The 1999 VintageThistle Hill Vineyard Newsletters - Spring 1999
1999 has been a very successful year for Thistle Hill, with a bountiful vintage and many awards for our wines.
The 1999 VintageGood Winter rains in 1998 provided a perfect start for budburst, and we were able to shoot-thin in Spring, because, for the first time in many years, we had shoots to thin. After a trouble free Spring and Summer, our grapes ripened beautifully. Then, in Autumn, with one eye on the weather, we started to pick. We picked the last of our Chardonnay and Riesling on the 11th March which was just in time, as the next day it started to rain. We had three inches of rain over four days, which severely affected any ripe grapes still on the vine. Similarly, on 1st April, in one frantic effort, we picked all our Cabernet. The next day, Good Friday, brought severe storms and another three inches of rain, which meant that very little good fruit was picked in Mudgee after that. Were we lucky, or was it good planning? Other wine makers tell us how lucky we were, but we think it is because we watch the weather channel on Pay TV.
After twenty three years of dry land farming, we turned on our new drip-irrigation system on 2nd October. Everyone in Mudgee can thank us personally, as it hasn't stopped raining since! We had 250 mls of rain in October, which is more than one third of our annual rainfall, and the first two weekends in November were also wet. It is really shaping up to be a wonderful season.
During Winter we sowed cover crops of Rye corn between the rows, which provided valuable organic matter for our soils and healthy under-vine mulch. We also planted a new olive grove at Thistle Hill, so, in a few years time, you will be able to purchase organically grown, cold pressed, virgin olive oil from our cellar door.
We don?t often talk about our Wine Show successes, in fact, there are only a few wine shows that we enter. This is because we believe that it is the quality of the wine that sells a bottle, not the number of medals it has won. However, we are happy to mention that, this year, four of our wines won gold medals.
In September, we entered our 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon in the NSW Wine Awards, run by the NSW Press Club in conjunction with the Sydney Morning Herald. It was selected as one of the top twenty wines in NSW and came second in the "Older Reds" section.
Mudgee Wine ShowWe won three gold medals at the Mudgee Wine Show, for our 1997 Semillon, 1996 Shiraz and 1984 Liqueur Muscat. The 1997 Semillon also won the trophy for the "Best White Wine other than Chardonnay", and the 1984 Liqueur Muscat won the trophy for the "Best Fortified Wine" of the show. Because of limited quantities, these three gold medal wines are only available to our mail order customers. If you wish to purchase any of these wines, write the wine you want on the accompanying order form, however there is a limit of one bottle of each per order. Prices are as follows: 1997 Semillon $19.00 per bottle, 1996 Shiraz $25.00 per bottle, 1984 Liqueur Muscat $30.00 per bottle
We mention on the back label of each bottle, that Thistle Hill is an organic vineyard, registered by the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia (NASAA Certificate No 2211) but what does this mean? Well, it embodies a philosophy of sustainability, that what we are doing will not degrade the environment, in fact, it will enrich it. We use only natural inputs, we do not use any insecticides, weedicides or synthetic fertilisers, and our fungicidal sprays are of elemental sulphur and copper only. The wine is then made in the traditional method using sulphur dioxide to prevent oxidation and to ensure microbiological stability. The end result is a healthy product, free from any harmful, residual chemicals.
Our Bed and Breakfast cottage is still a popular place to stay with our customers. It is a fully self contained, three bedroom cottage on our vineyard, where you can enjoy absolute peace and quiet, native birds in the morning and millions of stars at night.
In the cottage, there are three double beds (one with a single bunk above it), a kitchen, a dining and a lounge room, so six or seven people can sleep quite comfortably. Accommodation includes all linen and a continental breakfast. Our rate is $60.00 for the cottage and $20.00 per person per night. Children under two are free. Bookings for the cottage can be made by contacting Thistle Hill on (02) 6373 3546.
The 1997 Riesling has a light straw colour with a hint of green. It exhibits sweet tropical fruit flavours and has a firm lemony acid finish.
Drink 1999 - 2004
The 1998 Semillon has a mid straw colour tinged with green. It has sweet fruit flavours balanced by crisp clean acid.
Drink 1998 - 2002
The 1997 Chardonnay has a mid-straw colour. It has strong peach flavours balanced by integrated oak and a firm lemony acid finish.
Drink 1999 - 2002
The 1997 Pinot Noir has a deep burgundy colour. It has strong plum and sour cherry flavours balanced by firm drying tannins.
Drink 2000 - 2005
The 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon has a deep red colour. Powerful fruit flavours are balanced by drying oak tannins. This wine will continue to mature in the bottle for many years and was chosen as one of the top twenty wines in NSW at the NSW Wine Awards.
Drink 1999 - 2008
The following wines each won a gold medal at the 1999 Mudgee Wine Show, and are limited to one bottle of each per order.
The 1997 Semillon is a mid straw colour tinged with green. It has sweet fruit flavours balanced by crisp clean acid.
Drink 1998 - 2002
The 1996 Shiraz has a vibrant red colour. It is an elegant wine with spicy plum flavours and soft integrated oak.
Drink 1999 - 2005
The 1994 Liqueur Muscat is simply luscious. It has a light red colour tinged with brown, an indication of the age of the wine. It smells and tastes of raisins and aged brandy. The finish is soft and lingering. This is a wine to be sipped ... slowly.
Drink Almost forever
She smiles.
Sightly crooked teeth gleam from her thin lips and send complex wrinkles dancing across her face. Sunken cheeks are lightly powdered and a soft streak of colour stretches up to eyes which crinkle at the edges. Grey eyes, matching the tired sprouts of hair at her crown, falling in gentle waves to frame the leathern face. She stands hooked over a knotted wooden stick, gnarled and crooked like herself.
Seeing the twinkle in her eyes, I think of the young, dimpled smile she must have boasted when she took her first steps or played noisily with her rattle.
There was a time when, at the age of three, she wandered off and sent the neighbourhood into a worried frenzy. Her mother was sure she had been snatched, however within an hour, the man from the local corner store called to say that she had been found, sitting near the freezer in his shop. The tell-tale chocolate ring around her mouth and the stickiness of her hands were enough proof for the owner - and he gave her the tub of ice-cream to keep ...
She laughs.
I imagine the skin on her now furrowed face once unblemished and fresh. Pink roses living in her cheeks and gloss in her hair as she grew up.
Later on, she sported an infectious laugh at her wedding when the bridal car broke down on its way to the church and a passing driver offered to give them a lift so they wouldn?t be late. She joked for weeks that she was the only bride in the family to arrive at her wedding in a cattle truck. After the service, she wore the same blissful smile when her husband leaned over to kiss her ... as photographs were taken ... as flowers were thrown ...
She frowns.
I see two deep lines reaching down her forehead. They are dark stains on her face reminding me of every time she worried.
There were the years of loneliness when her husband joined the Seventh Australian Division to fight in Borneo. She was left with four children under the age of twelve. The eldest, a girl, learned to cook and clean while she worked on the farm. She battled drought year after year and watched the crops slowly brown and die. Her cattle also suffered. She watched as they dug in paddocks of dust for a blade of grass and heard their desperate cries for food they would not get. She hated walking among them with the cold barrel of a shotgun pressed against her shoulder, looking for the ones who lay panting and sweating in precious shade - too weak to move.
By the time her husband returned to them two years later, part of the glimmer in her eyes had faded ...
She cries.
When she was thirty seven years old, her eldest daughter was out riding her horse, in preparation for a gymkhana the next week. As she watched the sun sink behind grey hills, she started to worry - her daughter never rode her horse after dark. Her husband went out on foot to find her, while she made dinner and put the other children to bed. When the house was finally quiet, she was left alone to face the dread brewing inside her. She wept with worry and fear. Later on that wretched night, her husband carried their daughter?s body back with him.
At first she felt guilt - a terrible black shroud howled in her mind ... ?What if I had ...?? A nauseous fog of confusion clouded her thoughts and it was more than a week before this shock subsided and the tears came. She turned the tragic moment over in her head for weeks, trying to find a reason for it and when she couldn?t, it developed into heated anger. She slowly learned to live with her grief and continued to look after her three children who needed her. A part of her had been lost and the burden of loneliness that replaced it raged inside her like a war.
Years on, she would sometimes pause as she walked past the door to her daughter?s empty bedroom or let her hand slip awkwardly across the dusty bedspread.
One of her laugh lines was lost forever and a certain sadness was set permanently into her smile ...
She lives.
Her skin is soft like a spidery web, woven so delicately that it might break apart any moment. As I look into her face a whole life unfolds from behind those grey eyes.
I think of all the letters she wrote to me in boarding school, kept in a neat bundle in my socks? drawer; the hand painted birthday cards; the funny trinkets she gave me for Christmas. I think of her ghostly writing which slipped and curled its way around the page like a dizzy centipede. I remember her lying in bed on a Sunday morning listening to the church service on a dusty radio instead of actually going to it herself. I can see her knitting booties for her grandchildren, and jackets for her dog, which she walked religiously every day. People used to comment on their resemblance - both had brisk walks and a tight perm ...
I laugh, and the thought fades.
I turn my back to the wall and leave her photograph to hang there, as it has for so many years now. The yellowed glass collects dust but I know she does not see it. Nor does she feel the heavy frame, which was of the same tortured wood as her coffin.
She rests, and I do not grieve but smile: life moves on.
This story was written by Lucy Robertson, aged 16. It won the 1997 Henry Lawson Short Story Award and was published in ?The Land?, 26th June, 1997.
