Grower nearing grape record

THE South’s largest Tasmanian family-owned vineyard is on track to pick its largest harvest of wine grapes.

For many vineyards the continuing warmer weather is helping fruit ripen and the harvest season could end earlier than usual. Vineyards are also experiencing growth in cellar door visitor numbers.

Riversdale Estate at Cambridge, under the guidance of Ian and Wendy Roberts, has come a long way from a sheep and grazing property to become a 40ha vineyard producing award-winning wines, and this season it is looking to harvest a record 340 tonnes of wine grapes.

Wine Tasmania chief executive Sheralee Davies said across the state vineyards are looking at solid yields.

“We had good warm weather in October and November to help produce big bunches of grapes,” she said.

“The continuing warm weather is helping fruit ripen with this vintage coming at an intense pace. Reports on both quality and quantity are very positive.”

According to Tourism Tasmania’s latest figures, for the year to September 2017, there were 289,438 cellar door visits, an increase of 16 per cent on the previous year.

Mr Roberts said he is delighted with how the season has gone.

“The warm, dry start to the season meant flowering happened reasonably quickly to give a good fruit set. I know some places are getting 18 tonnes a hectare.”