Most Canberra wineries have wrapped up their vintage for 2014. The fruit is in from the vineyards and the work now moves to the wineries to prepare white wines for bottling sometime later this year and the red wines into barrels to start the ageing process. I spoke with four winemakers from across the district to get some inside information about the challenges they faced this year, their innovations and to give us a heads up on the ‘wines to watch’ after they’re bottled and released over the coming months (and in some cases, years).

Sue Carpenter (Lark Hill), Frank Van de Loo (Mount Majura Vineyard), Ken Helm (Helm Wines) and Jennie Mooney (Capital Wines) are all agreed about the biggest challenges they faced this year.

According to Jennie Mooney, the biggest challenge Capital Wines faced this year was the weather. “Luckily, due to a well positioned, sloping site, Kyeema Vineyard avoided the spring frosts that hit other Murrumbateman vineyards. There was a lot of rain toward the end of the vintage, but we had all our fruit off before this hit. Some of our growers were affected and we sadly lost some of this fruit.”

Unfortunately, Helm Wines was one of the Murrumbateman vineyards affected by the frosts. “The 2014 vintage (our 38th vintage in the Canberra District) was a challenge for us due to lack of fruit,” said Ken.

“The severe frosts in the third week of October reduced our yields by about 80%”

Frost wasn’t the only challenge faced by Canberra winemakers this year…it was also pretty wet!

“Rain. Nothing like 2011 and 2012, but it just kept on coming every week in the most annoying way,” according to Frank Van de Loo.

“The whites and Pinot all came off early and were excellent, and most of the reds came in without damage, but the longer it went on the more difficult it got. And now that vintage is over, we’re having the most wonderful spell of mild sunny days!”

It was, as Sue Carpenter points out, a very unusual vintage due to extreme weather.

“The biggest challenge we faced in vintage 2014 was, I believe, the consequences of climate change. In over 35 years we have faced frost, drought and unseasonal rain, but never the extremes of each of these in one season.

“The consequence was a loss of fruit, first in November to a severe frost which is very rare at Lark Hill during the growing season, followed by a prolonged heat wave in January and February, and then rain into our harvest month of April, accompanied by starving birds. The fruit we picked was of very high quality, saved from disease by our biodynamic management, but our quantities are down by as much as 40%”.

Innovation was also a hot topic for the Canberra winemakers. Vintage 2014 will see Mount Majura Vineyard’s first harvest of a rather obscure red variety, Mondeuse. Frank Van de Loo also made the decision to deliberately pick a significant portion of their Pinot Gris early, in order to capture a racy, zesty angle.

“I’m delighted with it! This will be three quarters of the blend and it has a wonderful perfume that just leaps out of the glass”, said Frank.

Capital Wines will add some new wines to their single vineyard range and will be releasing a Kyeema Vineyard Shiraz Viognier and a Tempranillo Shiraz.

Having lost so much of their fruit, Ken Helm was able to source “some excellent Riesling from Tumbarumba and Orange vineyards which missed the frosts. Those wines will be labelled and marketed as those regions’ Rieslings”.

For Lark Hill, prolonged rain leading up to vintage delayed ripening, and the winemakers were anxious to achieve target sugar levels to make full rounded wines.

“There is a biodynamic preparation called 501, based on silica, which is used to drive water out of the fruit and vines into the plant roots,” says Sue Carpenter.

“We seldom use this preparation, although it is widely used in Europe where sugar ripeness is more difficult to achieve.Vintage 2014 we used 501 the day before every pick and the effect was spectacular, reducing the amount of water in the berries by five to ten per cent, in just 24 hours – concentrating the flavours and increasing the final sugar levels.”

Wines to Watch for Vintage 2014

I asked each of the winemakers to recommend a ‘wine to watch’ for vintage 2014. Don’t forget to look out for them next time you’re at the cellar door.

Lark Hill

“The wine to watch will be our 2014 Lark Hill Gruner Veltliner. We are the first Australian producer of this highly sought after Austrian variety, and we know that with every year of maturity our vines are delivering ever more intense flavour and balance.”

Mount Majura Vineyard

“I think it might be our Mount Majura Vineyard Riesling this year. It’s almost as if the complexity of the season (frost and hail, then scorching heat, then cool and rainy) is mirrored in a surprising complexity in the young wine. It has everything from the purest citrus, to aniseed and spice, to riper stonefruit.”

Capital Wines

“I think our 2014 vintage wines to watch will be our Shiraz and our Tempranillo. All round, it was a very good vintage and quality will be high”

Helm Wines

“The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon is wonderful at this early stage of making. We have a philosophy of maturing our reds for two years in oak and 12 months in the bottle, so it will be 2016 /17 before consumers will see these wines available for purchase”.