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About us ...
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Taemas owners Peter McPherson & Peter Wheeler began planting the vineyard in 1997, ultimately planting about four hectares (ha) of vines. The vineyard consists of about 1.6ha of Shiraz (two plots), 0.9ha of Cabernet Sauvignon and 0.6ha each of Merlot and Pinot Noir (clone MV6). In addition about 200 plants (0.1ha) each of Pinot Noir (clone 777), Viognier and Malbec have been planted. This diversity of variety leads to progressive ripening of the fruit & facilitates hand picking over a four to five week period normally between mid-March & the end of April.
Irrigation is only applied
during very dry periods. From the outset the owners focused on producing only premium quality red wines. Viticulture and wine-making are essentially manual processes and include hand pruning and picking, shoot thinning and small batch processing. Bunch and berry selection is undertaken during harvest by the picking crews.
The winemakers provide input during the growing season to assist in ensuring that only premium quality fruit is produced for Taemas vintages. All wines are made using traditional French techniques including the use of high quality French oak barriques.
The Canberra District is a cool climate grape-growing region with vineyard altitudes varying between about 500 & 850 metres above sea level. Cool to cold winters are usually followed by a relatively wet spring. Summer days are usually warm to hot but, importantly, are followed by cool nights which allow the fruit to develop interesting complexity and flavours. Taemas is situated at an elevation of 560 metres in a location particularly prone to strong cool easterly evening winds during summer. This weather, in conjunction with the soil profile at Taemas, contributes to the unique terroir which is reflected in Taemas wines.
The name "Taemas" is believed to be an old Celtic spelling of the word "Thames". Early explorers through the district, Hamilton Hume & William Hovell, used the name locally when they first traversed the area in the early 1820s. Prior to becoming a significant cool climate wine region, the district was primarily a fine wool growing area north of the national capital. click here for more information on Hume and Hovell
Visitors are welcome by appointment only. click here of a list of restaurants offering Taemas wines
The Taemas vineyard is planted on a gently-sloping, north-facing site. The soil profile consists of 20cm of topsoil, over 20cm of clay which sits on a bed of free-draining decomposed granite. With the rows of vines planted in an east-west configuration, prevailing winds have an unobstructed run through the vineyard. This results in minimal air stagnation. Of interest is that the site of the vineyard is not on the usual path of summer thunder & hail storms. click here for a link to local weather records
Please click links above & below for more information about Taemas
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Taemas Wines [ABN: 36 127 056 932] are the owners of this site & its content. © All material in this website is copyright protected & may not without prior written consent from the owners be used or copied in anyway - please respect copyright. Webmaster: Axio 1 P/L administers the site & requests that any problems with this site are reported via "Contact Us" for without feedback improvements are limited. Anyone wishing to rely on information within this website is advised to verify such information from other sources before doing so. This page was last updated: 10 December, 2010 |
