Four engagements, described without naming the vineyards. Clients get to decide whether their yield history is public; we do not decide it for them.
Eleven per cent of vines were showing eutypa symptoms and the owner was being advised to pull the block. We mapped symptom distribution against planting year, found the losses concentrated in two rows pruned by a contractor no longer used, and specified remedial pruning with staged replanting. Six seasons on, the block is at full production and the replant cost about a fifth of a full redevelopment.
Yields swung between 4.2 and 9.6 tonnes per hectare with no pattern the owner could see. Fortnightly monitoring through one season showed the variation was set at fruit set, driven by inconsistent shoot numbers left at pruning. Fixing the pruning brief narrowed the swing to under a tonne within two seasons.
The owner asked us to review a development plan prepared by the contractor who would also build it. We supported the site and the varietal mix, disagreed with the row orientation on the two western blocks, and recommended deferring the fourth stage until drainage was resolved. The client took two of the three recommendations and told us so.
Four soil pits over two days established that the free-draining profile the vendor described occupied roughly a third of the site, with the balance sitting on a clay pan at 600 mm. We advised the buyer that the site was plantable at about half the area under discussion. They negotiated on that basis and bought it.
No client of this practice is named on this website, and none of the quotes that might have gone here have been solicited. If you want to speak to a current client before engaging us, ask — we will put the question to two of them and pass on whoever agrees.
Most engagements begin with a site visit and a soil pit. It is a cheap way to find out whether we are useful to you.
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