The 2008 vintage Pinot Noir and Riesling will be made by Guy Wagner of Riverview wines on the Tamar River, maker of Bass Wines with a great track record for Pinot Noir.  We made the move from Andrew Hood after he decided to go into semi retirement, now spending more time in marketing.  Nevertheless, Providence will continue to carry Wellington Wines.  Last night we particularly enjoyed a couple of bottles of 42S Pinot Grigio (A Hood wine) with a curry (not goat!).  I commend this wine to you.  We have a couple of bottles left but the winery has sold the lot.
18 January 2008:  There is a great industry journal called "WBM" (Wine Business Monthly".  Whilst the publication itself is usually serious (except for Busby's Block), they also send to subscribers a weekly email called "The Week That Was", a fairly risqué commentary extending beyond the wine industry.  The latest commented upon the 747 that lost power due to a broken galley drip tray.  The writer went on to say that terrorists don't have to resort to bombs and other weapons to prang an aircraft.  They just order a G&T and spill it on the floor!  Getting back to the week that was at Providence, it was one full of disasters.  The irrigation system, which is in high demand to stop the place turning into a  desert, provided one leaky pipe which resulted in drying out the bore and three crumped valves - two underground which had to be dug out to be replaced.  As you could imagine, the soil is as hard as set concrete.  On top of that a pressure switch failure in the tractor air conditioning also failed, which resulted in the compressor seizure also killing another component whose name I forget.  There were fuel leaks in the spray cart and also one of the irrigation pumps as well.  To top it all off I knocked over the post rammer.  When it hit the floor it also hit the pipe of the drum oil pump, fracturing it and allowing about 15 litres of oil to syphon out overnight onto the shed floor.  When I went in there this morning to collect a fuel drum for filling I didn't put the light on, did I?  That's how I found the oil spill!  On a lighter note, we had a bit of theatre two days ago.  While getting some water for the goat (Gary) from the top spring I roused a wallaby from its hide.  It ran up the wets bank of the property looking for a hole in the fence (there isn't one).  It then turned down the fenceline at great speed, only to encounter Gary, who immediately rose to the vertical on his back legs in preparation for driving the wallaby into the ground like a fence pole (he does that with stray dogs).  The wallaby turned and ran back, apparently trapped in the corner by Gary and by me.  It did get through the fence - through new wallaby wire.  But it left behind a joey, well developed, who immediately ran back to its hide where the mother knew where to find it.
Our winemaker, Guy Wagner visited yesterday for an inspection of the vineyard.  Guy was delighted to find it disease-free and not overcropped.  He has recommended that we keep an old vine block of Pinot separate for processing, which we shall do if the season pans out as we hope it will.
 
23 February 2008:    The $270 Possum.   Our tank water supply for the house, an alternative to the spring, was recently supplemented with 20,000 litres purchased for $270.  The tanks also supply water to fill the spray tanks and can supply water at 100 litres/min.  With recent rain there was 28,000 litres in the tanks when a possum climbed up the post supporting the spray filler hose and opened the fill valve, sometime late on Tuesday night.  Now, at 100 litres/min it would take four hours and forty minutes to empty the tanks.  By morning that had happened.  The possum is the only plausible theory.  So, somewhere on Providence, there is a possum with a price on its head.
World's luckiest Wallaby.  28 February.  Caught in the bird netting was a young wallaby who, following a lengthy interrogation and an undertaking never to return was released over the back fence.  The prolonged drought has brought a  considerable number of wallabies into the vineyard, despite wallaby wire all round.  Fortunately, at this time of the year the damage they cause is minimal.  Budburst is the worst time, as the little critters eat the buds of the most important part of the vine:  the renewal spurs which are the source of the canes for the following year.

 

First Black Tie Dinner. 1 March.  Providence celebrated its first black tie dinner, offering the following menu:  Entree: hot smoked salmon with avocado and vine tomato parsley dressing and lemon mousseline cream.  Soup:  Lobster broth with saffron.  Main:  Minute venison medallions with mushroom-cognac sauce, creamed potato, carrot fondue and fine beans.  This was followed by a range of Tasmanian Cheeses, which included Pyengana, Mersey Valley and Ashgrove product.  Dessert:  Chocolate tart with raspberry surprise.  The wines?  In order:  Moet Chandon non vintage on arrival; Wellington 2005 Riesling with the entree; 1994 Providence Chardonnay with the soup; Chateau Palmer 1978 and 1980 Premier Grand Crus Margaux and Saltram 1972 Museum Reserve Claret with the main and following on with the cheeses and two notable stickies with dessert: Rossetto 1994 Botrytis and Ashwood 1996 botrytis Riesling.  Our chef was Xavier Mouche who also put the menu together.  The unanimous view of the diners was "Fantastic!"  Don't ask the price - current release Chateau Palmer is over 130 Euros per bottle at cellar door!  Xavier's culinary skills are priceless.

"Wings like a 747!" Exclaimed our winemaker, Guy Wagner.  Guy was speaking of the  subsidiary bunches that form from the main bunch stem of Pinot Noir, often referred to 'wings' or shoulders.  These grapes will always remain behind the primary bunch in ripening and at vintage, even though they will be the right colour, will not achieve full ripeness and therefore will not contribute positively to the finished wine.  They have to be removed.  That means that viticulture at Providence as far as Pinot Noir is concerned is now at the bunch level.  Manual and demanding, but not as demanding as vintage at Chateau D'Yqeum in Sauternes where they get down not only to bunch level but berry level!  That's why their wine sells for $400-plus a bottle at release.  This is what we are doing at Providence now - thinning Pinot Noir. (8 March).

13 March,  Vintage - Chardonnay.  The contract picking team arrived at 7:30 am and took 5 tonnes of Chardonnay for processing as sparkling wine.  Not Providence unfortunately, as the fruit was absolutely fantastic.  No, another very good Tasmanian brand!  We would like to make sparkling but we cannot manage the increased cost associated with sparkling wine production.  Its about double the processing cost and double the maturation time, making the time to profit unacceptable.  There are plenty of good Tasmanian sparkles and we sell some of them here!

16 April.  Good onyer, Sis!  Well, not really.  Quentin Bryce is not my sister, but we are probably related somewhere back in Scotland.  If we are I doubt she would want to recognise all our rellies.  I am a direct descendent of Rob Roy McGregor who, contrary to the movie, was in fact a sheep stealer and not a cattle rustler.  But Scottish Highland cattle are far more photogenic than sheep.  Speaking of n'ere do wells, we also have a black marketeer and a member of the Liverpool mafia in the family as well (long deceased).  I still have an ex RAF Remington typewriter that Uncle Freddie stole for my father during WWII.  Most of the rest were pit workers in West Lothian.  Oh, on the other hand there is also John Bunyan (Pilgrims Progress) on my mother's side just to help balance the books!  Nevertheless, Providence wishes Ms Bryce all the best as she prepares herself for her new role as Governor-General of Australia.  In my past life I was a VIP captain flying Sir John Kerr and Sir Zelman Cowam whilst they held that lofty office.

We wondered where our environment award was when I read about Toyota getting one for recycling all their roof water.  Well, that's what we have just done as part of our drought-proofing programme.  I should have measured the area of the roof before finalising the plan as we collect much faster than I thought.  10 mm of rain gives us 4,500 litres of lovely water.  Working on our annual average (if that keeps up) we stand to collect 324,000 litres annually and that doesn't include the sheds.  As our daily usage (household, guests use and glass washer) is about 200 litres/day and spray water is 5,600 litres pa, it looks like a lot of it will be drained straight into Pollock's Creek which runs through the vineyard.  But, on the other hand, if Oz does start to dry out we have about four years of drinking water up our sleeve!

Vintage has turned a bit nasty.  Having got the Chardonnay off in perfect condition (for sparkling) the silvereyes found the Pinot and have been giving it a right royal pasting.  Notwithstanding that we have carefully netted all the vines, the little suckers have been crawling on the ground underneath the nets, despite the ornithologists insisting that silvereyes are arboreal (don't touch the ground).  Vintage will be on Sunday 20th April and I have no doubt that we will have lost about 40% of our fruit to their voracious appetites.  Of course what follows are the European wasps!  Having cleaned up all the nests on our property we have observed them crossing the road in swarms to hull out the fruit damaged by the silvereyes.  Now that's not such a bad thing as it will ensure that we don't get too much volatile acidity in the finished wine.  Finished wine?  Well, perhaps not good enough for a straight Pinot Noir, but more than good enough for a great Pinot Rose - our first!

28 June.  Well, a bit of a change from vineyard work!  With my daughter, Emma, I walked the Kokoda Trail, following the path of the 39th Militia Battalion in their retreat from Kokoda, fighting every inch of the way a force six times their strength and better trained.  Why the mullahs of the day chose the militia, rather than properly trained regular AIF soldiers to complete this task is beyond me.  Nevertheless, the 39th was crowned in glory through their courage, endurance, mateship and sacrifice.  These words are recorded for all time on the monument at Isurava and in the words of an  observer when they were relieved at Menari:  "Those ragged bloody heroes".  Apart from the obvious - spending a fortnight with Emma, who left home 18 years ago, the experience was indeed life-changing,, embracing history, culture, emotion and a big physical challenge for this 63 year old grape farmer.  Anyone contemplating this venture should consider a six-month training program, unless you are an accomplished athlete already.  I have a list of things that are a must to take.

12 July.  Brenda and I headed off for a well-earned holiday, travelling first to Adelaide to visit her family in and near Victor Harbor (their spelling, not mine!).  Then we travelled on the Ghan to Darwin, stopping at Alice Springs and Katherine.  It was a great trip and, despite having our own Mrs Marples on board (Brenda in a Lilydale Players production), no-one was murdered.  It was Brenda's first trip to those destinations and the time in Alice and Katherine allowed for some serious snooping around.  The highlight would have been the magnificent boat trip up the Katherine Gorge.  After darwin we flew down to Broome and stayed three nights at Cable Beach.  Broome was a fantastic experience, redolent with history and vista.  Definitely a place to go!

15 August.  Well, after some five months in the planning and execution, and $6,000 overrun, our new net shed/workshop is finished.  The old net shed, which embraced a pig sty, goat house, net storage and a lot of wasted space was in the state of early collapse.  Our backhoe specialist, Tony, had great fun demolishing it and making it all disappear.  Council approval took some time as we had to modify the original plans to include a retaining wall, as the volume of fill exceeded the 500 mm limit.  This shed will be called "secret men's business" to match Brenda's "secret woman's business" shed where no man dares to tread!

New Goat!  We now have a second goat, Fred (who was male - past tense).  Fred is a noisy but delightful little saanen who was given to us by a neighbour.  He and Gary are getting on well and the blackberry progress has increased significantly.

27 August.  Winter management is complete.  With the help of Brenda and Elizabeth the vineyard has been tied down and the mulching finished today.  Over Winter I fertilized using dynamic lifter (chook poo) for the first time in over seven years.  A lack of nitrogen last season was evident in the pruning weights and I figured that a boost, plus pruning for a lighter crop, would do the vineyard a lot of good.

Cellar Door Re-opens 1 September!