Hunter Classics For This Year’s Vintage
Hunter River Times article – Friday 21st of February 2025
By Meredith Blair
As they enter their 40th year of viticulture, McLeish Estate could not have asked for a better vintage. The 2025 season started later than last year’s, with picking commencing on January 16.
“This year we had the perfect build up to vintage because of the dry December and start of January, then the night before our first pick, absolutely torrential rain gave everything a freshen up,” Jessica McLeish said. “But it also put a bit of pressure onto the vineyard and picking times became more drawn out because of the coolness that started to develop across the rest of the season.”
Coming into vintage, Jessica highlighted the good quality of the vines and fruit, with vineyard manager Ted Nicolai calling it the estate’s best crop in the last nine years. “The canopies were beautifully lush, and the heaviness of the crop was amazing; there was just so much fruit out there looking healthy and pristine,” she shared.
Tonnage predictions nearly doubled this year, making the estate rethink their program for 2025. “This year we got our wish and more and with the whites, the Baumé level and the sugars in the whites were parallel to what we would see in the best vintages,” Jess said. “2025 will see a lot more Semillons coming through, more great Merlot and Chardonnay especially and we’re at the stage now where we’re allocating and making decisions on what’s going to be reserve white, vineyard range white and what’s going into blends.”
McLeish Estate’s preference for hand harvesting also ensures that wines will be of top quality. “Going by hand, we were able to really select the best fruit and Maryanne McLeish and the team always say, if you’re not going to eat it then don’t put it in the bucket,” Jessica said.
With whites finished fermentation, Jessica shared some of her predictions for the wines produced this year, describing them as ‘bright Hunter classics’. “The whites for this year are going to be absolutely superb and excellent quality,” she said. “The reds are going to be more elegant and medium bodied, as opposed to a dry year, where you’d be making something that’s really concentrated and potentially has higher alcohols.”
Jess further shared that McLeish Estate will be debuting some exciting new wines over the next couple of months, just in time for their 40th anniversary celebrations and Vintage Festival in May.
