Photo of hand-picked Pinot Noir MV6 clone winegrapes in a plastic picking bin.

Picked 8T from our last block of Pinot Noir for vintage 2026 today before the forecast rain next week. After such a tough season with sfa rainfall, ridiculous heat & tropical humidity, the fruit quality looks excellent.

View overlooking the vineyard out to the hills on the horizon. Sam, one of our kelpies in the foreground.

Vineyard view from where we’re fencing during a brief lull in harvest. Very thankful for the 50mm of rain we’ve had this week. We’d had 1mm for the year before then. #winecountry #wine

This is the hottest & most sustained heatwave I’ve worked, in 27 years of wine. Thought it was unprecedented ( feels like it ) then looked at records- 2009 was as hot & longer before Black Saturday ( I wasn’t in Vic then). Don’t want that again..

Have a great birthday today Marcus. Hopefully the air's a bit clearer & cleaner up your way with the wind change..

Photo of a vineyard in NE Vic shrouded in smoke haze from the recent & still going Longwood Vic bushfire to the south

Smoke haze from the Longwood VIC fire in the vineyard this morning. Not great but at least the vineyard is visible, unlike 2020. Still hope that we may have a vintage 🤞🤞

Photo of two red/tan kelpies pushing a mob of white Dorper ewes through a gateway after moving them a few kms up the property.

My kelpie boys Ralph & Sam moving sheep to the back of the property. First day on sheep after the Xmas break & the opportunity to shed some Xmas kilos, after lying around bored witless for weeks..#workingdogs

I really like 'Rock n Roll Suicide' from the same album.

First Bowie album I bought

One thing you wouldn’t miss is dog farts. Don’t know what our two have eaten but the farts are eye-watering

Bundanoon & Exeter are surrounded by either bush or pine forests. Not a great place to be in summer especially when it’s dry.

My sister was in the 2003 ACT fires in Chapman. She & her neighbours put out spot fires the whole night. Saved heaps of houses in their street. Had PTSD from it for a long time though.

Photo of bushfire smoke shrouding a 50Ha vineyard in NE Victoria in Jan 2020

That’s the vineyard in 2020..12 days of that. Disgusting to work in as well

2009 was another wipeout & another in maybe 2005. Moved down here from Southern Highlands NSW for more reliable weather..& better growing conditions..lol
We grow spectacular fruit here & this year looks good too although hail has knocked things around a bit

We have a pretty good fire suppression setup here & a lot of water storage. Wife takes the dogs, chooks & lamb & I stay & protect the sheep & house. We’re surrounded by farmland so that was a factor when we bought here.

We didn’t harvest in 2020 due to smoke taint. Massive loss. Don’t want it to happen again so soon.

We’re ok thank you. Friday was wild here. Was meant to fight the Walwa fire that night but conditions were so bad we decided to defend our own patch. Wasn’t comfortable being an hour away if things went pear-shaped & living in the bush..
Had the sheep locked up just in case there was fire

The smoke you’re getting in ACT is from the Walwa fire just north-east of us. We’re getting the smoke from the fire south of us. Westerlies are ok for us but the wind is not cooperating

Much cooler thanks Marcus but the wind has turned into a southerly with the change & is now blowing smoke up to us from the Longwood fire. Very hazy but better than this morning.
Touch & go whether we have a vintage this year if it continues.

Photo of San our red & tan Kelpie on the bludge for a snack

One of our kelpies Sam is a dead ringer for yours. I showed your dog’s picture to my wife & she exclaimed ‘that’s Sam’. Not a great photo of ours but the similarity is there. Our other kelpie not so.

Photo of two red & tan kelpies. The front one waits for a stick to be thrown, the other waits to try & cut him off..lovable idiots. Both rescues from different parts of NSW. Both good sheepdogs

Lovely dogs..too smart for their own good sometimes. We always had black & tans.swore I’d never have a red & tan..ended up with two..Wouldn’t have it any other way now.

Definitely...no contest

Photo of white Dorper lamb. Born on Xmas Eve. Living with our chickens & bottle-fed 4 times / day, she’s doubled in size..

Evie, our Xmas Eve orphan, truly a survivor. & sweet-natured.
Got through the worst 3 days we’ve had in years..especially today..#lambs

That’s the only way I can get one of my kelpies to swim. Throw a stick in & in he goes, otherwise just stands on the edge. The other one we nicknamed Croc as he’s a natural swimmer..

One of the toughest gigs in radio has to be doing the Bushfire Emergency Announcements with all the weird & wild Victorian place names.

I also have one of those but I need it to last ~6 days which unfortunately it doesn’t. I work nights a lot & don’t really feel like wine when I get in late, more likely to be schnapps.

Realised last week that we’ve got too much wine, mostly Pinot noir, & that I don’t have to buy any for years. Both of us have cut our consumption markedly in recent times. My partner doesn’t drink reds anymore so it makes opening a bottle a problem.

All good so far Marcus. Weather is getting wild though.
Got a bit of fire prep to do this afternoon..

I love it here too. We moved from the Southern Highlands NSW. We live in the bush so summers can elevate your heart rate a bit. Our place is defendable unless it gets feral. We were safe in 2020, but we did have a deliberately lit fire impact us in 2016

I have 5x 2016 BWW Oakey Creek Semillon left. Lovely wine..also have some of their reds.
They’re good people & excellent winemakers - I work with them closely every year. Feel like an employee sometimes..
They make our top label wines too

I was but too many allergies. Now I manage the biggest vineyard in the Beechworth wine region in NE Vic. We sell a lot of premium fruit to Brokenwood

Photo of a bushfire smoke filled 50 Ha vineyard from 2020. Total crop loss. 12 days of continuous smoke. Vineyard is insured against bushfire loss but not smoke loss which has prohibitive premiums ~ 30% of total crop value

Not lost yet Sally but with a wind change there’s the chance the vineyard will fill with smoke. This is the vineyard from 2020- 12 days of smoke. There’s 50Ha of vines down there somewhere..$1.5m loss..the flawed Jobkeeper kept us in a job..