Tim's Ravings

With the loss of the entire 2020 vintage due to smoke taint for us and all our contract clients, the winery is eerily quiet, clean, and sterile.

There are so many aspects of the loss that hurt. Most obvious is the commercial impact – all that money spent for nothing, and 10,000 fewer cases of wine to sell to generate income and cover costs in the years ahead. Then there is the waste of a year of extraordinarily hard work in exceedingly difficult conditions.

But it’s the loss of possibilities and potential that is hardest to deal with now. There’s just nothing like the rush and intensity of vintage for a physical, intellectual, creative and team working challenge. The loss of sense of purpose, the loss of opportunity to do what I’m best at; to learn and experiment to get even better; to feel good for overcoming the multiple challenges, and every now and again to have the satisfaction of creating something with the potential for greatness. We get one shot each year and it’s gone.

Finely tuned athlete that I am, I can relate to the sportsmen of the world - it’s the equivalent of having the perfect preparation for the Olympics, only for the games to be cancelled at the last minute. Poor buggers. Good thing winemakers have a long use-by date… my grandfather (Pappy) died a few months ago at the grand old age of 103, and actively ran his cattle property to the end. I think I’ve got a few more vintages in me.

Gavin (my Winemaker) and I are working hard to lavish the 19 Reds with the greatest of care, and using all our skill and passion for winemaking to finish these wines to their full potential.

The rest of the team have been cleaning, repairing, and maintaining site and equipment and are now refurbishing the cellar door – taking advantage of what we hope is a once in a lifetime window of weeks of enforced closure. We’ve roped in the weekend Cellar Door staff to help so it’s all hands on deck at DIY central.

For the Cellar Door, we’re using reclaimed materials from around the winery and vineyard to build a meaningful and beautiful tasting space that is in keeping with the classic elegance of the wines we produce with such care. Beautiful oak planks from the original 5000L casks delivered to the winery in 1974 will form the bench top and we’ve even repurposed the lights from the old tennis court at the homestead.

Our Cellar Door will truly reflect who we are and we can’t wait to see you back here soon.

In the meantime, we’re sanding and varnishing the garden bar furniture, and getting up to date with all our labelling and beginning the mammoth task of counting and auditing our vast museum cellar. You will be the beneficiary of that exercise in the next few months!