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 risqu 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 marketier 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 Cowan 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-opened 1 September!

6 September 2009.  RAIN, RAIN and more RAIN!!.  The next old feller who chats to me in the main street of Lilydale and says:  nice drop of rain! I'll drop him.  Yes, a whole year has passed without me making any reports and for that I apologise.  The 2009 season was difficult, but aren't they all?  Vintage was very light in terms of quantity but the quality factor was definitely there.  We estimated that we were 50% down on yield, but what lovely fruit!  Guy Wagner was very pleased with all three varieties:  Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling.  Without being too presumptuous I think I can say that the 2009 Pinot will be a "Miguet". 

Global Warming etc.  Call me a member of the flat earth society but the only climatic variation I can detect over the past three years is a small shift in the season:  We are getting budburst earlier and we are picking earlier.  This Winter, we were told by the experts that it would be drier than usual.  That turned out to be a load of crap.  Providence recorded its wettest Winter ever with 444.8 mm rain over the three months and twice the rainfall in August ever recorded by us.  Fortunately, we were able to start pruning early and vineyard management, pruning, tying down and mulching is completed, although the latter has made a bit of a mess in the lower lying areas.  Our big shed has been flooded five times in the past three weeks.  No damage, other than the time it has taken to clean it out.  The new drains have not been able to cope and further drainage works are being done.  Probably will never happen again! 

New goat, Fred has been with us a year now and has been 'socialised'.  Both Fred and Gary now have new goat houses and, considering the recent rains they probably would have dissolved.  Gary, who we now think is a Himalayan goat, doesn't spend too much time in his house and would prefer, as he always has, to stay outside and get soaked.  His heavy winter coat with underlying cashmere type wool, keeps him warm and dry at the skin level.  They were recently inspected by an inspector from the RSPCA, who found them in excellent condition.  How surprising:  they are treated more like humans, get goat bics every second day, liquorice every day and have their own goat licks. 

Getting on to wine, because we committed the entire vintage of 2008 Pinot Noir to Rose, (and what a lovely wine that is!) we needed a Pinot.  I approached Guy Wagner for help and we managed to purchase three lots of fruit from two Tamar Valley Vineyards and one near the Asbestos Ranges, just west of the Tamar (it now has a Aboriginal name; however, there are so many syllables I can't remember it).  Taking many samples, Guy Joined us at the Gorge Restaurant where we played with various blends of the three finished wines.  And we came up with a winner! Or at least James Halliday thought we did, awarding it 94 points in his 2010 Wine Guide (he also awarded gold standard for our 2008 Rose and  Riesling, the latter being sold out).  We called the Pinot "Black".  Simple really, when it was ready to be bottled, Guy phoned me and asked  what coloured capsules I wanted as he only had black.  Bit like Henry Ford - "you can have any colour car you want, as long as its black!"  The wine, coming from small berries is quite dark, and in an antique green bottle with a black capsule it looks black.  And so it came to be. 

The Rose has had good reviews,  Particularly interesting was the comment from Roy Morfield, the wine buyer for Cathay Pacific, who suggested that we keep a few bins back as the wine was going to age well.  Speaking of ageing, the 04 CRV Pinot sales are picking up.  This wine, so slow in developing, is beginning to hit its straps.  Unfortunately, the 2006 Miguet Pinot Noir is just about sold out - and has yet to hit its straps.  The worst part about that is most of the sales are to restaurants where it is being drunk now.  What a shame.  I would love to have been able to hold that back, but the goats would have starved had I done that, not to mention Brenda and me! 

Speaking of starving.  Providence has its own vegie garden - the mother of all vegie gardens.  We have used raised beds, constructed by galvanised tank makers: two high and two low, the latter for taller crops like beans, sweet corn and tomatoes.  The garden is completely enclosed in fine wire to exclude wombats, wallabies, possums and bunyips.  For us oldies, we will be able to manage it without buggering our backs.  Our answer to the GFC, and ageing!

As I write, it is pouring rain (how surprising).  At last I will be able to see the effectiveness of the drainage work I completed yesterday (stage 1). 

Since last writing, the immediate family has grown by two:  Brenda's son Ben and Mel had a little girl, Ava and her daughter Jayne and Steve have had a second girl, Cassidy.  My lot?  still complying with their father's remonstrations when their were little.  My angry retort in response to their bad behaviour was "you should not be bred from!" are being complied with.  Emma and her partner Damian are buying property in Southbank and are frantically saving.  Lisa and Mike, Married last December here on the vineyard, are still in Kalgoorlie.  Their family has grown, with two dogs joining Basil the cat on the pet list.  All is rosy in those two camps.

The lead-up to the 2010 vintage was not too bad.We had rain, quite a lot but well spaced, which relieved the need for irrigation.January, however, was bone dry and this is where we got caught, with enclaves of powdery mildew affecting stems and bunches but not the leaves.The heat in January also caught us on the hop as we suffered some leaf burning because we were using our normal rates of sulphur and not the mainland rates, which are about half that we use in Tasmania.

Vintage was early, but not as early as the previous four years.Our observations were that the climatic shift, upon which I have previously commented, seemed to move back closer to normal.Our biggest problem was beyond our control.Voracious European wasps, in numbers never before seen caused considerable damage, even to blocks in which we managed to exclude all bird life.My colleagues in Relbia have long been telling me that wasps are able to broach grapes.Despite watching the little suckers for years I have never seen that happen, until this year.Many vineyards suffered reduced yields due to wasp damage and I feel that an approach for government support may well be answered.There are certainly more wasps in Tasmania than foxes!

For the tenth year in a row, the staff, parents and students of the Launceston Church Grammar School brought in our vintage.This has been a fantastic arrangement and a mutually beneficial one at that.On 8 April we picked 2.6 tonnes of Chardonnay and on Sunday 18 April we picked a measly 1.5 tonnes of Pinot, the rest having been consumed by the wasps.What we did get was magnificent.The winemaker, Guy Wagner praised the fruit, as he did the small parcel of Riesling we picked on the same day.

Today, 3 May 2010, I celebrate my 65th birthday.Just to clear up any misconceptions, that is 65 years young, not old!Anyone checking my facebook will notice that I am still well entrenched in my first childhood.Speaking of children, I have taken the reins of Life Education Tasmania Inc.a national organisation dedicated to empowering children to make reasoned decisions about alcohol and other drugs in their lifestyle.Life Education is about teaching children respect for others, self respect, self esteem and a recognition of their uniqueness as a child.Life Education has a 30 year history in Australia and is now active in 12 overseas countries.We save children from dying.The movement was the brainchild of the late Rev. Ted Noffs of Wayside Chapel fame.Ted, active in the heart of Kings Cross was on record of saying:I am sick of burying dead kidsHe had witnessed so many times the tragic loss of young lives through drugs.

What are we doing about Life Education?Well, there is this range of mountains in New Guinea called the Finisterre.The latin scholars amongst you would know that the translation of that is End of the World.Well, my daughter Emma. Her partner, Damian Sharrock, our mutual friend who walked Kokoda with us in 2008, Gary Hearle from WA, are walking the Finisterre Range and Shaggy Ridge to raise money for Life Education.For the military historians amongst you,the Finisterre Range embraces Shaggy Ridge, the site of a very significant action by the 7th Division AIF to dislodge the Japanese from New Guinea.For as much as Kokoda and Milne Bay stopped the Japanese from reaching the Australian mainland in 1942, Shaggy Ridge in 1943 was the first step in their dislodgement.We will remember them.Should you wish to assist Life Education Tasmania, please visit www.gofundraise.com.au/trek2010 and give generously.

I had two pieces of news yesterday (2 May).Firstly, the news that the Federal Government had rejected the recommendations of the Henry Report on wine tax, and rightly so.Secondly, my youngest daughter, Lisa, based in Kalgoorlie, has taken a new job flogging Jack Daniels!There you have it!The daughter of a wine producer bootlegging alcopops, and I know she will be good at it.Right now I am changing my will, leaving everything to my eldest, and unmarried, daughter Emma and the two goats, Gary and Fred.

7 June 2011.  What happened to a year? Well, after we finished pruning in 2010, Emma and I went back to New Guinea with Frank Taylor's mob, Kokoda Treks and Tours, and, with a small party of seven, we trekked Shaggy Ridg. Apart from just the experience of again walking in the footsteps of heroes, we also sought to raise monies for the reestablishment of Life Education here in Tasmnania.  And we did that!  Like Kokoda, trekking WWII battle sites is physical (how did they do it?), emotional, historical and cultural.  As we were amongst the first 50 white people to visit Shaggy Ridge since the end of the war, much of what we saw was as it was left:  a lot of military hardware, guns, munitions, helmets, barbed wire and even human remains.  One example of the Australian initiative was the finding of a bread oven at the southern end of the ridge.  The story behind it was the desire of the troops to have fresh bread.  A 44-gallon drum was carried, rolled and lifted up onto the ridge and buried in clay at the southern posiiton previously occupied by the Japanese.  We spent nine days trekking the ridge, Kankyrio Saddle, Crater Hill and walking the Mindjim River to Bogadjim and then in the back of a truck with no suspension to Madang.

The 2011 growing season was perhaps the greatest challenge we have faced at Providence.  In fact, it was probably the most challenging year for the whole of the south east Australian viticultural region.Rain very earlky in the season brought our first attack by downy mildew.  This occurred as the florets were first appearing and the end result was that we lost close to 50 percent of our flowers, hence, 50 percent of our grape crop!  What followed was persistent powdery mildew attacks, rain preventing an important botrytis spray at flowering, more downy mildew and more rain!  But, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good:  With Summer virtually absent, the remaining crop that we managed to carry ripened fully - something that would not have occurred had the entire crop survived to that point.

Yesterday, our newly installed solar array was connected to the power grid.  I am still to be convinced that the not insignificnt outlay will ever be recovered but I rest in the thought that we are trying to reduce power consumption.  In addition, our beaut vegie garden is also supplementing living costs.  Brenda is keen on doing something about the hot water as well but that will have to wait until our bank account recovers!

We are about to release our 2009 Miguet Reserve Pinot Noir.  Not uncommon for Providence wines, this one is a slow starter with a big future.  At a Duck Crawl held in Melbourne by mine hosts Roy Morfield and Ron Leslie (if you haven't done one of these then you must!), the 09 Pinot was voted the most popular wine out of the nine presented.  I love these duck crawls: whilst they are an excellent marketing tool, the food and wine combintions are simply brilliant.  Basically, for the uninitiated, a duck crawl consists of three restaurnts, up to nine duck dishes and nine Pinots - all in one lunchtime!  The experience finishes at a wine bar (in this case, JWOW) where Ron and Roy swap hats and become the Australian Rose Alliance.  Providence 08 rose was the feature and very much enjoyed (and sold!)