s a long way to go to harvest, but to date we couldn’t ask for more. The only dark cloud on the horizon is the early start to the fire season here in Tasmania.
We have 3 new releases to announce. The 2009 Pinot Noir, 2007 Merlot and the 2010 Romanesque will be available 23rd January, so mark it in your calendar! We have 2007 & 2008 P Noir still available so you could order some of each as a comparison. Similarly we will have 2005, 2006 & 2007 Merlots available, so they too will be interesting to compare.
We had a very successful open weekend as our first with Open Gardens Australia on 27 & 28 October. Rotary Club of West Tamar members helped us with parking, gate entry tickets and ran a barbecue and we really appreciated all their help. 2 beautiful sunny days to wander through our 2 acres of garden, taste our wines and have a glass with lunch. We are very pleased that ArtEntwine (West Tamar Arts Group) asked us to join the Open Gardens scheme. Open Gardens Australia are a wonderful organisation to deal with and we are so glad we were accepted to take part. Bob just loves growing things, so when he isn’t in the vineyard he’s in the garden and the Open Garden weekend has inspired him to extend our garden further. He has planned our garden so that there is always something putting on a display throughout the year. Next year we are planning 2 Open Garden Australia Weekends (one in autumn and another in spring/early summer) and will let you know the dates when they are confirmed. Rotary Club of West Tamar have kindly agreed to help us again.
Mid year we took part in a government funded ‘Digital Ready’ programme and as part of that, Rita has begun ‘tweeting’… though she isn’t very proficient! If you’d like to Tweet us you can at ‘ @GreySandsV ’. Should we have a Facebook page? What do you think? Please let us know your thoughts….
We’d like to wish you all a safe and enjoyable festive season and all the very best for 2013.
Bob & Rita
