I have been looking forward to releasing these great wines for some time now. The 2006 vintage is our 27th vintage and in many ways our finest release of superb Dalwhinnie wines. The growing season in Spring 2005 was challenging with minimal rainfall and warm windy weather, which continued right through until the end of December. These testing conditions upset vine pollination leaving an extremely poor fruit set, or bunches which did not fill out correctly, a symptom called ‘hen and chicken’. Hence yields were painfully low in 2006 with cropping levels averaging 1.5 tonnes of grapes per acre, a reduction of 50%. With yields this low you would expect serious quality and this is a foregone conclusion in these beautiful wines. The style of the 2006 Dalwhinnie reds is very tight and reserved at this stage, which means they will be very long lived wines. They remind me very much of the 1986 reds where we experienced similar ripening conditions. I hope you enjoy drinking these monumental wines, they really are some of our finest work so far.

On another note, after serious consideration Dalwhinnie Wines will not be producing a Dalwhinnie Pinot Noir in 2006. The impact of prolonged drought conditions combined with a less than ideal growing season for this unique variety has led us to this difficult decision. I feel the quality is not good enough and we will not compromise the Dalwhinnie brand under any circumstances. My apologies to all the Dalwhinnie Pinot Noir fans out there. We can still offer some of the 2005 vintage, it’s drinking beautifully. Please contact us if interested.

David Jones
Winemaker