It is sad to be celebrating our first release of the third millennium A.D. with so little wine for sale. The vine vield for the 1998 vintage was affected by severe frosts that occurred in the late spring of 1997. This happened at vine flowering, when young shoots were killed. New shoots that appeared were only partially fruitful.
Flowering in the Yarra Valley is seldom perfect due to the frequently unstable spring weather. In the spring of 1996, bad weather interfered with flowering and reduced the volume of the 1997 vintage. This has been a trying time for us when demand for our wines has increased so much. In the last few years our annual yields have been lower than they were twenty years ago. Apart from adverse climatological events another reason is a slow vine decline being caused by fungal trunk diseases. This has become a world wide disorder. Trying to alleviate this as yet incurable problem, has been expensive, labour intensive and time consuming. We have been planting new areas for nearly 15 years now, replanting old areas, reconstructing sick vines, injecting these with antifungal agents ($12.50/vine) and inserting dowels into their trunks containing the same substances.
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