Babes, bulls, Balmoral and botanicals in August

Bulls, calves and lambs were the main stars of August.

We were delighted to supplement our bull team with another two cracking additions from the VPC sale. Over the past few years we’ve been building our herd up, working hard to establish our own unique line with a real focus on strong, functional genetics. I’m incredibly excited about the future with our bull team now boasting industry leading sires right through their pedigrees and they’ve got the data and phenotype to go with it too.

Our cows have been progressing nicely through this calving period with over two thirds of the expected calves on the ground now and looking strong. While the bulk of ewes lambed in July, there were still a number of welcome additions throughout August so lamb marking is looking to be a big job in September.

August was a beautiful month weather wise with fairly mild conditions apart from a little cold burst in the middle. We had over 70mm of glorious rain that got a small flow going in the creek and the farm looks an absolute picture going into spring.

Other activities across the farm included vineyard pruning, work in the orchard and some final winter burn offs.

We had a busy month on the wine front with finishing off pruning the vineyards thousands of vines by hand, we launched our inaugural Vermouth - a special father/daughter experiment with a secret blend of about 13 botanicals, a wonderful event at Balmoral beach alongside so many fellow Mudgee wine producers with fabulous food and live music and we bottled a delicious new Cabernet.