Members Only – Tapanappa Foggy Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir 2016

2016 was the warmest vintage on modern meteorological records in most of the southeast of Australia.

If you wish to prove this look at the CliMate site, australianclimate.net.au, and choose the geographical site you wish to examine.

Go to How’s the Season?, then Season’s Progress, then select the region you want to look at and finally select Data Type-Heat-Sum base 10°C, Starting In-October, Lasting For-7 months.

Scrolling down the array of curves for the chosen location will reveal the heat summation for all years back to 1949 and invariably the curve at the top by a wide margin will be 2015, which is October 2015 through vintage 2016 to April 2016.

The heat summation in 2016 for Foggy Hill was an extraordinary 1439°C days versus the last 13 year average of 1200.6°C days. The 2016 heat summation easily eclipses the next warmest season in Foggy Hill’s brief life, 1301°C days in 2013.

Despite the persistent warmth, mostly caused by warm nights, there were no heat waves and the temperature only exceeded 30°C 11 times and 36°C twice at Foggy Hill in the 210-day growing season.

The cool day maritime climate of Foggy Hill at Parawa preserved the fragile and delicate aromatic Pinot Noir varietal character.

The flowering and fruit set at Foggy Hill in November 2015 was too perfect and the initial crop level was estimated at >10 tonnes/hectare. We cut off half the fruit just at veraison in late January and hand harvested 6 tonnes/hectare of lovely coloured and flavoured fruit on March the 2nd and 3rd and again on the 10th and 11th of March.