Vintage 2026 Wrap
It’s now about six weeks since we pressed off the last of our Hunter shiraz, and we’ve finally had a chance to sit back and reflect on what we consider to be another pretty special vintage.
The Hunter Valley received almost 1000mm of rain during 2025 (which is almost 250mm above our long-term average), however most of this fell during winter and most particularly August was the wettest month. This of course provided an ideal full soil moisture profile leading into a slightly later budburst in early September.
In an almost carbon copy of the previous vintage, the rain virtually disappeared and we were presented with a near perfect warm and dry growing season right through to the end of the year. Our weather station and soil moisture probes on the Braemore Vineyard provided invaluable insights for our supplementary irrigation requirements to prevent the vines from experiencing too much water stress.
After the very generous crops from the 2025 vintage, we made the unprecedented decision to do some crop thinning in a couple of our best blocks on the Braemore Vineyard this year. Alongside the yield reduction, this also provides the opportunity for the vines to ripen their fruit slightly earlier (and hence pick slightly earlier) in the event of the weather turning nasty during the final stages of ripening.
In the first week of November there was a localised electrical storm bringing some hail, and the Oakey Creek Vineyard was hit quite badly. These storms/hail bands are quite a lottery as we did not get a drop of rain at Braemore (only 5km away as the crow flies), but unfortunately the damage/crop reduction means will be no OC Semillon from 2026.
In the lead up to the final ripening stage, we experienced around 80mm of rain in the second week of January. With relatively strong canopies and disease pressure virtually non-existent this year, this rain event actually brought some welcome relief to most of the vineyards and also slowed the sugar accumulation down a little.
Despite the later budburst, vintage commenced on the 12th of January with the Pinot Noir for our Déjà vu Shiraz Pinot blend. Ten days later, the first (thinned) block on Braemore was ready to go and hit the tank at just over 10% potential alcohol. We waited until after Australia day to go back into Braemore and had the whole vineyard off (as well as the Fordwich Hill Semillon and the hatful of Chardonnay for our Vat 32 Sem/Chard) by the 30th January, so another relatively fast and furious white vintage.
The Semillon yields were relatively generous again this year, only just slightly down on 2025 mainly due to the thinning we did on Braemore in December. Stylistically the wines are also very similar to last year, with vibrant lime aromatics and impeccable purity and precision. These wines will be deliciously drinkable on release but as we know from this pedigree vineyard, they will also have the structure for some long term cellaring.
Normally we see a bit of a window to take a breath between the end of Semillon and the start of Shiraz. However, this year there was no rest for the wicked, as the first of our Shiraz (from the Cote vineyard) was picked on the very same day as the last of our Braemore Semillon (30th January). The heat we experienced over the Australia Day long weekend brought all the reds forward quite quickly and we had our entire shiraz harvest in the winery within seven days.
Crop levels on reds were slightly below average this year, in part due to less bunches per vine, but mostly due to significantly smaller berries. This of course leads to a higher skin to juice ratio and the result across all the Shiraz vineyards is nothing short of stunning. The wines are beautifully phenologically ripe without excessive alcohols, with incredible intensity of primary fruit, colour density and brooding tannins. Certainly in the fuller end of the medium bodied spectrum, this suite of reds will be seriously impressive on release.
As most of you will already know, the Kiss Vineyard has (mostly) fallen victim to urban developers over the last couple of years, which is of course absolutely devastating. There are a few of the old vines remaining, and despite not being able to farm these over the last two years we are hoping to be able to nurse them back to their former glory for future vintages, albeit it a dramatically reduced quantity. Watch this space…
In some much better news, we have been very fortunate to be able to source some old vine shiraz from three other growers this year. The Old Thalgara Block and Tinklers Vineyard Shiraz (both planted mid 1960’s) are both looking very promising, but the standout is a small parcel of Shiraz originally planted in 1920. I can’t disclose where this vineyard is located just yet, but all will be revealed on release in a couple of years….
Cheers
Thommo