The first excuse is vintage. It was a real bugger of a vintage with the ultimate irony being that apart from about four tonnes of early harvest Chardonnay for our sparkler, none of the grapes in the district, including those from our own reconstructed Felton vineyard met our standards. So there we were, all dressed up but no party to go to.

The problem was mildew. It swept through the district on a scale not seen since 2000, but in 2000 grape prices were high enough to justify the intensive spraying required. This year, with prices between $300 and $500 a tonne no sensible grape grower was going to throw good money after bad so most vineyard owners simply walked away. For those who didn't the quality was, for the most part, quite poor.

In the past we might have tried to turn the sow's ear of a lousy vintage into a silkish purse of acceptable wine but because 2010 was so good and because we made more wine in 2010 than we originally intended in the end we walked away too. The strange thing was that this took more time and more emotional energy that simply running the vintage so that's our first excuse.

Our second excuse is that largely at our prompting Canowindra decided to host the 2011 National Hot Air Balloon Championships and naturally enough we at Toms Waterhole and Balloon Joy Flights were right at the centre of it as sponsors and organisers. It was a massive undertaking and barely gave us time to draw breath. Five thousand people came to the Saturday night balloon glow and night wine and food market and rugby match and the whole thing was totally insane. We're doing it again next year. The picture at the side is of Graham and Jan's brand new balloon built just in time for the Balloon Championships.

So since we don't have a vintage and you already know about last year, what is there to write about? Well, this is a make-up Newsletter so we're going to revisit some of the wines on current release starting with our Semillon in a very curious way.

We raided our reference cellar and invited some friends around for a barbecue. It was nearly a mistake because we started on our 2005 - the one James Halliday praised so much. None of us wanted to move on and one of our friends refused point blank to put anything else in his mouth. He reckoned he had perfection so why spoil it. It was hard to disagree. It was still as fresh as today under its screw cap but it had developed astonishing depths of honey and brioche that stayed and stayed.

But the rest of us moved on to the 2008. It was a lovely wine with a clean citrus flavour just starting to develop the honey characters but we all agreed that it wasn't quite up to the 2005. We know why. The day we harvested it rained and the juice was slightly diluted in the picking bins. Even so, it was infinitely preferable to so many of those manufactured Sauvignon Blancs we're seeing these days.

So on to our  2010 Semillon , and here's a curious thing. We did a genuine masked tasting amongst six of us and the verdict was unanimous. The Toms Waterhole was first, followed closely by the Elizabeth. The Vat 1, the most expensive by $20 a bottle, was a distant last. All three showed those typical young Semillon lemon, lime and lanoline characters but ours was sharpest, almost piercing, while the Vat 1 in particular tasted dull. We hesitate to say it of such a distinguished lineage, but to us it seemed flabby and we think we know why.

All is revealed by the alcohol contents of the wines. Semillon has to be picked young. Pick it with too much sugar in the grapes and you have to add vast quantities of tartaric acid to bring it into balance and then the fermentation throws out too much alcohol. Our Semillon has 10.5%, the Elizabeth an uncharacteristic 11.5% and the Vat 1, for a Semillon a whopping 12%.

With Semillon it is very early days and it may be that McWilliams and Tyrrells and much smarter than us and that 2010 was a year that called for riper grapes. But at this stage we think we're ahead.

The truth is that none of the wines that we tasted in comparison with our own 2009 Cabernet and 2009 Shiraz   was anything like them and we don't know whether this is good or bad. But laying our cards on the table it seemed to us that our Shiraz was much softer, richer, and somehow older than any comparative McLaren Vale or Rutherglen Shiraz we tasted. In the past we have been told that this is a bad thing; that our wines develop too fast and do not age well; that they are not true to type. As you know we don't agree but in the end it's up to you.

The Cabernet, by contrast is far too young and by comparison to commercially released Cabernet's of the 2009 vintage tastes hard and tannic. That's because all the commercial Cabernets from 2009 that we could get our hands on were mass market wines such as Yellowtail. They have been deliberately softened with milk, egg whites and gelatin whereas we don't use those products. By not fining the life out of our wine we have preserved the cinnamon and clove spice aroma and dark berry flavour but it's going to take a few years yet before our current release Cabernet reaches its full potential.

So the conclusion is that, as we said before, for a wine to drink now the Shiraz is far superior, for a wine to cellar the Cabernet may be the way to go.

On the other hand.

We made a hell of a lot of 2007 Shiraz and although we liked it a lot when we released it as time went on we became a little dissatisfied with it. When we came down to the last pallet load we had the wonderful 2008 Cabernet on release and the 2009 Shiraz only a few months away. So we pulled it of sale and decided to give it time.

As part of our red review we looked at it again and were amazed at its improvement. We're in two minds whether to re-release it now or give it another twelve months and slap a "cellar release" sticker across the front label and charge a serious premium. We'll let you know what we decide.

Then there's the good news. We have just disgorged another pallet load of our Sparkling Chardonnay. Judging by the sales we know that you loved our first release and now this is even better. Another six months on lees has added even more depth and a soft fresh bread character to go with the clean apple and lime.

You can place your orders on-line here.  Don't forget to login to receive your special mail order prices.

So that's it for the time being. Sorry it has been so long. We promise to mend our ways in future.

Good drinking,

Graham, Jan and Graham