"This week will be the second last for vintage 2026, our thirteenth as a company. We fired up in early February up at our Queensland base in the Granite Belt, and began at our mountain winery in north-east Victoria in early March. Our Victorian vineyard sits 821m above sea level, so it's super cold and makes an electric Pet Nat. We tentatively began picking for our Whitlands Pet Nat on the 25th of February, and will finish picking today, on the 16th of April!

This approach means the Pet Nat which is a field blend of the entire vineyard of  Scheurebe, Kerner, Muscat Ottonel, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Gewürztraminer, and Chardonnay, becomes like a vintage long solera of some description. That’s actually not the right term but I’m sure you get the idea... Essentially we have the one ferment going for two months before finishing ferment in bottle to make a proper proper Pet Nat. I recommend you grab it while you can. It is insanely good."

"We receive our last batch of grapes on Friday, some immaculate cold-blooded riesling from the Croucher vineyard just down the road. We are super lucky to get this fruit, it is delicious and may eventually go into the rebirth of our Disco Pocket Riesling. A little bit gets put in nearly every wine in the end, it gets spread around and cherished like the last dooby at a Sly and Robbie concert.

Because we are a multi-faceted global powerhouse we are also simultaneously disgorging our Classic Edition Pet Nat (King Valley Dolcetto) at our urban winery in the western ‘burbs of Melbourne. You dream it, we build it! Doing Pet Nat the proper way is tough, especially after two months of vintage but well worth it when it’s all done. All disgorging and no play makes Alastair a dull boy. All disgorging and no play makes Alastair a dull boy. All disgorging and no play makes Alastair a dull boy. Hang on, where was I?"

"We are very hands-on during vintage. All grapes are hand-bucketed, which makes for a very physical vintage, but a very tactile one. I think our approach—handling the grapes by hand, using gentle, slow pump-overs, and breaking each wine into small batches for later blending—means the wines are really expressive and can be brought together in just the right combination for each release.

All our wines are made for particular occasions—mostly eating pizza and watching Back to the Future—but to get there, you need to take a pretty measured, almost fractal approach!"

"It’s been a funny vintage… We started with an early February crush at our Queensland base in the Granite Belt, and it went absolutely beautifully against all odds. Normally there is a snag or two up there, to say the least. It’s such a magical place to make wine, but with the potential influence of continental weather systems bringing heat, dryness (and fire) from the west, and the sub-tropics pushing down monsoonal rains from the north, there’s a wide scope for the harvest to be derailed.

However, when it pumps, it absolutely pumps. I think there was some hail that limited yields, but otherwise the Granite Belt was allowed to absolutely sing.

Leading into the 2026 harvest in Victoria, conditions were extremely dry in the north-east of the state (and across Australia generally, if you remember), which actually worked in our favour. After missing the October or November hail that ripped hearts out of bodies in the King Valley below us, the heat kept yields low and canopies open, reducing disease pressure. However, the rains did come in abundance, pushing harvest back 3–4 weeks across the board."

"We welcomed Michele Bergadano from Barolo to lend a hand over vintage. It’s always a little nerve-racking moment getting an international cellar hand because you can’t be sure they will appreciate our vineyard accommodation which is Elizabethan in the truest sense of the word, just with more mice and less plague. They also need to spend a lot of time with two battered degenerates. Fortunately, our fears were quickly allayed as, despite being a 6th generation winemaker from a prestigious family winery in one of the world’s top wine regions, he was just like us at that age. Just better looking and more potential. I was able to be there for his first Melbourne Bitter too which is always such a special moment, a real honour.

Other than that vintage is always a great opportunity to catch up with old friends (hi Drew) who lend a hand, and to enslave our fathers who are forced onto the tools each year. It has been a really really great start to the year and, despite the impending apocalypse, I am looking forward to seeing what the rest of the year brings!"