BILL D.S. DHILLON
BILL D.S. DHILLON 2/10/1937 – 26/1/2013 Bill Dhillon, founder of Gisborne Squash Courts (1972) and Bindi Vineyard (1988), passed on January 26th aged 75. Bill was born in Punjab in northern India in the small farming village Bahman Wala, just to the south of Amritsar. His name was Darshan Singh Dhillon. He would be dubbed ‘Bill’ two decades later at Ballarat Grammar School. He was the youngest of six children. His parents farmed a small holding, just a few acres, which was insufficient to support the family. His father moved to Malaya (now Malaysia) before he was born to establish a plantation of rubber trees and would return every two years to India to see his family. The three youngest children were born two years apart, the timing coinciding with these annual visits, plus nine months. The family’s village is now located alongside the India/Pakistan border and close to a major railway line. During the time of the partition, following the departure of the British in 1947, this area witnessed much violence (estimates number those killed as approximately 500,000) as Hindus and Muslims crossed the border. Bill (aged 10) and his youngest sister were sent away from this violence to live with another family for a year and a half to a safer town, Preet Nagar (Town of Love). In 1950 Read more …
A Spring of sorts is emerging…
A spring of sorts is emerging after a bitterly cold and wet winter. A rather nostalgic three months it has been. If a little confronting, not unwelcome. At this time of year we hold high hopes. Vines pruned and prepared. Old canes mulched back into the soil, new canes layered along the wire ready to shoot their new foliage, ready to set their crop for a harvest seven months away. The journey towards Vintage 2013 begins. Recently Bindi was involved in tastings in Brisbane and Sydney with nine other family vineyard/winery operations, each having more than twenty vintages released. Small vineyards, hands-on wineries, operators working the same terroir into their third, fourth or fifth decades. Several sites were even established over 150 years ago. It was a lot of fun tasting wines going back to the ‘80s. There exist a lot of opportunities in the wine world today. There’s more diversity than ever before for maker, seller and consumer. These tastings and conversations, of families discussing their land, their decades of learning and evolving in the winery, of relationships with customers enjoying the wines for twenty plus years were incredibly rewarding. We were left with the thought ‘we should do it more often!’. So, Melbourne will be next then we’ll revisit it all again in a couple more years. We Read more …
We are having a proper winter!
After a real sumer then a real autumn we are really having a proper winter! Cold, wet and windy in Gisborne was a norm that was disrupted by the decade long drought. This uncomfortable nostalgia is welcome for vine dormancy and soil moisture but makes for robust pruning conditions which ensure we draw upon the the very best thermal wear. With this a few things are certain; the job has to get done and every evening after pruning warmth derived from water, wood, food and wine is enjoyed for its elemental reviving gift. The last of the 2011 wines are now bottled and starting to emerge from their subtle trauma. The wines of this vintage are really evolving beautifully and are such a joy for their seductive aromas and pure, intense, flowing palates. They certainly require another twelve months or so to really begin to show their truest form and will improve for many years onwards.
June 2012 release
We are currently releasing 2011 Bindi Composition Pinot Noir, 2011 Bindi Composition Chardonnay, 2011 Pyrette Heatcote Shiraz and a mixed six pack of Bindi Sparkling Museum Stock. To order, please click here. A quick note on the just completed 2012 harvest and season. The spring of 2011 indicated we were in for a similar season to that that led up to the 2011 harvest; rain and humidity and very slow ripening. Things changed, however, and changed again and again. December saw cold, windy weather disrupt the flowering significantly. From late December to late February we received barely a drop of rain and had eight weeks of contrast to the start of the vines’ season. Then, what was for many harvest interuppting, a deluge of 150mm of rain freshened the vines, pushed them through veraison and a stunning run of perfect autumnal weather ripened the very small crop. At this early stage, despite the meagre volume of wine, 2012 looks very exciting.
A quick note on the 2012 harvest and season
A quick note on the just completed 2012 harvest and season. The spring of 2011 indicated we were in for a similar season to that that led up to the 2011 harvest; rain and humidity and very slow ripening. Things changed, however, and changed again and again. December saw cold, windy weather disrupt the flowering significantly. From late December to late February we received barely a drop of rain and had eight weeks of contrast to the start of the vines’ season. Then, what was for many harvest interrupting, a deluge of 150mm of rain freshened the vines, pushed them through veraison and a stunning run of perfect autumnal weather ripened the very small crop. At this early stage, despite the meagre volume of wine, 2012 looks very exciting.
An eventful few weeks
We have had an eventful few weeks. The white veil of netting covers the ripening fruit only to be disturbed by the fickle winds and willie willies that give the birds occasional access to what is rather a small crop. Harvesting the chardonnay and pinot noir appears to be about five weeks away (2011 was concluded April 25th, 2008 March 18th). We have successfully bottled the 2011 Composition Chardonnay, 2011 Composition Pinot Noir and the 2011 Pyrette Heathcote Shiraz. The wines looked very fresh and intense prior to bottling and will now require four to six months to fully settle down and emerge again. The 2011 Quartz, 2011 Original Vineyard and 2011 Block 5 will be bottled in July. The Pyrette fruit for 2012 was picked on the 21st of February and has just begun to ferment. Quite a bit of whole bunch fruit was added to the bottom of each open fermenter and the rest of the fruit de-stemmed on top. A little sulphur was added and thereafter it is up to the ambient/native yeast to ferment the sugar. This has taken five days to really get going and now we have raised caps/skins and fresh, bubbling shiraz ferments. The fruit this year is exceptionally balanced, fragrant, spicy and complex in red fruits. The potential alcohol is 13.5% and Read more …
The summer has finally emerged from another very wet spring
The summer has finally emerged from another very wet spring. This growing season we have moved straight from a wet, warm spring to a cold, unstable early summer and now to the typical January weather we expect. Quite a change to last summer which had staggeringly high rainfall. December, our important period requiring stable, warm weather for flowering, saw high winds, rain and cold snaps. Consequently, the crop level is quite reduced and our expectation is for a very moderate yield. Quality is, of course, our primary focus and we are hopeful of making some intense wine at low yields. We are looking at yields around three to four tonnes per hectare this year whereas our aim would be to crop around five tonnes per hectare. We have recently racked and returned to barrel the 2011 wines post malo lactic and they are looking quite promising. It was a difficult year viticulture wise however the harvest, fermentations and barrel maturations have progressed very well. The chardonnays are mineral and intense with excellent length and balance. The pinot noirs are perfumed, spicy, textured and harmonious and will cellar very well. The Pyrette shiraz is deliciously mineral, earthy, complex, creamy and balanced. We begin bottling some of the 2011s in late February and the remainder will be bottled in July.
The story of the 2012 season begins to be written
The vines are exiting their winter dormancy and we are joining them at the beginning of a new season’s journey. The story of the 2012 season begins to be written. The pruning was successfully completed in good time and the new canes wrapped down well before any sign of bud swell. Despite the difficulties of last season’s challenging humid conditions the vines had good mature wood to use for this season’s canes and we expect a consistent budburst. We have aerated the vineyard several times to open up the soil for air and moisture penetration and to alleviate the problem of compaction from using the tractor on saturated soils. This method creates punctures about 120mm deep in the mid row, about 250mm from the base of the vine, and three passes gives a very good coverage. Some superficial roots are cut and the structure of the soil is improved. The 2011 vintage wines remain on heavy yeast lees in barrel and are at varying stages in regard to the completion of malo-lactic. The wines are looking very good and have excellent intensity and balance. It is, of course, early days for the 2011s but it is at least a very successful vintage which exhibits excellent fruit purity, intensity and balance. We must wait until the end of Spring and for Read more …
Harvest 2011
Amongst ourselves, and to some winemaking colleagues, we said we might not make it. Many didn’t make it this year. There were a myriad of different challenges and anxieties to overcome and the feeling from November to April was that at any point the crop could be lost. This season more than any other we were ever focused and attentive to what the vineyard needed in response to the incredible weather conditions. For eight years now we have not used any systemic fungicides. It is now six years since we have applied systemic/chemical sprays for weeds – now we use straw mulch and slashing. We do not use systemic applications to eradicate pests. Our focus has been to promote life forces rather than to apply death to control our vineyard environment. This year we held firm to this regime with the exception of two systemic fungicide applications, the first in eight years, to the foliage in December. There was a temptation to used anti botrytis fungal sprays on the ripening fruit but we had done so much work to have an open, clean, airy canopy we felt more comfortable to take the risk than spray. Also, we dropped 30% of the overall crop on the ground before veraison/ripening as we didn’t want fruit on small shoots or in clumps where Read more …
The vineyard is patient. The vignerons must be also.
The vineyard is patient. The vignerons must be also. We have entered a period of nostalgia as we amble through a March that seems more like 1993 than 2011. The fruit is finally veraised. The nets are on. The vines are green. The fruit is exposed and healthy. The crop was thinned by 30% and what remains is calmly awaiting some sunshine. Hope is what we have. And an expectation of some testing weather but some confidence that our vines are able to work through the next four or five weeks to produce a worthy expression of the season and their unique place. Tasting the three bottled 2010 wines has been a delightful contrast to the shocks of local and global maladies and the difficulty of this growing season. The level of perfume, intensity, fruit purity and harmony that 2010 has delivered is exceptionally pleasing. And the remaining 2010 wines in barrel continue to develop beautifully. Their stories are evolving slowly.