PERFECT QUALITY: Gapsted chief executive officer Andrew Santarossa is positive the 2023 harvest will be exceptional. PHOTO: Brodie Everist
Wineries in Victoria’s alpine region are excited about the full potential of the 2023 season, with harvest well underway.
Gapsted Chief Executive Officer Andrew Santarossa said so far the quality has been “exceptional”.
“We started harvesting on March 1 which is about a week later than traditional start date but what we‘ve taken in so far in terms of sparkling and white has been exceptional,” he said.
“Yields are down but the quality is as good as you can get so we‘re excited about the potential of harvest.
“The recent rain event last week brought everything to a standstill but we‘re about to transition into the reds and we‘re still very hopeful it will be a strong vintage.
“As of Friday last week we‘d harvested approximately 50 per cent of the grape intake which is about 1300 tonnes.
“If the reasonably good weather continues we‘re hopeful that by the end of April or the first week of May we‘ll have all the reds in and they‘ll be as high quality as what the white has been.
“In terms of quantity we‘re probably 25 per cent down; forecasting to take in three and a half thousand based on where we‘re sitting at the moment, but the flip side is the quality is there and we‘re feeling very positive.”
Michelini Wines director Dino Michelini said the 2023 season has been “strenuous and costly” but has yielded some quality grapes.
“We‘ve had to do a lot in trying to maintain the grapes to keep them healthy and to make sure we got a crop for this 2023 vintage, with harvest started 10 days later than last year,” he said.
“The wet weather was difficult but fortunately from January onwards we had a dry spell and the quality is exceptional this year for Michelini Wines.
“Providing we don‘t get a lot of rain for our red in the coming weeks, they should be absolutely magnificent.
“Crop yields are average for us, we started picking sparkling in the first week of March and just finished all our whites and there‘ll probably be two to three weeks before we start on reds.
“So far we‘ve picked around 300 tonnes with 200 to go.
“We‘re looking forward to having magnificent wines for La Fiera.”
Are you a Daily Wine News subscriber? If not, click here to join our mailing list. It’s free!
