The 2025 Clare Valley vintage is quickly coming to an end.

A really early budburst, a warm/dry growing season and reduced crops have meant a small and fast vintage here in our region.  The last dribs and drabs of red grapes have been trickling into wineries around the district this week.

For me it was the earliest picking of Riesling up here that I can recall in my 45 vintages  (1980 – 2025). The fruit for our Watervale Learnings was harvested on the evening of Sat 8th Feb and the fruit from our home block at Polish Hill River was picked on Friday 14th Feb. This is a good 4 weeks earlier than what has been the average picking date during my time as a winemaker up here.

The volumes, as reported earlier, have been affected due to the dry/drought conditions of the summer and the widespread frosts experienced back in September last year. In particular our home block at Polish Hill River was given a severe whack by the frosts and at one stage I was thinking we would not have a vintage of Solace at all from 2025. The vines recovered somewhat and did produce a much reduced crop that is roughly equivalent to 30% of its normal production. Not a great result but at least we got something!

The Watervale block we source our fruit from was mostly untouched by frost at least and we will have almost the same volume as normal.

Are far as quality is concerned, the wines look lovely and quite promising at this very early stage considering the season we have had.

I will update again once I have a bit more of a handle on the new wines.

Thanks to all for your interest and continued support of the Limefinger wines.

Cheers,

Neil & AJ Pike

Friends of Limefinger

Our Friends of Limefinger programme is our way of thanking our repeat customers for their loyalty. We want to reward repeat customers by offering them a discount on all purchases made through our on-line shop. As a Friend you will continue to be able to get your orders delivered to your home or office freight free, as well as get access to limited quantities of museum stock when released.

To become a Friend of Limefinger simply buy a minimum of 1 dozen at the standard on-line pricing initially and from then on enjoy the discount on all your future purchases from us. There will be other benefits announced along the way e.g. invitations to events, and discounts on accomodation to our 100 year old B&B Lottie’s Cottage in Clare.

Cheers,

Neil & AJ Pike