Recent Post
Archive
- February 2026
- January 2026
Tags
Custom Menu
Vintage Report 2026
Louise Rhodes
Apr 19, 2026
Welcome to the rollercoaster ride of vintage 2026.
Strap yourselves in, it's quite a ride!
We’re dusting ourselves off, checking the blood pressure and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after what was a vintage and a half.
It put us - and all of our other South Aussie small winemaker friends - through the wringer!
Why?
"V26 was a rollercoaster of a ride. A relatively cool early season made sure that ripening was later than average (certainly much later than V25 which was one of the earliest on record). Two separate heat spikes in January where we had 2 to 3 days of 40 plus degrees caused some severe sunburn to exposed bunches which reduced yields.
Some lovely ripening weather then occurred with several weeks of high 20’s and early 30’s sunny days. V26 then threw another curve ball in later February when the forecast was for up to 100mm of rain to fall over a weekend. This could’ve been disastrous and with that amount of rain widespread berry split and disease would have been a large issue. Thankfully, only 10-15mm fell however the weekend was very humid which did put some pressure on the vineyards.
The remainder of the growing season swung between nice ripening conditions and days of drizzle. Picking decisions were tricky and often dominated by weather patterns which as a winemaker is quite frustrating.
Despite the challenges we have some lovely vibrant wines in the cellar and I’m looking forward to seeing how these wines progress through their stages of maturation."
Hopefully maturation will be less eventful than the harvesting!!
