This year marks the 101st vintage for the Gersch property out at Moppa, just north of Nuriootpa, with some of every crop harvested sold to Penfold’s during that entire time.
Sixty-one year old John Gersch said he was “pretty proud” of the milestone his family had achieved and was pleased to continue the legacy his grandfather, Johannes began.
“Grandpa bought the place at the end of 1920, on December 8 or thereabouts, so his first vintage was 1921,” said John who took over the property from his father, Max.
“Dad said that real old block was already an ‘old vineyard’ when grandpa bought the property...whether it was 20 or 30 years old back then who knows, but it definitely predates 1900.”
Those old Shiraz are set to be hand-picked next Tuesday and John said they still produced well, despite their age.
He attributes the vineyard’s longevity and quality fruit to “old school” management, handed down through the generations.
“These are still rod and spur pruned, same as dad and grandpa did,” explained John.
“They are still going, they always have a good crop, even the last two years when it was so tough.”
Impressively, fruit from John’s vineyards, including the old block, have made it into 14 vintages of Penfold’s iconic Grange.
“Every block on the place that is more than 10 years old has made Grange at some stage,” he said. “But it isn’t always the same block.”
Like many grapegrowers, John converted newer vineyards on his property to permanent arm, because it was said to be better.
“Some of the old blokes at the time said no, that won’t work on Shiraz, they had tried that 30 years earlier. But the experts said that was the way to go.”
The trouble with that method, based on John’s experience, is crops keep declining and Eutypa, a disease causing die back in vines, is more prevalent.
“The first few years you get amazing crops and possibly better quality, but after that the vines decline without remedial action,” he said.
Traditional cultivation methods are still used with pride on the Gersch property.
“I sow a mid-row cover crop in Autumn which is incorporated into the soil in late spring with a rotary hoe and the under vine area weeds are removed with a dodger,” explained John.
There are a number of other contributing factors helping the vineyard produce quality fruit.
“The vine has to be all in balance, it has to have the right amount of foliage to bunches and that’s a bit of a hard thing to strike, especially in a dry grown situation. It depends on what rain we get,” John said.
“If you don’t irrigate, the grapes have more concentrated flavours and that’s what Penfold’s look for in Grange and their other high quality red wines.”
Soil is also important said the third generation grapegrower.
“All my best blocks might have sand on the top but have good, dark red clays underneath and, further down, they have ironstone and that seems to have a bit to do with the quality too.”
John is looking forward to better yields this vintage due to rainfall being up 50-60 percent on last year.
“I think it will be a bit lighter than an average crop still, but way better than the previous two which were down 80 percent on average,” John said.
“Last year I picked 200 kilos a hectare in the least fruitful block and this year that same block yielded 1.5 tonne per hectare.
“2021 is looking more promising. It’s nothing fabulous, but it’s certainly way better than the last couple of years.”
