Normality was restored with the weather for the southern states and the only glitch for 2012 was the low crops. In fact overall tonnes in McLaren Vale were down by 30% on 2011. As such the wines definitely have ‘power’. For the Hunter Valley, the winter of 2011 saw more consistent rain than previous years with each month from April 2011 getting above 60mm and June just on 120mm. Rain in the last 3 months was 310mm so quite a wet spring and start to the growing season. Sadly once the rain started on 27th January, it didn’t let up. A major effort in the vineyard meant we picked 70t of Shiraz.