Great News from National Cool Climate Wine Show

From 163 exhibitors with 824 wine entries from around Australia, Bellbrook Friends 2013 Chardonnay was awarded gold medal points and trophy for best wine from Bathurst Region.
Our 2013 Pinot Noir was awarded Bronze, Backing up our bronze last year fro the 2012 Pinot Noir.

The vines are dormant but great things are happening under ground and in the bottles

A few pics from the files.

Nearly Finished Pruning

BRRRR, winter has brought a lovely snowfall just 4 days ago which is only just melting into the soil. We have had some nice pruning days and now have a big pile of tangled prunings. Last years smaller vintage is sitting quietly in the winery, being tasted every month.

A view of our table at the mid winter party, with a house full of 12 guests plus 2 who drove back to Hartley.

And I almost forgot, our clever cows have started calving, 5 out of 60 so far

g'day mates. recent activities invoving a serious earthmoving machine
are new fence lines, new tracks in steep country and ripping up rabbit burrows.

The crushing team

We needed a good cup of tea after all this!

Bellbrook Friends have done it again

Some more pictures to prove it. We have just finished the ferment of Chardonnay and Rose from Pinot in Stainless steel tanks, and Pinot Noir in a three year old oak barrel.
As you can see the weather has been perfect for barbeques by the billabong on wallaby hill...

( photo Claudia Terstappen )

 By the way, don't forget to look us up on

<www.australianpoetryandwine.com/> for more stories and photos...

Harvest of the Pinot Noir

At last we took the nets off on 18th April and finished the picking on 19th. WE crushed that evening and left to cold soak till morning of the 21st before pressing half of the must to make Rose, leaving the other half to ferment on the skins to make Pinot Noir.

The 2014 harvest has started

Just too busy to post the pictures...A smaller chardonnay harvest in line with the frost damage at the beginning of the growth year. But the chuckling swooping currawongs told me the Baume was 12.5, which is OK. So nothing added, as is the rule here, just the juice settling out the pomace before decanting and innoculating so natures little bugs can do their work.
Big crowd expected for Easter to harvest the Pinot Noir , hopefully to make a Rose for easy summer consumption.

2013 vintage safely bottled with the help of Bellbrook Friends

Family and friends enjoyed the bottling week with three generations in attendance...

Beautiful autumn days with rain around and green grass everywhere.
Trouble is we can't spray for mildew attack with the bird protection nets on and the chardonnay are suffering.
We will check the Baume levels soon, but I dont really want to pick until April and after I have bottled last years vintage.
We vignerons are both artists and slaves!!

Hello we have had 70mm of blessed rain. The nets are on the vines as the birds are coming and I have just collected 2,300 bottles for last years crop.

We put the nets over the grape rows on Valentines Day 14th Feb 2014. Rain came at last. Have a

look at the new labels...
Our youngest bull came back recently after a sojourn in the pine forest with a bunch of feral cows. We gave him some lucerne hay and molasses to build up his strength.

Planning the new labels for the large and quality 2013 vintage which the family will be bottling this March.

We take this opportunity to recommend the new Nelson Rd Tuckshop in Bondi Junction, run by the owners of Bellagio Cafe in Bronte.

Feb 2014 at Bellbrook

Feb 2014, 3 months into the drought. Vines loving the hot dry weather but they are struggling because of the slow start to the season due to frost and dry weather.
Soon the parrots and currawongs will be diving in and out of the rows looking for ripe grapes.

We can see how the vines had a slow start. This photo was taken late Nov 2013!
We are working on a draft new label for the 2013 vintage, some of which is shown below...