Sutton Grange winemaker Mel Chester on vintage 2020 and this crazy year so far...

Looking forward to our in real life lunch tomorrow with Sutton Grange winemaker Mel Chester at Henry Sugar. We caught up this week to talk vintage, isolation drinks and plans in this rollercoaster year so far….

Q. How has this vintage shaped up for you? In particular, with the weather and fire conditions across Victoria as well as the current coronavirus situation– how has this impacted Sutton Grange?

2020 will long be remembered as a challenging year for so many reasons! Although Covid-19 is front and centre of our mind, the biggest challenge from a winemaking perspective was the frost in late October 2019 which totally destroyed the vineyard. The old timers in these parts say you are normally safe from frost post-Melbourne Cup long weekend, and unfortunately on the 26th of October we had a frost that had temperatures of -1.6 deg C in the vineyard. It totally wiped out all the venerable spring growth and with it, the crop for the season. We then continued to struggle - poor fruit set, early heat and lack of rainfall. And then Covid hit! We limped through but will not be making any wines in the Estate Range from 2020.

Q. In a time where we are staying home more often than not, what gems can we expect to find for delivery in your online store?

This year, due to limitation from Covid-19, we have been really enjoying offering mixed six packs to our online customers. So rather than having to commit to a whole box, this gives our customers a bottle of each to try. We have lots of different combinations and have found them to be a real hit - and they’re very handy for gifting. We are also offering discounts on shipping and dozens for our Wine Club members.

Q. 2020 is definitely already turning out to be a hard one to predict. But what new releases and plans does this year have in store for Sutton Grange?

2020 is indeed! We are really excited about the release of our 2018 Estate Syrah later in spring. 2018 was the most balanced vintage for Syrah I have seen since my time at Sutton Grange and we are super proud of this one. We are also super focused on improving our wine club offering and interacting more with our members - selling more museum stock and pre-release to them first, plus running some fun events for members only.

Looking forward to hearing more from Mel tomorrow!