Wow… what fun we had last weekend. Thanks to everyone who came to our Champagne Shopping morning. We loved seeing your smiling faces and having a Christmas drink with you all.

For us here at the Cellar Door, the Christmas season doesn’t start until Champagne Shopping morning. So, now it’s time to swap the jazz for Christmas carols and embrace all that is festive!

And out in the vineyard, we’re finally seeing the true indication that vintage 2022/23 is upon us. 

Although it’s a good couple of weeks late, the first signs of flowering have been reported at various sites around the Hills. Just in time for the last couple of days of Spring!

If you’d like a reminder or want to learn more about flowering, check back on my past post here.

Otherwise, let’s find out what CropWatch had to report last week…

Growth stage

Most Advanced
E-L 19       
About 16 leaves separated, beginning of flowering (first flower caps loosening).    
Macclesfield Chardonnay

Least Advanced
E-L 16    11 leaves separated.
Sauvignon Blanc Lenswood and Woodside

Weather

And while the sun is finally making an appearance, I’m reluctant to talk too much about the rain we had over the weekend on the 12th/13th November and the weekend after that (19/20th). But the sheer volume is interesting to look back on now it’s behind us (for now)…

That’s a lot of rain in 2 weeks. Especially when you’re trying to grow some grapes and keep them disease free.

(editor’s note: My heart goes out to those of you who have had more rain than this in a shorter amount of time – our thoughts are with you!)

And here is a handy graph that shows how the rainfall of this vintage compares to previous ones…

2016/17 was a WET WET year! And it looks like this one is heading in the same direction. It’s certainly already been a lot wetter than the last five vinatges.

But, you don’t need me to tell you that!

And here is another handy graph to help you understand how far this vintage is behind previous vintages…

This is specifically for Chardonnay in Macclesfield (the area and variety which is usually the most advanced) and you can see it’s really struggling behind 2018, 2019 and 2020. Around 4 weeks behind in fact. It’s just one week behind 2021 and hopefully, the current warmer weather (although it was still only 16 degrees max. here on Monday!) will see flowering progress rapidly in the last week.

And then all we have to do is hope that the rainfall doesn’t continue along the 2016/17 trajectory!