The Winter of 2004 proved to be one of the driest in recent years, resulting in very low soil moisture as the vines started to emerge from dormancy in Spring. This in turn meant a slight reduction in yields for some vineyards as flowering and fruit set was sometimes stressed for water. However conditions through late Spring and Summer were ideal for the vines as it was cool and dry.
In the second week of February there was a heavy rain event which caused few problems to most varieties as the bunches were still immature with hard berries. Riesling though, experienced considerable splitting as the young berries swelled with the sudden influx of water. Most Riesling vineyards through the Great Southern were affected and it was necessary to remove by hand many damaged bunches to protect the remaining fruit. With those bunches that were not too badly affected the split berries dried in the following warm weather and eventually shrivelled and fell off. As harvest in mid March approached, there were a few smaller rain events and this caused Botrytis cineria infection in some vineyards.
Fruit with this infection was rejected to maintain the highest quality possible in the final wine.
The fruit upon arrival at the winery was immediately processed to ensure the highest quality juice. Only free run juice which is a tighter and more finely structured juice, as it has no phenolic character was used for this wine. All batches were kept separate and were cool fermented in stainless steel tanks to maintain the delicate fruit flavours. Extensive blending trials of the free run batches were carried out to produce a wine that is very elegant but still powerful.