Pinot mysteries unearthed
The recent extended spell of fine, sunny weather in northern Tasmania has been welcomed by wine producers throughout the Tamar Valley and Pipers River districts. With many vineyards likely to have reduced yields this vintage due to the cool, damp and very windy months of spring and early summer, audible sighs of relief are being heard.
The marked increases in sunlight intensity and air temperatures have prompted highly-prized Pinot Noir wine grapes to speed up their previously sluggish rates of colour change. Some vineyards may have even completed the change entirely by now – reaching what growers refer to as veraison – but nowhere enough vines across the industry generally to allow producers to sleep soundly in their beds at night.
Nature's miracle is to transform ugly ducklings – myriad bunches with tiny, green pea berries – into graceful swans, albeit with shiny blue-black velvet robes.
This year's bunch sizes look decidedly smaller than usual, something of a stark contrast to the 150g bunches – or thereabouts – achieved in last year's record-breaking vintage across Tasmania.
That bodes well for our 2026 Pinot Noir table wines from the north of the State. Many are likely to possess deep brooding colours and plenty of aromas and flavours when they're finally released for sale in 2027 and beyond. There'll just be less of them.
Natural grape sugar levels are also starting to increase at a decent rate.
That again can be due in part to small berry size, but more generally can be attributed to the frequency of warm dry weather in the north.
For growers of Pinot Noir for traditional method sparkling wine, the recent progress in ripening can present something of an unusual challenge – picking the fruit at optimum levels of flavour and sugar ripeness, before it rushes headlong over the precipice into over-ripeness.
Dalrymple Vigneron Peter Caldwell – one of the State's most seasoned vintage campaigners – knows how critical the scheduling of harvest dates is in determining the quality of fruit required for wines in the ultra-premium wine segment.
Despite his 15 years of hands-on management at the renowned Pipers Brook property, even Caldwell's legendary skills are being put to the test this year.
"It's going to be an interesting season," he told the 40 or so paying guests that took part in his guided vineyard tour at the start of last weekend's Dalrymple Unearthed event.
"Fortunately, we expect to have more days of favourable weather and that's gonna be very helpful."
Saturday was a perfect day weather-wise. Indeed it was an ideal one for lifting the veil on the mysteries of growing and making small batch cool climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
The morning proceedings opened with freshly-shucked oysters and Dalrymple Chardonnay.
A selection of canapés restored visitor energy levels after their walk. Next came an hour-long Pinot Noir masterclass in the Dalrymple barrel room. Its neat mix of light banter and genuinely informative group discussion proved to be the event highlight. (Mind you, there were plenty of smiling happy faces during the subsequent long lunch and return to the barrel room for a few tasty morsels of Caldwell modus operandi.)
You don't need to pause too long to reflect on the seasons to date to realise that growing grapes and making wine in a cool climate wine region is a finely balanced game of risk and reward.
"We've already gone through the vineyard and done some shoot-thinning to help us reach our target yield," Caldwell says.
"About 5t/ha to 6t/ha is about all we can handle here. We usually find the season doesn't allow us to properly ripen any more than that. If we get too greedy, we end up with too many bunches that are too close to one another. And where they actually touch, you can end up with botrytis bunch rot. Our next job will be to go through again and remove a few leaves that might be shading bunches or reducing airflow around them.
"We expect to be late-ripening this year and we want to be able to pick our fruit before it all becomes a problem for us."
Judging by the quality of the Pinot Noirs poured on the day, problems have been few and far between on Caldwell's home base and at the handful of grower properties that provide fruit for Dalrymple's top-tier range of Single Site wines.
The day's masterclass did indeed show that Pinot Noirs from Penna (Coal River Valley), Swansea (East Coast) and Ouse (Derwent Valley) speak with voices that have subtle regional variations or dialects.
The best wine research is not done with a book. It's done in a supportive environment, with a glass in hand.
Sadly, a significant number of vineyard operators still fail to recognise that stepping beyond the doorway into the tasting room can be an intimidating experience for many visitors. Most especially for those still finding their way in the wine world.
The welcome can be brusque; the staff stand-offish. The tenuous link between vine and wine weakened by interactions loaded with unnecessary jargon or marketing wine-speak rote-learned.
No such criticism can be levelled at Caldwell and the crew led by Wine Room manager Daniel Kavanagh. Well-conceived and carefully staged events like Dalrymple Unearthed deserve strong support and acclamation from consumers.
One lesson learned by every participant last weekend is that winemaking at Dalrymple is truly a team game – as it should be on all well-managed sites.
"The winemaker usually gets most of the rap for being the guy that makes it all happen, but while I've got my viticulture hat on at the moment, I'd certainly say that it's the vineyard team that put in most of the effort here," Caldwell observed.
"You know, I reckon they're responsible for around 95 percent of the quality we get in our wines.
"We've got three locals on our team that have been here for 30 years. That's quite remarkable, isn't it? They were 18 when they started and now they're in their late 40s and they're still with us.
"It really makes things easy. I can go away – for example – and know that with a simple phone call I can ask for something to be done in the vineyard and they immediately know what I'm talking about.
"They're now getting more and more involved in tasting the wines with me.
"We do all our blending with them – with the main guys in the vineyard – so they can see the results of all the efforts they've been putting in over the year. We can taste a wine we've made with and without that effort and they can see the differences.
"It helps them and it helps us. They buy into the deal we're putting together when we make our wines."
No mystery in that.
Disclosure: Mark and Lee Smith were paying guests at Dalrymple Unearthed
Last page update: 20 February 2026