Vintage History

Vintage 2026 proved a dry but rewarding season in Mudgee. After favourable winter and spring conditions, the region experienced its driest summer since 2019, though irrigation helped the vines remain healthy and disease-free. A late-January heatwave accelerated the white harvest, producing an outstanding Chardonnay, while cooler temperatures and timely February rain allowed the reds to ripen slowly and develop excellent flavour. 

Vintage 2025 was a season of extremes despite appearing deceptively normal overall. A severe August frost threatened major crop loss, particularly in the Chardonnay, and the season brought further challenges with storms and harvest-time rain risks. Careful vineyard work and quick picking helped protect the fruit, and while the Chardonnay was not harvested, the Grenache, Cabernet and Shiraz produced strong yields with excellent quality. 

2024 delivered a cool, wet season that kept the vineyard team busy managing disease pressure. A December heatwave helped push the vines into ripening, leading to an early start to vintage and strong Chardonnay and Rosé yields. Hot days and storms later slowed the reds, requiring patience to reach the desired ripeness and quality.

2023 was a very cold and wet year, though it warmed and dried up a bit for harvest which was helpful to fully ripen the grapes. Yields were low due to shoot and bunch thinning, and the quality was exceptional - the best I’ve seen in Mudgee. The Pinot especially enjoyed the cool!

The second consistently cold and wet vintage in Mudgee in a row saw the vines in absolutely excellent health, with no stress, and with plenty of energy to ripen the grapes slowly and steady for optimal fruit. The resulting wines have beautiful and intense fruit flavours and lovely natural acid. 2022 was a superb vintage for whites, and it is fantastic to be able to release them at 2 years of age, giving them plenty of time to settle into bottle and for the true fruit characters to emerge.

A beautifully cool, significantly cooler than Summer 2019 (mean maximum temperatures of 28.35 vs 34.3). February felt autumnal, with cold nights regularly below 10 degrees and crisp mornings. Harvest was slow and steady, with the varieties ripening one by one. Yields were good and the fruit stunning - clean and elegantly flavoured, with refined acids and lovely tannin structure.

All fruit lost due to bushfire smoke taint.

The wines from 2019 are full flavoured thanks to a vintage marked by drought. Our old vines stood up well to the dry conditions thanks to our bore-based irrigation system. This ensured excellent leaf canopy and shading through the fruit ripening part of the season.

2018 was characterized by intensely dry heat spells followed by short, heavy rainfall. With a lot of hard work from our vineyard team, we picked our fruit very early to beat the heat and secured stunning, evenly ripened fruit with clean, restrained acids.

2017 was a great red vintage, and the culmination of a huge amount of hard work understanding how to manage the warmer seasons in the vineyard and winery. The promise of the wines was evident from the start with colour and chemistry (pH, acids etc.), and the flavours and structure followed through.

2016 was one of those vintages where everything falls into place – the weather, the timing, the yields and the flavours all hit the sweet spot. A cool, wet start to the season with a great lift of warmth throughout vintage. A steady ripening period with timely rain produced high quality fruit with great acid and flavour.