What's happening in the Winery during Harvest Olly?

We asked our Head Wine Maker, Olly Shaw, his thoughts on this year's Harvest preparations.

'The year started out very wet, however, we had a very nice Spring with some of our warmest driest days in May, with favourable flowering conditions. There are many strategic methods implemented by the New Hall team to increase the quality of the fruit, one of which is 'fruit dropping'.

Fruit Dropping is where bunches of fruit are removed in the early growing stages to increase quality during the ripening stages. We did this with our Pinot Noir Precoce and Zweigeltrebe varieties. We have also been taking regular samples of all of our fruit varieties to check the levels of sugars and acids to build a accurate flavour profile ensuring things are phenolicly correct.

With additional Cellar Hands, Olly, Rory, Ellie, and Charlie joining us and ready for Harvest, we are all very excited about what this year will bring. We have plans for using new tanks and oak barrels, that arrived at the beginning of September, to create new releases with more oak and aromatic flavours across our white and red wine collections.'

Could Olly be hinting at a new Bacchus Fume to join the collection......?

(Pictured are our core team, Head Wine Maker Olly, Assistant Wine Maker Jacques, Senior Cellar Hand Peter, and our 2024 Harvest Cellar Hands Olly, Rory, Ellie and Charlie.)