The vineyard is a lovely sight with all the new shoots against the colourful backdrop of fields of yellow canola and fresh green grass. With the weather getting warmer and winter chills a distance memory, we are getting lots of visitors to the area, many staying for lunch on our wonderful verandahs.

Our new winemaker Paul Nelson is settling in and spent the last couple of week doing barrel work and trials on our wooded chardonnay, shiraz  and some special wines coming out before Christmas.

Kim and I have been working on the label for our new champagnoise style sparkling riesling called La de Da. We think this is a good fun name for a wine which we believe will give lots of joy. We are designing a wonderful pink 'french' style label, so keep and eye out for this. It will be a great wine for the coming Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Our next shipment to China left in August as well as some wine to Singapore and Japan. The new lower Aussie dollar has been good for exports. Our Japanese buyer said he was very happy since the Australian dollar dropped in September to 72c and his last shipment in July was at 94c. Glad someone is happy with the gobal meltdown.

September,  Linda visited Melbourne and Sydney to release our new white wines and some new reds. The 2006 merlot was in great demand, specially since it had such a great write up in Wine State magazine with 4 stars and TOP of the CATEGORY. It is a very limited release so if you see it, try it as it might be the only chance you get. Our new 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon is following the older cabs tradition and was well recieved. The new Sauvignon Blanc was made in a new style and has low alcohol so ideal for lunch time and for those watching the calories! This too has almost been sold out- another one to watch.

October is the month for vineyard maintance. Kim and Nigel have been out replacing vineyard posts broken by the grape harvester. Fortunately we can hire a post hole digger, unlike the old days when the hole were dug the old fashion way- with a shovel! We will soon be lifting wires and cutting off suckers, nice job on a warm spring day catching up on some D's and getting away from the phone.

There is always something to keep us busy.