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Over the past few years we have seen trends come and go in the wine world and in viticulture. Organics, biodynamics, regenerative, natural wines, minimal intervention, high-density planting, big [...]

The last time I posted was a rant about planting… Now we are already half way through the season! We are entering flowering now. Some of the earlier varieties have already started flowering [...]

The heading says it. This is not a post on vineyard development, design, soil preparation etc. This is a post on the fundamentals of planting a grape vine to grow old. In South Africa, it still [...]

The last day of vineyard visits was here. We headed out to the Piccadilly Valley. We just went to one vineyard. It was a steep slope vineyard that Dylan wanted to show me and wanted to bounce [...]

We spent the 2nd last day in the Clare Valley. We where heading out to Colin McBryde of Adelina Wines. I cant really remember that much of the trip on the way there. I saw loads of wheat fields. [...]

We are now on the 27th of June 2022. We headed out to Lenswood in the Adelaide Hills. We visited the vineyards of Mickey Downer (Murdoch Hill Wines), Brendan Keys (BK Wines) and then out to [...]

After we visited Cleland Conservation Park we went back to the Barossa to go for a braai at Dylan’s dad. Natasha and the kids went with and we stayed the night. I can see where Dylan gets [...]

I know my blog posts are just about viticulture. But this one was quite fun. The next day was a chill day – a day off. Dylan’s oldest son took me to Cleland Conservation Park. It was [...]

Next we visited the Barossa Grape and Wine Association. We were guided by Nicki Robins from Barossa Australia. It was great to finally meet Nicki, who has previously over email helped me a lot [...]

The Barossa Valley is a renowned wine-producing region located in South Australia, approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast of the city of Adelaide. It is one of Australia’s oldest [...]

I was feeling much better by now. We headed out to Blewitt Springs to S.C. Pannel where Ollie Bevan showed us around. This was my first time out and about in Australian vineyards. The first [...]

We reached our hotel in Launceston late that night. If I remember correctly, we stayed in the Silo Hotel. It was quite nice. That night I pumped the pills. After a very long night for me, I [...]

This time last year  (June 2022) I was getting ready to head over to South Australia to visit my friend (at this time we never met but have been working together for 3 years) and colleague Dr [...]

The Stellenbosch wine region experienced a cool and dry growing season during the 2022-2023 harvest. This presented both advantages and challenges for the vineyards in the region. Similar to The [...]

The Paarl wine region experienced similar climatic conditions as The Swartland during the 2022-2023 growing season. The region had a very dry and warm winter, followed by a moderate spring and [...]

The season started with a warm and dry winter – something we have come to know too well in the past few years. We had very good rains in June, but after that it hardly rained at all. The [...]

Its been 4 years in the making. We finally got to harvest the maiden vintage of the hill Syrah at Weltevreden in Stellenbosch on the 3rd of February 2023. This has been one of the most difficult [...]

We are 70% into the season, and the vines are really taking shape now. With a cool and wet spring/summer the soils was abnormally cold and wet, so the young vines struggled to get out of the [...]