October was a typical Spring month with plenty of new growth and activity, particularly in the vineyard.
With the warmer weather all the local birds have been busy nesting and raising the next generations, Fairywrens and Pardalotes around the house with their constant activity and dashes of brilliant colour, multiple clutches of Wood Ducks seen across both properties and the communal, raucous Choughs I’ve watched nesting in a gum along the driveway fledged their healthy clutch.
Early in October the bulls were joined with both our cow mobs and on the same day our rams were joined with our ewe flock so the countdown for our next lambing and calving periods has begun.
Among the vines, the vigorous growth is staggering to comprehend every year. Shoots that were just a few inches at the start of October are now up to several feet long in spots. To support this growth we got about kickstarting our regular irrigation cycles (drip irrigation) and set about the big task of desuckering the whole vineyard. Desuckering is a fairly manual, slow and labour intensive process of removing all shoots from the trunk so the vines can put all their energy into producing quality fruit, the foundation of good wine.
Some other tasks ticked off included fully breaking down our sheep carcass after it’s ageing process so lamb has been a staple protein of late, building a lovely raised home for our dog, getting the orchard irrigation setup and removal of some final vines.
We’ve had wonderful responses to our new Vermouth and chilled Tempranillo at a special event at Bondi Icebergs Club and have been included on some new winelists that has made us very proud including The Strangers Dining Room in Parliament House, Art Gallery of NSW Cafe and Bopp & Tone. We’ve also been busy behind the scenes preparing to launch our new wine club which will be a special community celebrating good things - stay tuned next month for the big reveal.
