The Adelaide Hills Season Review 2022/2023 collated by CropWatch hit my inbox last week. 

Don’t stress… I’m not going to bore you with all the details!

But there were a couple of interesting snippets.

Let’s have a look…

 

2022/2023 Adelaide Hills Season Review

Although the summary of the report started with…

“The vagaries of the 2022/2023 growing season will be long remembered by grape growers.”

… it’s not all bad news!

 

Yes, below-average crop loads and a long cool ripening meant that the harvest period was one of the latest since the 1990s and early 2000s!

But, relatively dry conditions during ripening meant that disease pressure was low, particularly given the adverse conditions from budburst to fruit set.

The summary finished with this…

“These autumn conditions resulted in wines that will maintain the high regard held for the quality wines for which the Adelaide Hills is renowned.”

Well, I should hope so!

Of course, this season will be long remembered. But hopefully for as many good reasons (some amazing wines!) as bad!

 

CropWatch monitors six vineyards across the region:

• Balhannah,
• Forreston,
• Kuitpo,
• Lenswood,
• Macclesfield and
• Woodside.

Here is a map that shows where they all are…

 

Temperature

In past seasons the maritime influences on Kuitpo and Macclesfield (they’re super close to McLaren Vale) made them the coolest sites over summer. However, 2022-23 was so mild that low-lying Balhannah was the coolest overall.

Let’s put this into perspective and compare it to past seasons…

November recorded the coldest average for this season at 13.9°C. Brrr! Compare this to the long-term average of 15.4°C. And back in 2017/18 November recorded an average temperature of 17.1°C.

Fortunately, flowering was delayed by the cold start to the season and coincided with a more accommodating 16.9°C in December.

February recorded the only temperature above the LTA for this growing season (18.7°C and 18.3°C respectively).

However, ripening was slowed by cooler than average March and April temperatures which were just above those for 2020/21 in March and 2020/21 and 2019/20 in April.

 

 

Rainfall

Above average rainfall from September to November resulted in ongoing issues with vineyard access. This became challenging for managing diseases such as downy mildew and Botrytis in November. Lenswood recorded 273% of the long-term average rainfall in that month!

Fortunately, December was relatively dry and rainfall for the remainder of the growing season was below or at average levels.

 

Here is an interesting graph that shows cumulative rainfall over the last eight growing seasons…

 

So, yeah… it was a bit wet in the middle of the season!

 

Other bits and pieces

The 2022/2023 growing season proved to be challenging for grape growers in terms of disease pressure and low crop loads.

It also proved to be demanding for winemakers as the season was late and vines had difficulty ripening. Sugar levels increased slowly whilst sugar/acid balance was compromised by falling acid levels and high pH as vines struggled under
pressure from cold conditions.

Not only did this season present problems from the usual disease and pest suspects, but growers had to deal with widespread damage from snails in October, waterlogged vines and a nice little hailstorm thrown into the mix on 23rd December.

 

OK… so it wasn’t ideal, but we made it through! 

And if the response to our 2023 Sauvignon Blanc is anything to go by, there will be some amazing wines coming out of this vintage. Just wait and see!