“Warm and very late” seems a contradictory description of a grape harvest, but that indeed describes the 2026 vintage from Tapanappa’s three distinguished site vineyards, a harvest that finished on the 30th of April. After the hottest, driest and earliest vintage in 2025, the 2026 harvest stands in stark contrast.
2026 has been the latest of the 57 vintages I have worried over. A late vintage is usually a cool vintage, with the ripening process extended by the slow accumulation of sugar, flavours, and tannins, and the vine’s metabolism slowed by the low temperatures. 2026, however, has been a warm vintage, significantly warmer than average in the Piccadilly Valley and the Tiers Vineyard with a growing season heat of 1317°C days versus the average of 1117°C days (+18%). Warmer, but less significantly, at Parawa on the Fleurieu Peninsula and the Foggy Hill Vineyard, where the heat summation was 1383°C days versus the average of 1343°C days (+3%).
2026 was also a dry vintage; rainfall from December to April was about 50% of the average. Theoretically, the dry, warm ripening period should have advanced the harvest earlier than average. It didn’t. Why, then, nature’s contrarian response to the warm, dry weather signals, instead of delaying harvest into the latter half of April, more than a month later than the 2025 vintage? The answer, perhaps, lies in the last two months of spring, September and October.
At The Tiers Vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley, the rainfall for those two months was more than double the average, and it was cold, rain-swept up from the deep latitudes of the Great Southern Ocean. At The Foggy Hill Vineyard on the Fleurieu Peninsula, the rainfall was 50% above average for the two months, and it was the same cold rain from the Great Southern Ocean. Just as the dormant vines began to wake as days lengthened and warmed, their roots were suddenly immersed in freezing cold water that had flooded the soil profile. The roots slowed the production of the hormone-laden juices that would stimulate budburst and shoot growth, and went into a growth slumber.
It was not until the warm, dry month of December that they eventually got their growth mojo going, and by then the harvest was preordained to be delayed with shorter leaf canopies than normal. The warm, dry conditions of the summer months did not wind the clock forward and advance harvest significantly. A late harvest in the cooler, declining days of autumn is always a high-quality vintage; acids are preserved, aromas and flavours are fresh, delicate and complex, and sugars and, hence, alcohols are moderated.
2026 vintage is no exception to that rule.
Because of the warm, dry flowering weather at the end of November into December, crop levels were at or above the long-term average. Harvested in the last week of March, the Foggy Hill Vineyard 2026 Pinot Noir is undergoing malolactic fermentation in barrique as I write this. The colour is intense, still translucent but with a bright purple-red hue. The aromas and flavours are very Pinot varietal, with the Foggy Hill slightly earthy, forest-compost terroir complexity.
Tiers, Tiers 1.5, and the other Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay vineyards were all harvested in the second to the third week of April. Tiers Old was the last harvested on the 17th of April in chilly conditions, the latest ever. Alcohols in the Piccadilly Valley Chardonnays will be very moderate in the low to mid 12% range. They are currently bubbling away in mid-primary fermentation, and the fruit aromas in the fermentation cellar are mesmerising.
Again, after 57 vintages, I can say with confidence that no other vintage I have shepherded to bottle has been the same as 2026. That is also true of my other 56 vintages as Mother Nature continues to find ways to thumb her nose at sameness. Long may she succeed. BJC. 1/5/2026.