Blog

With vintage drawing to a close a new member joined the Hemera Estate team here on Barossa Valley Way.  His name is Billy and he’s an 8 month old Jack Russell/Fox Terrier cross.  He’s been welcomed by the rest of the team here and seems to be settling in very well.

He likes grapes which is a good thing, loves the vineyard and even enjoys the barrel shed and cellar floor.  His favourite place seems to be anywhere that I am (!) followed by his little bed in the lab.  The only dramas to date seem to be that a white dog can get a few new markings when there’s deep purple Shiraz and Mataro moving around the winery!  Ah well, if you’re a winery dog then you’ve got to expect the odd wine stain I guess!

Cheers, Alex

And so for another year the sounds of the harvester, crusher and press draw to a close.  We’ve crushed our last fruit and tomorrow we will be pressing off our last red.  For those of you interested it will be the Grafted Mataro from Block 3C which will be lucky last.  Quality looks fantastic this year with the whites very solid, early reds such as Tempranillo and Merlot looking good and the late reds (Mataro, Grenache and Cab Franc) all looking fantastic.  Have I forgotten anything?  Oh yes, Shiraz!  The Shiraz looks brilliant, going to be some cracker wines around the middle of next year and it’s been great fun making them!  Huge thanks to our dedicated crew in the vineyard and the cellar, certainly could never have happened without Clint, Sam, Ross, Suze and Franco!

For the stats focused amongst you, we crushed 225 tonnes with 13 different varieties and 47 different ferments over 10 weeks.  Mother Nature was kind, if occasionally capricious, and we can now get the raw wines finished up and off to rest and magically grow into fine wine in their oak beds over the next 9-18 months.

Cheers, Alex