Winemakers ready for fruit harvest

Stakehill Estate owners Lee and Rob Bunney will celebrate 12 years of winemaking on Sunday by partaking in their annual harvest.

Every February, the pair harvest the fruits of their labour for six weeks to produce 5000 bottles of wine.

However, this year Mrs Bunney said she was worried the produce would not be as fruitful as previous crops because of the heat wave in January.

“We have lost about half the crop when the days crept over 40C,” she said.

“The afternoon sun burnt a lot, but the protected bunches did OK.”

The seven-acre property contains about four acres of vines and multiple varieties of grapes including the Australian white and red wine grapes — taminga and tarrango — as well as chenin, merlot, chardonnay, Grenache and shiraz.

Mrs Bunney said she crafted the wine herself by mixing the flavours in the lab and grafting new and mixed varieties in the vineyard.

“I have done an advanced ticket in laboratory practice,” she said.

“We are amateurs, but we enjoy it.”

Mrs Bunney said once picked, crushed and chilled it took about 10 days for the wine to ferment.

She said they used milk vats to maintain the white wine varieties at its optimum temperature below 20C.

Mrs Bunney would like to see the community embrace and support wines made in the Peel region.

“We would love a wine festival to celebrate our produce,” she said.