It
is well understood in the Wine Industry that as vines grow old they begin to
struggle and produce less but more expressive fruit than when young and
vigorous.‘Old Vines’ fruit is
the most sought after because of its intensity and depth of character for which
there is no substitute in the art of premium winemaking.
The fruit for the Vincenzo O.V. comes from
plantings
from the early 1960's and is approximately 60% Mourvedre with the balance
Shiraz. The gnarled, fully mature vines show a
natural suitability to the rugged soils and warm climate. These varieties
benefit greatly through blending, offering better balance of the spicy rich fruit overlaying deep tannic
complexities. This develops and improves for many years as shown by wines of Southern France and the
Rhone
Valley.
When I began
working with the late Vincenzo Conte's eldest son, Vince, in 2003, the vineyard
required extensive re-working to achieve maximum quality fruit. Since
then, Vince and I have worked to establish new trellis and pruning techniques to
re-invigorate the quality of the viticultural management. Through
our continued care and dedication to the soil and vines, I passionately believe the resultant vines
will lay new quality standards for blends of these varieties. It brings me
great pleasure simply to walk amongst these old vines which display their
struggle for survival through gnarled and twisted trunks rising from the meagre
soil that feeds them.
Cleveland Vineyard Macedon Ranges
The
Macedon ranges create a unique environment in Australian
terms with climatic conditions similar to those of Rheims in
the Champagne area of France yielding a mean January temperature of 17.5 degrees
centigrade. The Ranges lie east-west creating
orographic cloud formations due to prevailing north-south winds, giving lower
sunshine hours than in surrounding regions. At Cleveland the soils are podsolic
with varying depths of
grey sandy loam overlying ironstone gravel (buckshot) which are well drained
during long wet winters. Three hectares of vineyard were planted in1984 to Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and a mixture of Cabernet Sauvignon,
Cabernet Franc and Merlot in the lower
northern paddock. The first
vintage of was in 1988 and the remaining samples of Chardonnay still drink
extraordinarily well to this date. Subsequently Cleveland proved too cold a
site, and the lower rows of Cabernet Franc and the Merlot were grafted to Pinot
Noir in the spring of 1989 at which time the southern paddock was planted to
four rare Pinot Noir clones selected for their climate and soil type
performance.
The production of
Pinot Noir and Chardonnay is favoured here and despite difficulties in achieving
ripeness in Cabernet Sauvignon Cab. Franc & Merlot some years produced extremely
high quality fruit harvested in late May - early June, probably the latest
harvest for this variety in Australia. The process of grafting over these vines
to the varieties Pinot Noir & Pinot Gris commenced in 1997 and resulted in the
vineyard being dedicated to Pinot Noir, Chardonnay & a little Pinot Gris by the
1999 season. The
weather conditions produced fruit which naturally suits the production of
sparkling wines and this process was commenced during Vintage 1991.
