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Immediately after the fruit was harvested in early 2005 the weather seemed to take a turn for the worse in Margaret River. May and June were cold and wet with a number of mini tornadoes tearing through the region, while July saw exceptionally dry and cold conditions causing highly uncommon frosts. The spring growing season could best be described as difficult. With consistently windy, cool and damp weather, canopy management and disease control were critical to avert any problems. These conditions set flowering back by two weeks and resulted in poor fruitset across most varieties, indicating that yields would likely be substantially less than targeted. While few doubted the ever-reliable Margaret River summer would put the season back on track, the statistics show that Hobart’s first week of December was warmer than Perth’s, and overall it was the coldest summer since 1959! As a result, the season fell even further behind. Finally, sunshine arrived to ripen the fruit in early March and continued into April, the saviour of an otherwise disastrous season. Harvest commenced 2 weeks later than average with handpicking of all Voyager Estate Chardonnay. Yields across all varieties were down by 30-50%, resulting in wines of great intensity and fruit weight. The Chardonnay fruit was some of the best seen from our vineyards to date, with amazing elegance, incredible power and lovely minerality. Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon excelled in the cooler season displaying characters of gooseberries and lychees, and citrus and straw/ hay respectively. The Shiraz fruit showed typical dark berry characters and more pepper than usual due to the cool ripening season. As a late ripening variety, the season could have proved a problem in ripening Cabernet Sauvignon to full physiological ripeness. Instead, low yields combined with attention to detail in the vineyard enabled us to produce wines showing deep concentration, classic dark cassis fruit and fine chalky tannins. In conclusion, 2006 would best be described as a very challenging year viticulturally that was rewarded with a glorious spell of Autumn ripening weather conditions. It was a season where focused vine management was essential and, from a wine quality perspective, we are looking forward to the release of a number of outstanding wines. Text by Steve James, Viticulturist |