This year’s vintage is shaping up to be the biggest on record for Tasmanian vineyards.
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While it will take a few weeks to reveal the final figures on this year’s yields, Wine Tasmania chief executive Sheralee Davies said the “best guess” was that it could be record-breaking.
“This is great news in terms of there being such strong demand for our wines, to have really solid volumes of wine available from 2018 is great news,” she said.
Despite big yields often impacting quality, initial reports are “very, very positive”.
“We’re hearing great reports about the aromas we’re getting in the white wines as well as the great colour we’re getting in the red wine, so they’re a couple of the indicators we look at in terms of quality.
“It’s definitely a vintage everyone is very happy with.”
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Holm Oak Vineyards owner and winemaker Rebecca Duffy said this year was their biggest on record.
“For us, it was 30 per cent above average,” she said.
“Last year was such a small vintage so we nearly did twice as much as last year, but probably 30 per cent more than 2016.”
Holm Oak is pressing the last of its red wine grapes at the moment, Ms Duffy said.
“We still have a little bit of merlot and cabernet fermenting. Then it’s time to start thinking about blending up the whites from this year and getting them bottled.
“We’ve been pushed for space in the winery, so we’ve had to hire a big tank and buy some new bits and pieces. So now it’s all about the logistics of getting things blended and into bottle.”
Ms Duffy said the quality was also good this year.
“Often when you get increased yields, you might get decreased quality, but this year, that definitely wasn’t the case.
“Because we had nice warm, dry weather, we didn’t have much disease pressure and we sort of managed our vines really well and the quality was really good.”
Ms Davies said most of the wine grapes around the state had been picked already, after a condensed harvest.
“With that warmer weather continuing as the harvest commenced, it meant everything came in a condensed period of time.”