A note from Chief Winemaker – Xanthe Hatcher

There’s lots happening here at Audrey Wilkinson. Whilst many of you have been locked down at home, our winery and vineyard team have been on site ensuring that the wheels were still turning in the winery and in the vineyard.

The team have been using this time to prune our vineyard and get it in top condition for budburst which is just starting as I write. The recent rainfall that we have had has set the vines up for a really healthy start to vintage 2021.  In the winery we have been putting the finishing touches on some of our wines from the 2020 vintage.  In what was a very tricky vintage with drought and bush fires, it is so nice to have some wines in bottle that we can be proud of.

The 2020 Rosé has already been released and we have had some great feedback from our members.  I am also excited to be bottling our 2020 Gewürztraminer this week – it has all the trademark rose petal and lychee characters that we love about this wine, which I know is a favourite for many of our members and visitors.

We have also been blending our 2019 Winemakers Selection Shiraz and our 2019 Lake Shiraz, ready for bottling in a few months, these are two wines that show just how good the 2019 vintage was.  Keep an eye out for these – they are releasing soon and will be available in limited quantities.