Viticultural Balance

The more than 30 year old vines on Whalebone Vineyard are planted at spacings of 3 metres between rows and 2 metres between plants in the row, traditional Australian wide spacing, giving 1666 vines/hectare compared to Bordeaux’s 5,000 to 10,000 vines/hectare.

When the Whalebone Vineyard was prepared for planting in 1974, the soil was not ripped to crack through the limestone cap as is the modern practice and hence the vine roots have to find their way down through natural fissures and cracks. This limits the capacity of the vineyard as the vines are forced to struggle for nutrient and water.

The vines have achieved a natural and sustainable balance without the need for irrigation. The soil of the Whalebone Vineyard is organically manured and a natural grass sward grows in the rows. The special Terra Rossa soil has a thriving community of beneficial soil organisms. 

Because of the limitation of vine root access to nutrient and water, a low number of buds is left at pruning, 33,000 buds/hectare compared to 70,000 buds/hectare in high capacity vineyards such as those in Bordeaux.

The 33,000 buds of each hectare of the Whalebone Vineyard are deployed at 20 buds/vine, giving a meagre 10 shoots/metre of trellis. The vines are cane pruned and the shoots are arranged in a vertical canopy that allows every individual shoot and bunch of grapes to achieve full light and ventilation.

Each shoot is hand thinned back to one bunch of fruit and the result is a tiny crop level of 4 tonnes/hectare compared to 6.5 tonnes/hectare allowed in the Medoc, Bordeaux and average crops in Coonawarra and Wrattonbully of 10 tonnes/hectare. Whalebone Vineyard is typically hand harvested in the first half of April.