Vintage update - 2010 Orange region
Printhie Wines
Media release
Printhie Wines, Orange, New South Wales
Leading Orange region winegrower Printhie reports that the 2010 vintage has finished about a month earlier than usual – the earliest finish since 2007.
The grape growing season was consistently early right from the very start of budburst through to harvesting. This has been a blessing in disguise as post-Christmas rain could have caused widespread quality concerns if it had been a normal or late season.
After a very warm, dry and windy spring where dust storms resulted in poor flowering in some varieties, the season was saved by welcome rain between Christmas and New Year. However, as the ripening period progressed, the rain kept coming and the disease threat increased. Well managed vineyards avoided significant disease problems.
“There are some lovely wines in the winery and it is proving to be a very strong year for Orange chardonnay,” said Printhie winemaker Drew Tuckwell. “The reds largely avoided disease issues due to low yields and loose bunches, but sauvignon blanc was a little more tricky – high yields and tight bunches meant botrytis was a constant threat as the fruit ripened. Certainly, there are some high quality wines being made from ripe, disease free sauvignon blanc,” he added.
“It has been an expensive exercise growing grapes this year,” commented Ed Swift, co-owner of Printhie. “Due to poor flowering yields in our estate vineyard reds are down anywhere between 50 to 80 percent. This is compensated by the fact that we believe the quality is very good but the production cost per tonne has gone through the roof,” he said.
“It has been a testing vintage but we remain very optimistic about the quality of the wines we are making. Consistency and quality is crucial and very important to Printhie. We can look forward to releasing some outstanding wines from the 2010 vintage,” added Ed Swift.
David Cumming, Define Wine
Regions
- Explorer Country (NSW)
- Orange (NSW)
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