About Us » Tasmania
Tasmania
Location
Our vineyards are situated across the north coast of Tasmania, on the western banks of the scenic Tamar River slightly north of Launceston, as well as within the Pipers Brook and Pipers River regions.
Climatically each vineyard site is different from the next. Its the subtle differences in climatic conditions between sites and between vines that becomes part of the complex answer to the production of cool climate wines of the highest quality that we strive for.
An example being that vineyards along the banks of the Tamar River are located inland, slightly less exposed to the prevailing NW winds blowing off Bass Strait which create temperature cooling effects. The Tamar River vineyards experience slightly warmer average temperatures than the more coastal Pipers Brook and Pipers River regions. As a consequence grapes generally mature some 10 days earlier with slightly higher yields from the vineyards in the Tamar region. This increases ripening potential and creates a useful spread of harvesting and processing times. These vineyards provide quality and quantity as well as being ideally suited to the production of later ripening varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc.
The cooler climatic conditions experienced by the more coastal Pipers Brook and Pipers River regions create a perfect environment for the production of sparkling wines due to the fruits’ retention of naturally high acidity, lower sugar accumulation yet early flavour ripeness. Let the fruit hang on the vines a little longer and the premium table wine production of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay begins.
Vineyard Management
It is hard to believe that such an ancient form of agriculture has new systems of trellising vineyards evolving every year, but it is true. The modern vineyard systems assist quality and tend to manipulate vines so that vine architecture which arises naturally in great vineyard sites can be approximated on less privileged locations. Pipers Brook Vineyard helped to pioneer close-planted VSP (vertical shoot positioned) vineyards in Australia and even now has some of the largest areas of close-planted vines. The Kreglinger sparkling wine is produced on close-planted vineyards. Close planting provides one way to display a large leaf canopy and keep fruit from being too shaded. The newer Scott Henry system, named after the eponymous grower in Oregon, more intensively arranges vine shoots to expose grapes to the sun. We are now using this system on a majority of our sites as it appears to optimise fruit quality in our locations. It is the best system for minimising bunch rot in grapes.
Climate
Climatic conditions heavily influence the final quality of the grapes in their affect on the timing of the harvest. Cool climates have the luxury of slowing down the maturing of early ripening grapes like chardonnay and pinot noir so that there is a lengthy period between the onset of ripening and harvest.
It is best to harvest around the time when autumn colours set in and before autumn rains dilute the berries. Most of our harvest occurs around late March to late April at the peak of the dry autumn and before the risk of autumn frost and rain. The varieties we use are adapted to cool, humid growing conditions. They evolved in French climates not dissimilar to that of Tasmania. All varieties experience a long slow ripening and March is, on average, our driest month. This low rainfall during the ripening period aids sugar levels of grapes and adds to the body of the wines.
Soil
Vines like deep porous soils and the best wines are produced where a deep-rooted vine is neither under or over supplied with moisture. We have selected the ferrosol or kraznozems of northern Tasmania for our best vineyards because the soils are deep, well drained and with ideal moisture characteristics.
Although the red colour makes them look rich, in their native state they are quite poor being deficient in phosphorous, zinc and boron. We maintain the soils with low nitrogen levels to make sure the vines do not produce too much top growth.
We do not believe calcium-based soils have a monopoly on quality. Grapes for the Kreglinger sparkling produce base wines which "bear an uncanny resemblance" to those from Champagne vineyards and yet Champagne grapes are grown on limestone soils and our grapes on basalt derived soils.
In the early seventies Professor Seguin suggested the quality of French vineyard soils is related mainly to their soil moisture properties. Our observations support his hypothesis.
Gout-de-terroir
The red soils at Pipers Brook vineyard are classed as kraznozems; they are deep and friable soils derived from volcanic parent and share some physical characteristics with terra rossa soils.
"Terroir" (pron. Ter-r-whah) refers to the "natural environment of the vineyard site". Wine exhibits the 'gout de terroir' or specific taste of the site when it displays a repeatable character unique to the region and even vineyard. In some cases it is hard to differentiate the impact of the vine genes, soil, aspect and management system. What is certain however is the consumer's interest in this environmentally induced diversity and we see our task at Pipers Brook Vineyard as conveying this to the wine-lover.
Tasmanian wines are unique. The sparkling wines, pinot noirs, sauvignon blancs and chardonnays are developing a character which is individual to the region. This is our role as winemakers, to produce genuine expressions of the Tasmanian wine character based on the impact of the terroir. The strength of our commitment is such as to include this word in the vision statement.
Pipers Brook Vineyard intends to specifically link our wines more strongly with regional terroir by bringing forward more wines that produce a quality that is specific to our sites and is superior in outcome to any blend.
Over the past few years we have worked to identify potential single site vineyards and the introduction of individual vineyard pinot noir to the top layer of our portfolio. Budding single site vineyards will be blended to reserve wine status until they are fully proven.
