Truffle Hill Wine Vintage Preview 2010

With the harvest for the 2010 Truffle Hill vintage upon us, Mark Aitken, Truffle Hill Wines winemaker takes a moment to preview the vintage for us.

"I can’t remember a better ripening season in the almost ten years I have worked as a winemaker in the Manjimup/Pemberton wine region.  The season started with very late budburst due to a typical cold, wet Manjimup winter (perfect for growing truffles by the way). The soils were fully charged with moisture but any fears of a miserable 2006 type vintage disappeared as the heat arrived in November.

The vines exploded out of the blocks faster than Usain Bolt! The vines caught up and past the previous season. So much so that as I sit here writing this on the 22nd February we are at least a week ahead of the previous season after being two weeks behind at budburst, amazing.

The only thing that can stop this from being the vintage of the decade (century?) is a weather U turn for the worse between now and around the first or second week of April.

But I add a disclaimer. Vine, soil and climate interaction is a complex thing and is something for which we still have an incomplete understanding, and therein lies the mystery and intrigue of wine. 

At the end of the day we will never know how good a vintage really is until we have the wine in the bottle, and more often than not several years after that. 

And that, my friends, is what keeps me humble."

Mark Aitken
Winemaker

READ THE FULL VINTAGE 2010 preview here, including a look at climate tables and a review of how the the weather has helped the region to a perfect ripening.