South Australia – 2023 vintage snapshot

Ned Goodwin MW takes a closer look at the 2023 vintage across South Australia, and explains why despite the challenging weather, great wines were still produced.

2023 is the third consecutive La Nina vintage, promoting an elongated, gradual procession of ripening, over the more staccato bursts of heat that often punctuate South Australia’s warmer zones. It was not as easy for some, perhaps, as the prodigious 2021 and very good 2022 vintages. 

‘... Positively, 2023 is a barometer for quality viticulture and judicious craftsmanship…’

While the Clare boasted the ‘longest hang time of any vintage recorded’, the foundation for exquisite Rieslings and savoury, mid-weighted reds according to Peter Barry of Jim Barry Wines, growers, viticulturalists and makers elsewhere did not have it so easy. Both McLaren Vale and Barossa experienced an impediment to fruit set due to cold, inclement weather. This had obvious repercussions for yields, although the Barossa experienced ‘plumping’ of bunches because of sporadic rain leading into and during harvest. Despite slightly above average yields, some fruit was left on the vine, a phenomenon seldom, if ever seen. Pete Fraser at Yangarra in McLaren Vale opined that if the fruit was not in by Easter when there was a heavy burst of rain, ‘the window of opportunity’ had been lost. Yangarra successfully managed this, setting the tone for a raft of fine grenache, the flag bearer in these cooler years. Fraser suggests refined, finessed and remarkably perfumed wines lie in store.

Cooler South Australian regions, Adelaide Hills and Coonawarra respectively, were perhaps more challenged. Michael Downer of syrah pacesetter Murdoch Hill exalted the vintage as ‘fantastic’ for whites while challenging for reds, due to the cold weather and minimal summer. Varieties with the physiological proclivity for earlier ripening such as pinot noir, fared better than later ripeners such as syrah or more stricken, cabernet sauvignon. This said, Coonawarra is light years away and if it were Europe, a different country, landscape and culture. Here, too, fruit set was challenged resulting in small yields. Yet Sue Hodder opines that beautiful, mid-weighted reds were crafted if selection was strict and extraction on the gentler side.

Positively, 2023 is a barometer for quality viticulture and judicious craftsmanship. After all, powerful and heavy wines are relatively easy to produce. Consistency is not the basis of fine wine. It never was. Rather, the capacity to rein in nature’s unpredictability with a minimally invasive hand and the best sites, is. Refined, mid-weighted and more savoury wines are a challenging endeavour. It is vintages like these, capable of greatness on one hand and misadventure and lost opportunities on the other, that impart plenty of finery while sorting the wheat from the chaff. This is something worth celebrating!