OCTOBER 2021
Covid lockdowns are nearly over. Budburst is here on 5th October and we are slashing the grass between the rows. The ground is saturated, the vines are pruned, mostly cane pruned with about 10 percent spur pruned. We shall spray out biodynamic products during the moon descending after 13th October. Lots of compost already in place.
JUNE2020
Great News! Our new website is at http://www.bellbrookfriends.com where you will find all our wines and lots of photographs of our winery and vineyard. More news can be found on another page of this blog—-latest news….
Our wines can be found in Bathurst bottle shops, Cobb and Co Cellars, Knickerbocker Cellars and Bernardis/ IGA, also in Oberon IGA. In Sydney through Bellagio Cafe, cnr Albion St and Bronte Rd. You are welcome to order directly from the winery via winemaker@bellbrookfriends.com
Please look up Bellbrook News for our latest activities. At the time of this edit we have our 2018 vintage in barrel and tank and it is coming along beautifully. We have nearly finished our 2018 winter prune.
Welcome to the 2017/2018 season. Starting slowly, cool and dry. Our 2016 wines are selling well and nearly out of the huge 2015 Pinot Noir. See our facebook and News page on this blog.
Sept 2017, Biodynamic brew including horn manure, manure concentrate, fermented Equisetum, seaweed concentrate and molasses. Stirred for 1 hour to absorb cosmic energy and sprayed out when the moon and saturn are in opposition
Please click on Bellbrook News for latest pics and report on recent harvest
SEE <JULY2017FRIENDSLIST> for prices as at July 2017
OUR 2016 VINTAGE IS VERY PROMISING AND NOW IN THE BOTTLE…
New year 2016, the vines are looking the best ever. look at the Chardonnay pics attached…
Spring 2015. we have had a great start to this years crop. No frost since budburst at the end of October and the new regime of hard pruning seems to suit our 12 year old vines. I have put up a new post called “Crossing the Divide” which has a collection of my poetry up to 2014…
Winter 2015. The wine is gently maturing in tanks and barrels and pruning will start soon. We have been pouring wine at Crago Mill in Bathurst as well as the Royal Bathurst Show. We recently celebrated 200 years since Governor Macquarie’s visit to Bathurst in 1815 with a new flag raising on the banks of the river and a night market with food and wine on sat 9th May. We had queues waiting to buy glasses of our wine and other regional vignerons to celebrate the illumination of the city.
Pictures below at 4pm prior to the crowds
Summer 2015, The crop is coming along. Hopefully friends will line up for the Harvest after Easter.
Please look at the Bellbrook News Page for the results of the National Cool Climate Wine Show. The judges liked our 2013 wines at the public tasting see picture below.
George Clark, emerging poet and winemaker.
See also http://www.bellbrookfriendswinery.blogspot.com.au
Sophonisba dreaming of Bellbrook Friends
Bellbrook Friends Winery License No LIQW880014522
email: georgeclark15@hotmail.com
Winetasting and visits by appointment ,P O Box 57 Oberon NSW 2787 Australia.
O for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention….will shakespeare
Many a ricketty old son of a gun, on the tides of the future tossed
will tell of battles that were really won, that history says were lost….henry lawson
A Moment In Time
The old kooradgi of the Gundungarra
watched the determined pale men
cutting a swathe through the country
unchanged since the serpent and the quoll
stopped fighting in the Burragorang.
The language of science and conquest
brought the shadow of the English king.
Scarlet and blanco strapped soldiers
walked on cliffs above layers of time,
Triassic floods, carbon swamps,
stone lifted and carved by the weather.
The country of his mind was being written
with the surveyors brass eye, bringing
latitude and longitude, heading west,
explorers, soldiers and convicts clearing
away the voice and spirit of the land.
For rum, emancipation and tickets of leave
the road builders dug and blasted their way
through the sighing of trees, the voices
of birds, the trickle of water holes
and the fear and sadness of people.
A moment in time the earth tilted forever.
The sentry staring through the firelight
musket in hand, whistle in mouth
the liturgy in his pocket with his
commission meaning little here.
No walls, no fences, endless country,
dingo howl swallowed by the stars
brittle gums dropping branches
smoke from unseen fires.
as if it was all the same like air.
Missing the point about belonging
to the place that nurtured, totem
animals, the murmuring of streams,
sunlight and shade, the shelter of caves
the sky turning overhead.
But land was given away, inns built,
and once the women came, somehow
he knew, these unforgiving pioneers
and their children were going to stay.
George
Beautiful to stumble upon this page
Your email escaped me
and it has been a long time
the site is full of boyish enthusiasm and fun
good for me to find as I have been trapped here after surgery to move part of my kidney
now mending quickly thanks to Lucys amazing care
have a wonderful Festive season and healthy rewarding year in 2014
tudor and Lucy
Verry interesting where is the image of friends or is it all about em xxd
Lovely to meet you at blues point today!
Good job on your website.
I have a bottle of Bellbrook Friends Chardonay 1972 . The winemaker told me to put it down but he didn’t say for how long ? Any suggestions