In very special years, we carefully cut through selected fruiting canes in a section of our Mort's Block vineyard around four weeks prior to harvest. This turns off the supply of moisture to the fruit, rapidly concentrating its flavours and natural sugar content and creating a luscious, yet refreshingly crisp, dessert styled wine.

This cane cut technique is only practised in very special years when the ripening season is cooler and more protracted. This gives us more control over the process and ensures that the highest levels of quality can be achieved. Once the desired concentration and flavour enhancement has been reached, the grapes are selected and hand picked with any lower quality fruit rejected on the vine.

The soils of the Watervale valley are typically terra rossa: fertile red brown earth over much deeper limestone. These duplex profiles are perfect for growing Riesling, the loamy topsoils providing adequate nutrition whilst the deeper limestone layers providing good drainage, just enough water holding capacity and flavour characteristics. About four weeks before Riesling is typically harvested, we carefully cut through all of the fruiting canes that are trained along the wires, thus turning off the moisture supply to the fruit, rapidly concentrating the fruits sugar concentration and flavour.