Winter is one of our favourite seasons on the farm. It is a time to bunker down and recharge: we have packed down the winery after vintage, the vineyard is ‘asleep’ and lambs being born. Winter is a season for slowing down and sipping red wine by the fire!
If you need some inspiration for a book in front of the fire, we have copies of ‘Weekends with Matt’ available at the Cellar Door and online here. This book pairs perfectly with a warming Shiraz! Weekends with Matt is the exploration of an unlikely friendship forged over wine. While you stand to learn a lot about wine from reading this book, it is not – strictly speaking – a wine book. More a light-hearted and heart-warming memoir of two friends (including our very own Matt Fowles) as they bounce through life from life-affirming highs to gut-wrenching lows. Well worth the read – it will certainly give you plenty to think about! Campbell Mattinson (a legend of the wine industry) described it as: “A gorgeous book – wonderful, unique. I’m in love with it.”
Despite the slower pace of winter on the farm, life is still busy. Matt Fowles just returned from an incredible trip to the USA and Canada. In only a couple of weeks he covered Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Oregon. He even managed to fit in a trip to Toronto, Canada in between, where we have been able to rekindle our relationship with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario – our Farm to Table Cabernet is set to land there again in November 2024. The USA visit was similarly rewarding where we were able to connect with new friends and old. No matter how long we’ve been doing this, it’s always a thrill to see our wines on the wine lists and shelves in other parts of the world.
Back at home, we have been sowing our vineyards and surrounding paddocks with diverse cover crops as we build biodiversity across the farm. We have planted several new insectariums bringing a greater variety of plants into the vineyard to attract different insects and increase insect life overall. Happily, these insectariums double as seed orchards for our friends at the Euroa Arboretum. Once established, these plants will have their seeds harvested to build seed banks to help regenerate regional landscapes after fires.