Loire Valley 1998.  Claude Bourguignon 2018.

We spend a lot of time looking across and above our vineyards. We admire the easily evident beauty of ordered vines embellishing the landscape. It’s very infrequent, and certainly not Instagram worthy, to focus below the surface and below the microscope.

In 1998 I spent my usual few weeks roaming the vineyards and cellars of Burgundy before spending one week following the Loire from Nevers to the coast. Much of my trip was visiting producers for importer Paul de Burgh-Day (which is now Robert Walters’ Bibendum Wine Co) where the focus was (and remains) on the finest vignerons with a bent for promoting soil life and low input vinification. Burgundy was its usual inspiring self for wines and conversations of terroir and typicity however it was in the Loire that I felt the dynamic stirring for a lowering of the vision. It was in the Loire that I felt a gathering momentum for seeing and feeling the earth. It shook me up and put us on a patient and determined path to improvement.

As we exit the cold and dark dormancy of winter the promise of spring and the growing season to vintage 2018 begins. This will be our 30th year of vines at Bindi and it’s with excitement and the usual caution that we make our seasonal plans. There are no new projects set for this season and we are inspired to work carefully and in timely ways as each stage of the season approaches.

We are releasing the last of the 2016 wines and it’s been very pleasing to see the wines evolve so well in barrel and now settling in bottle. They are harmonious and textured wines that have the intensity to age very well. Most of the 2017 Pinot Noirs have finished the malolactic and we have been keeping a close eye on their progress and racking where appropriate. There are a few 2017 Chardonnay barrels still to ferment the last of their sugars (as the weather warms again) but most are dry and resting brightly on their yeast lees….

A few weekends ago I participated in a wonderful wine event in Daylesford conceived and organised by Jenny Latta. As is the way, my attendance was for work, which happens to be my pleasure, and the...

From start to finish, from September to April, the season gives a long ride. Sometimes exhilarating, continually challenging, occasionally debilitating and always, always, satisfying. For whatever...

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]To follow some Bindi news please see @bindiwines on Instagram. The season is now well underway and has required quite a deal of patience.  The Spring is nearly...

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Warning: No photos, just words.  Quite a few. There's a lane way that looks a likely place for a mugger or rough sleeper to inhabit.  Seemingly a street to nowhere...

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The season that is ahead of it's time shows no signs of abating.  We now have January weather, yet we are still to pass GO and still yet to collect our $200 (Christmas and associated presents).  A...

The 2015-16 season has commenced and what an unusual beginning it has been.  From the coldest, harshest winter in 20 years with just enough rain to achieve good soil moisture we have jumped straight...

Bindi Harvest No. 25. The crop is in, long live the crop! In fact, the crop is now a crop no longer but rather has been transformed, by the miracle of native yeast fermentation, into beautiful wine....

The only sense of extreme experienced at this point the 2014/15 growing season is that it has been extremely mild.  Which in some ways makes it seem odd that harvest across Victoria is running very...

How quickly we move from the grey short cold days of winter dormancy (for vine, not custodian) to the green lengthening warm days of spring.  From the bud burst of mid September to the elongating...