Barossa Vintage 2016 Declared
It didn’t look good late in November last year when dark clouds form the huge Pinery Fire darkened the skies. The bushfire had started in the Balaclava / Roseworthy area 60 kms north of Adelaide, and swept south-east toward the Barossa where it singed the edges of some vineyards. According to Business Insider, the fire killed two people, tens of thousands of livestock, destroyed 87 homes, 300 farm sheds and outbuildings, and burnt more than 85,000 hectares.
source: Business Insider
It was a dry, early growing season with warm, cloudless summer days and cool nights until some welcome rain freshened up the vineyards late in January. Milder weather slowed things down and allowed phenolic ripeness to catch up with sugar ripeness. The vintage was declared on February 23 in the traditional style by the Barons of the Barossa marching down the street and then handing various awards to deserving wine people.
source: Barossa Living
In 2015 the hot weather saw most grape varieties ripen almost at once, which caused havoc for the processing schedule of most wineries. 2016 looks more like a normal year, with vintage beginning late in January for early ripening varieties like Semillon and Chardonnay. Shiraz followed a couple of weeks later, and Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache and Mataro will follow in March. Higher up in the cooler Eden Valley, everything happens a couple of weeks later.
Early reports talk about a great Barossa vintage with slightly above average yields. Most winemakers are waxing lyrical about the quality of their Shiraz, probably meaning heady and chunky. The whites are looking good too, says Louisa Rose of Hill Smith Family Vineyards, partly because of the cool nights. ‘The white grapes rest overnight,’ she says, ‘they retain their acidity and their fine flavours and then they ripen during the day and get a bit of sugar — it’s perfect … I think they [the whites] could be lovely this year.’
source: Barossa Dirt