Greetings!

We hope life is treating you well!

We hope things are good and that you’re keeping fit and well.

I have a couple weeks up my sleeve to put a few words together for this year’s newsletter before flying out for a quick visit to our importer in Denmark (Barrique Vin) and then to help pour Dutschke wine at Forum Vini in Munich with our German distributor (Apell Weine), so I thought I had better get a start before time slips away.

Again things have been going extremely well for us here on Gods Hill. The 2012 Vintage was marvellous and the reds are all doing the right thing in oak as I punch these words out for the letter. The harvest was probably the quickest ever, with there being only 3.5 weeks from start to finish. This included the picking of the sweeter late harvest fruit as well! 40% of our intake was in tank fermenting by the end of the first week and the quality of the juice is probably the best we’ve seen here in The Shed. But of course it’s still a long way to go before these wines go to bottle.

Sales too have been good. The cupboard is not yet bare, but quite a few of the shelves in the cupboard are. We’ve said it many times, there is no plan to make more wine than we currently do or spread the product further and more thinly across the globe. The focus has been and will continue to be to stick with the good guys we’re currently working with and let the wine flow at a manageable rate. We of course have to make sure there’s enough wine for our friendly Shed members!

Spring is now here but the weather has been up and down. We’ve had a few warm days in between the cold ones, even snow in the nearby hills. One good thing is that there’s been enough moisture from the heavens to keep both the vines and the hills green, but we expect the warmer temperatures and dryer days to be only around the corner and the hillsides to turn brown over the next few weeks. We and the visitors to the Valley over the next few weeks will I am sure enjoy the green while we have it!

Our 2011 reds are all in bottle and waiting for release. The range on offer from the 2011 Vintage will be a little smaller than normal with only 3 red wines available. We have a 2011 WillowBend Shiraz Cabernet Merlot, the new 2011 80 Block Merlot available for Christmas and later down the track our 2011 GHR Shiraz will be released.