We took a walk through the vineyard on Friday night on our way to early dinner at the Willunga Golf Club restaurant. We took the back way through Ding’s Block Shiraz (which used to be planted to Pinot Noir and Joch used to sell for sparkling base to Penfolds, or was it Tyrrell’s?). The recent rain has put a glint in the vineyard’s eye, and it looks great.

You can see evidence of Peter Bosworth’s (Joch’s dad) dodge ploughing under the vines – being organic obviously we can’t spray weeds out, so precision ploughing is the way to go. One false move and the vine gets it.

Looking back up to the house with our back to the 13th hole, you can see the dodge plough evidence more. We rely on the soursobs during winter to keep most of the weeds at bay under vine, then run through in spring with the dodge plough to clean up any offenders who managed to avoid being smothered by the yellow peril.

Perhaps the best sight we saw on our walk, apart from the healthy looking vineyards of course, was this giant topiary duck in someone’s back garden . Quite breathtaking. Splendid effort, whoever you are.

On Saturday evening we had the last meeting of the Vale Cru members before our big tasting on Sunday 16th October at the Victory Hotel at Sellicks (2-5pm bookings have a look at the producers involved at www.valecru.com.au ) You can see the back of Brad from Brash Higgins, Sue Trott on the left from 5 geese, Dudley from Inkwell behind Brad, and oh look, there’s Joch having a sly drink on the right just behind Nick Haselgrove from The Old Faithful Wine Co. Here’s the poster, or at least part of it, that the very talented Woods Cannon did for us.

So, I believe there are still some tickets available, please snap them up at http://mybookingmanager.com/VALECRU2011) for $42.95 (includes the $2.95 booking fee) you get a Vale Cru badged glass, some fine Victory nibbles, tastings of fine small batch McLaren Vale wines (with the opportunity to purchase at keen prices) and a great day. I checked the long range forecast and it looks good at this stage. Joch will be on duty. See him there….