The Vineyard
There is something very special about the wines from Forest Hill. Part of this, of course, comes from the location. The vineyard is located in Mount Barker and the vines date back to original plantings made in 1965. This makes Forest Hill the oldest cool climate winery in Western Australia.
The Great Southern experiences diurnal temperatures (the significant difference between day and night time temperatures). Warm long day light hours coupled with the cool nights of the Great Southern harness ideal conditions for the production of cool climate wine styles.
At the time of establishment vineyard irrigation was not an industry consideration and all early plantings were ‘dry grown’ providing drought prevention and ensuring low yields. Forest Hill has retained this approach, believing it to be a major contributor to vine health and concentration of fruit flavour. The Forest Hill Vineyard is managed by our viticulturist Lee Haselgrove.
2010 Vintage Report
With harvest completed, we are starting to hypothesize about how vintage 2010 will be remembered. The first place to start in this process is to review some of the weather data. We have quite a database of information now, and although it doesn’t make the wines any better to know what happened, it is very valuable to better understand the impacts of the weather on varietal characteristics. Give us something to discuss during pruning as well!
The 2009 winter was very wet, with 450mm from June to Sept (mathematical average is 290mm), and the growing season quite dry, 152mm, vs the average 220mm. Temperatures have been around average or slightly above, particularly in February and March. Remember that ‘average’ in Mt Barker is still cooler than almost any other WA wine region. Sometimes dry seasons can be quite challenging in dry land vineyards, however most blocks at Forest Hill have handled the dry summer very well. I am sure that the wet winter helped, however vine age and good, healthy soils will also have played an important role. More blocks have removed this season as we concentrate on the best sites and the best soils. This makes our vineyard work a little easier and our wines much better.
Although we sometimes compare actual weather data to averaged data, it is more useful to compare actual data from previous seasons. I think 2010 looks closest to 2007 of any vintage in the last 10 years at Forest Hill. So if you recall any of the characteristics of our wines in 2007, there is a strong change the 2010 wines will look more like 2007 than other recent years. We hope that you enjoy the experience of comparing these over time with suitably matching food.
Riesling
Hand picked in mid March, interestingly, the harvest dates for Riesling at Forest Hill do not vary much from year to year. We don’t really know why, as the fruit composition and characteristics can be quite different depending on the season that the fruit experienced. Block 1 Riesling looks very encouraging; tightly structured, with the reliable talcy phenolics again providing that texture and length we have come to expect from Block 1.
Chardonnay
A difficult year for us in the vineyard, with significant front damage in Block 8 resulting in uneven shoot growth and variable crop levels. This basically means lots of work to try to achieve reasonable canopy characteristics.  The outcome has been pretty good, and although 2010 may not be our ‘best’, it is still unmistakably Block 8 Chardonnay.
Shiraz
We have been working hard on Block 9 Shiraz over the last few years, and we are seeing encouraging progress. Better soil management, no herbicides, more composted material being applied in every winter. Also we are leaf plucking harder and earlier in the season. Tannin accumulation and maturity seems to be getting better and hence we are getting better structure in the wine. Not exactly sure why, but this is not a journal article. The tannin character and maturity is the ultimate test of any site for us. I think 2010 may well be our best Block 9 Shiraz to date. There will be a while to wait before we know for sure, or your votes are counted, of course. Patience….
Cabernet Sauvignon
The king of the red grapes, the easiest to grow some say, but maybe the hardest to grow well. This year we have the basis of great Cabernet Sauvignon in the winery, with very good skin tannin maturation being achieved. Block5 again shows the silky, grainy tannins that we see in different concentration each season, and our other blocks will contribute to a very strong Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. I think you will be hearing more about this wine in future from others than from us.
Lee Haselgrove - Forest Hill Viticulturist
