Penfolds Canopy Project Focuses on Koonunga Hill Vineyard

At Penfolds, the spirit of experimentation and trial continues, exemplified by the viticulture team’s recent accomplishment of setting up a significant vineyard canopy project at the Koonunga Hill Vineyard in the Barossa Valley. 

The focus of this assessment is to understand if a netted vineyard canopy, often used in cherry and various fruit farming practices, may work as a weather buffer, mitigate loss of value and improve the consistency of quality and yield of super premium wine grapes.

Alex McSeveney Senior Vineyard Manager Penfolds said, “The vineyard canopy covers 13.4ha of super premium shiraz and cabernet sauvignon vines and supplies fruit to a range of Penfolds wines such as Grange, Bin 707, St Henri, RWT and Bin 389. This is a large-scale project we believe will allow us to improve the consistency and quality of our super premium fruit in a changing environment.”

The viticulture team are reviewing the impact of this canopy over the next five years, assessing samples weekly. The team will also be working closely with independent partners such as The Australian Wine Research Institute and The University of Adelaide on this project.