Australian Town and Country Journal at KellyGang 13/5/1871

From KellyGang
Jump to: navigation, search
(full text transcription)

The Albury Vintage

THE following information from tho records of Mr. Lankester, the efficient manager of Mr Fallon'wines, and formerly connected with tho Hunter River vine yards of Mr Wyndham and Dr Lindeman, has been supplied to the Albury Banner, and seeing that tho cellars of Mr Fallon this year represent about thirty of tho vineyards of the district, tho returns may be con, sideredto indicate very favourably tho state of this year's vintage. In quality it is reported, the wines of this vintage are exceptionally good, and an excellent crue may be expected when the wines arrivo at maturity. Owing to the rains last year, and the earlier part of this year, the more sensitive white grapes were, to a large extent, destroyed, but all tho reds have throughout the district yielded abundantly well, and above the average in quantity.

In ordinary seasons it has long been tho custom to leave the foliage on the vines so as to afford the grapes some protection from the direct heat of the sun, but as the season this time has been exceptionally wet, great advantage has been found in the practice of defoliation. In many vineyards the lower leaves of the vines have been thinned or removed, and much fruit has in this way been enabled to withstand the effects of the rains. Athough the white grapes gave a comparatively small crop, the total amount of new wine offered for sale in Albury and Corowa was greatly in excess of the yield of former years.

In Corowa and Wahgunyah the new wine Company purchased as largely as their capital permitted, and the means of absorption thus offered in that locality have proved an immense benefit to the neighbouring vinegrowers, while there appears to bo every prospect that the excellent management of the company's operations will eventually result in a "good thing" for the shareholders. In Albury, many of the vignerons have kept their own wines as usual, but very large purchases of must havo been made by Mr Fallon, whose cellar of 64 x 134. feet is now full as well as the floor above it.

We have not obtained many detailed reports of the various amount of the yields, but we may safely say that in general the yield of reds has gone up to 400 gallons per aera on flat vineyards and 300 on hills and slopes. The abundance of red this year will make up for the poreness of the yield of white. The effect of oidium was not noticed in tho general result for tho Albury district. The following figures, taken with Bate's saccharomater, on the delivery of the must, will give an idea of the strength of the diffcreut wines obtained within a radius of twenty miles round Albury :-Auca rot, 1143; Reisling, 1143; Verdeilho, 1113; Muscat, 1105; Schiraz, 1091: ditto, 1112; Malbec, 1077; ditto


 ! The text has been retyped from a microfiche copy of the original.

We have taken care to reproduce this document but areas of the original text may been damaged.

We also apologise for any typographical errors.