2001 Vintage Happs Margaret River

Is the green house warming. It certainly looks like it:

• We are having this dry Autumn with lots of cloud but no rain, overnight temperatures very warm. The bush is dying off for lack of water, the coastal shrub taking on autumn tones rather than the solid greens we know. This is the second driest summer since records have been kept in Western Australia.

  Assessing the vintage in October

  Glaciers are shrinking on Heard Island South east of W.A. with an explosion of vegetative growth and breeding by wildlife, seals and birds with species thought to be near extinction recovering strongly.
• Our tanks have run out of rainwater for the first time in 15 years. We store 30,000 litres of rainwater in concrete and stainless steel at the end of the winter. We drink it, cook and wash our dishes in it, use it for showers and washing the clothes. It's gone. We are into carbon filtering the dam water, fortunately good stuff but much less left than ever. Thinking of extending the catchment.
• Long term records from the Napa in California show increased ocean temperatures, more cloud cover, higher night- time minimum temperatures and diminishing incidence of frost. Maxima are little changed. It seems to be a similar pattern here.

Against this general background we have just had a vintage that began two weeks earlier than usual. This seems to be related to warm temperatures early in spring, the establishment of full leaf by end of November rather than late December and so the vegetative cycle was simply advanced. The vines ran out of water early, growth finishing earlier, and the vine simply got on with the job of producing. Crops in Dunsborough were down thirty percent. Fortunately, our Karridale Vineyard took up the slack with more vines coming into production and greater production with increased vine age.

We have just had the worst year for bird attack on the maturing fruit in living memory. Fortunately we have invested in nets very heavily in recent years. It took almost a month to get them on in Karridale, a real race to keep in front of the birds. Little that was not netted was picked. Thankfully Lyn, Phil, Andrew, Dave and Tim are experts in the art and our system of netting whole blocks over the top, and returning to ground only at the edge of the block means we get great value for the dollar spent. Integral to our performance is the Crendon Machinery 'Net Wizz' that rolls the net like a ball of string, minimizes storage space and takes the labour out of feeding it out and reeling it in. Another 10 grands worth of net purchased this year and will have to double that next year.

Aside from earliness, (fortunately the winery was ready, with little in the way of construction or new installation happening) this was a very compressed vintage with varieties ripening in quick succession. This meant picking as much as possible each day. The Karridale crew came in with 10 to 12 ton each day, a sterling effort with a per ton cost of about $130 across the lot. This is due to good crops and easier picking as the new trellising system comes to fruition. This keeps shoot densities down and presents the fruit at a height that enables people to pick while standing up rather than on their knees.

My impression is that flavours are very good due perhaps to an unusually cool February. pH and Ta figures excellent with little acid used thus far. High malics seem to indicate the best flavour years.

The vintage period has been mercifully dry with an absence of rain on the ripening fruit, therefore a low incidence of rots and moulds, with the sole exception of Semillon which always presents the greatest challenge to picker and wine maker. In the outcome both shaped up well.

We look forward to exciting wines across the board. Early indications are that Pinot and Chardonnay are excellent, Verdelho and Semillon, Cabernet and Merlot all fulsome and exciting. A big crop of Tempranillo and Gamay sustain what will be a great PF Red. A varietal Chenin has been made that will surprise. A wooded Semillon will amaze.

With the quality of the Karridale fruit now fully apparent we have splurged on new oak barriques. We have no room. A new shed is to be built that will enable us to dedicate the old insulated cellar to wood and re-house the bottled wine. Then we can add extra tanks to the fermentation cellar and we can begin to breathe again.

Our vintage team of Erl as the sole old hand (survivor of 20 vintages) and Mark Aitken (new graduate winemaker from Curtin), Olivier Thibault from Montpellier (Graduate of Montpellier and visiting consultant to some 50 wineries in the Midi, a visiting fellow for two months), and Tim Severin (enrolled at Wagga for a part time degree) who did all the tractor and fork lift work settled in well. Very little drama was experienced. No irretrievable disasters happened. Nobody hurt themselves. Olivier settled in to do all the monitoring, looking after the ferments with oxygen as required and plenty of stirring. Mark chose the yeasts and prepared them meticulously. Tim drove the forklift like a veteran. We have discovered each other's talents and are friends at the finish. That is a good result

The vinegar fly arrived late and left early. He is never welcome because he can make life in the winery quite unpleasant in April.

April 15th, we have Nebbiolo, Mataro, Graciano and Carignan fermenting on skins and in a couple of days everything will be pressed, the first white, the Semillon Sauvignon will be dry and life will settle down a bit. Then its into racking the sweet wines, stirring lees and watching ferments finish, spreading around the Malo bug and working out exactly what we have got. A spot of fishing would be nice.