We’re about to start vintage....very soon I think but then again, with this farming nonsense you never really know.  As I write this the sky is turning a rather dark shade of grey (is grey a colour?) and some very big drops are hitting the tin roof I’m sitting under.

Barry Marrson, one of our Watervale growers, has just left us a sample of nice, plump, ripe Semillon that looks great now but a big dump of rain will quickly change that.  Semillon, with its firm, engorged, thin skinned berries is notorious for splitting and once it splits......... I’ll know tomorrow.

We haven’t had a wet vintage for ages, (I’m telling anyone who cares to listen and plenty of others too that we’re in for one), and as our longest standing grower Jim Jones once said to me, ‘There’s no bad rain, just nuisance rain’. 

So with those wise words ringing in my ears, (sorry Barry), bring on the rain!

About this time last year, we had some wags in the cellar door who put together a little poem using the names of all the wines in cellar door – I hope I’ve got it right.  So thanks everyone – especially the poets.....and the cheesemakers!