Teusner 2010 vintage report – “very promising!”

Teusner‘s vintage report from their vineyards in the Barossa Valley in 2010 is in.   Kym Teusner reports: “After the tough 2007 and 2008 vintages, an excellent year followed in 2009 and with 2010 we were again pleasantly surprised with cracking conditions.

We had excellent Winter rains which set the vines up nicely….full dams and flowing creeks are always great to see and have been a rare occurrence over the last 10 years.  May, June & August were all above average and we had our wettest July for a decade!  Budburst occurred about a week earlier than average due to warm temperatures and an absence of Winter frosts.  Vine growth was slow during September & October due to some cooler temperatures but that all changed in November.   South Australia experienced a heat wave with 7 out of 9 days over 40 degrees during flowering.  (Teusner’s) Grenache fared the worst… You only have to look at it funny during flowering and it goes to pieces. That’s because Grenache has a proclivity for shatter or coulure ….. Due to metabolic and climatic factors the inflorescences fail to pollinate or if they do, the tiny berries simply shatter and fall to the ground. As a result the Grenache crops were down by around 60% but the good news is the quality is fantastic!

The remainder of the growing season was spot on…..a long cool ripening period with a large diurnal temperature range ensured slow & even ripening across the red varieties.

To sum it all up….the quality out of the Barossa in 2010 looks very promising indeed.”