From Sheep to Pinot Noir

When the Croser family purchased Maylands Farm at Parawa on the Southern Fleurieu peninsula in 2003, they did so with the sole purpose of growing the finest "sea air, grass fed" prime lambs.

Despite best intentions, Brian Croser ranged Maylands Farm kicking over the rocks on north facing slopes. He quickly developed a sense that there were some ideal viticultural sites. A check of the climate data confirmed the surprising fact that Parawa was nearly as cool as the Piccadilly Valley. The big difference between the two locations is that Parawa has warmer winters and cooler summers and that there is a very low diurnal temperature difference at Parawa (8.5ºC) versus the 11.8ºC at Piccadilly.

This finding has two implications,

• bud burst and harvest at Parawa is earlier than Piccadilly by 2 to 3 weeks; and
• Parawa has lower maximum (daytime) temperatures than Piccadilly.

The shift forward in growing season at Parawa also led to a recalculation of the growing season heat to the months of September to March for Parawa versus October to April for the later Piccadilly Valley. Again, and surprisingly, Parawa on this basis was slightly cooler and more moderate than Piccadilly and therefore an ideal place for Pinot Noir.

By Christmas of 2003 Foggy Hill stage one had been planted on rootstocks with the Dijon University (Bernard) Pinot Noir clones 114, 115 and 777. The vineyard was planted very low to the ground (0.5m) and on an intensive vine spacing of 1.5m X 1.5m or 4,444 vines/hectare. In 2006 a further two hectares followed the first two hectares of planting.

The first crop of Foggy Hill Pinot Noir was harvested in mid March 2007. Maylands Farm lambs graze in the paddocks alongside the Foggy Hill Vineyard in the cool humid air from the Great Southern Ocean visible to the south.