Mudgee's cellar doors stocked for bumper holiday season

Reports from Mudgee are that wineries and grapegrowers in the New South Wales' region are celebrating 'a surprisingly excellent vintage' and breathing a sigh of relief.

As previously reported, the drought of 2018-2019 saw wine production drop , and the smoke affected 2020 only saw about 25 per cent of the region's produce made into wine.

There was more rain in the growing season of 2020/21 than in the whole two years of 2018 & 2019 combined. Despite 'downy events through the growing season', most vineyards protected the fruit and were able to produce good quality wine grapes leading into harvest.  

The harvest in 2021 started late with the sparkling base Chardonnay & Pinot Noir being picked between the second and third weeks of February and early whites being harvested in early March.

Four weeks of drier weather, made for cool, slow ripening conditions for the red varieties and ensured natural acids were retained and flavours able to develop gradually. Winemaker Jacob Stein says that this means "whites like Riesling, and reds like Cabernet Sauvignon are particularly exciting".

Most early red varieties including Shiraz were picked during the second and third weeks of March, before the 100mm of rain fell on 22 March.

Mr Stein said, "Some suffered but most powered through this rain event and we were lucky to have three weeks of dry weather to harvest the later Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and some later alternative varieties."

"The highlights of the vintage 2021 in Mudgee look to be Riesling and Chardonnay, Rose’ is excellent and it seems our Cabernet Sauvignon could be the overall star of this vintage," said Mr Stein.  

He suggests that all varieties show excellent natural acidity from the cooler vintage.

"We were lucky to ripen them with harvest being in the middle of the rain events and slightly lower cropping levels. Mudgee topography, with elevated and mostly sloping vineyard sites, and being a warm climate was the major factors in us having a good vintage.

"Surprisingly, even in a wetter than normal year, most of the Shiraz is showing good concentration and medium bodied with bright purple colour and displays cooler spice and nice red fruit characteristics.

"With Mudgee cellar doors experiencing a massive influx of tourism and wine lovers, it’s the vintage we needed to fill up our cellars and keep our family owned cellar doors operating at full capacity into the year ahead," concluded Mr Stein.