Winter 2009
Dear Friends,
This year the newsletter is coming from the pen of “Mrs. Turkey”! After writing 18 newsletters Peter is suffering writers block, so I am going to attempt to continue the tradition of keeping you up to date with the “Evolution” of Turkey Flat.
Top of my list this year is the “Next Generation”. Our eldest son William has joined the sales team. This is a proud moment for us and I am sure you will enjoy tasting with him in Cellar Door, bringing with him his enthusiasm and fresh ideas for the future. He is ably assisted by Andrew Aldridge, who joined us at the beginning of May. Andrew and his wife made a lifestyle change several years ago, emigrating from the UK for him to study Oenology. These two talented wine savvy guys also offer tutored tastings in our Butchers Block Room. The tastings have received rave reviews by those who have attended. They are designed to give our loyal customers an opportunity to taste flights of wines chosen from our museum cellar, giving an unique opportunity to compare how our wines develop with time and against current vintages.
The 2009 Barossa Vintage Festival was a great success, again, this year. The Cellar Door and the Butchers Block Room were converted for the night to “Bar Pedro” serving a tapas/wine matched menu. For those of you who missed this food and wine triumph please watch out for future dinners to avoid disappointment. We also exhibited Sam Bell – Sculptures and Rosetta Santucci - Paintings, this has added another dimension to the Cellar Door experience. We will, again, be participating in SALA (South Australian Living Artists), using the same format as past events joining with several other Barossa wineries in a wine and art event.
The above events are still managed by Jodhi, who has returned after the birth of Granger Thoms. We are all in awe in her ability to juggle both mothering and work.
We have just celebrated the 10th baby to be born during the short life of Turkey Flat. The 1st our youngest son Oliver, the latest is Angus Campbell Ashmead. This addition has lead to Jules changing her role to “Chief Winemaker / Mother. To assist her on the wine making side we welcome Mark Bulman to the team. Mark is an Oenology graduate from Adelaide University and comes to us after several vintages working both here in Australia and in Germany. The other exciting news for the Turkey Flat Cabernet Sauvignon fans is that we actually picked, crushed and now have some amazing Cabernet in the cellar aging in oak, the first Cabernet to be made in three years, watch out for this in 2011!
VINTAGE REPORT 2009
The 2009 vintage was in part set up by a significant rain event on the 13th December 2008. We recorded between 75 and 100 mm of rain providing more than adequate soil moisture to see the vines through the summer. Most of the Turkey Flat vineyards are dry grown so the rain was a godsend.
The 2008/2009 summer was mild to cool until in late January 2009 when we had a short spell of hot weather.
Fortunately our vineyards sailed through this extreme weather event unscathed. In particular, our dry grown Koonunga Hill vineyard didn’t lose a leaf during the heat.
The weather did however bring on the start of vintage and we started harvesting Shiraz for Rosé on February 10, a little earlier than usual. Once the heat wave was over the rest of the vintage can only be described as perfect. Warm days and cool nights and little or no rain. Moderate sugar levels and trouble free ferments seemed to be the norm. The white varieties grown at Turkey Flat are Marsanne, Viognier and Roussanne. All three showing great varietal character and seemingly being completely unaffected by the hot weather. Rosé quality from 2009 is exceptional, a great yardstick for the overall vintage. The quality of the Grenache is the best we have seen since 1994. Early indications are that Mourvèdre will be also exceptional as is the Shiraz.
Vintage 2009 score!!!! at least 9 out of 10 on the Turkey Flat scale. Once again we are proud to offer you our new release of individually hand crafted wines.
Cheers!
Christie & Peter Schulz