Flood considerations have continued to hit components of Australia, with the nation’s Bureau of Meteorology warning at this time (17 November) that ‘main flooding’ was ongoing in communities in New South Wales, in addition to alongside a lot of rivers in Victoria.
Within the wine world, there have been had been considerations that flooding of vineyards in Victoria final month is now being repeated at some New South Wales wineries after continued spring rain within the south-east of Australia.
There was even flash flooding on Monday this week within the Barossa Valley, when the North Para River burst its banks. Elsewhere in South Australia, there was in depth flooding of vineyards within the bulk wine-producing Riverland area.
It’s a really changeable scenario, nonetheless. Wine Australia has not but been capable of give any dependable figures on what quantity of vineyards in south-eastern Australia have been affected by flood harm.
The associated fee to the Australian wine trade may very well be excessive, with the potential for massively diminished yields in some vineyards, though Western Australia and Tasmania have escaped the ravages of the incessant rain that has plagued different wine-producing states.
One of many worst affected areas is Rutherglen in Victoria, the place the Murray River this week reached its highest ranges this 12 months.
With the catchment areas upstream being full, massive volumes of water have needed to be launched, flooding the vineyards of the 2 well-known wineries proper by the river – All Saints Property and Pfeiffer Wines.
All Saints winemaker Nick Brown mentioned his 3.2 hectares (eight acres) of Shiraz vines that had been planted in 1920 are sitting in a metre of water and can yield no crop in any respect this rising season.
Winemaker Jen Pfeiffer was much more downcast. ‘We’ve had no entry to our vineyards for 2 weeks now, and I assume downy mildew shall be working riot,’ she mentioned.
‘I’m making ready myself for a state of affairs the place we don’t harvest a single grape this summer time, however at the least we had a few days warning the floods had been coming and had been capable of save infrastructure corresponding to irrigation pumps by getting it to larger floor.’
Two wineries within the Nagambie Lakes area of Victoria – Tahbilk and Mitchelton – weren’t so fortunate. They acquired nearly no discover the close by Goulburn River would flood, and Mitchelton’s in depth underground cellars had been submerged with water, inflicting 1,400 barrels of wine to drift round like corks.
A 3rd of Tahbilk’s vines, together with the traditional Shiraz ones planted in 1860, had been submerged. Winemaker Alan George predicted his crop shall be down by 75%.
‘We can have a good bit of illness stress, as will the remainder of Victoria and the entire of south-east Australia,’ George mentioned.
‘There’s flooding of vineyards by way of central New South Wales, from Wagga by way of Cowra proper as much as Mudgee. A whole lot of vines will shoot once more this season however when that occurs the crop is normally fairly low.’
The New South Wales area of Orange, which has a number of the highest vineyards in Australia, has escaped winery flooding however nonetheless has main points, based on Bloodwood winemaker Stephen Doyle.
‘It’s very tough to get any equipment into the vineyards because it destroys the soil,’ he mentioned.
‘We’ve had 130 rain days this 12 months and over 1,000 millimetres of rain. It was chilly sufficient for it to sleet right here yesterday, and the concern is whether or not we can ripen fruit totally as we’re already three weeks behind final 12 months. We’ll must do main crop-thinning to have any probability of ripening the fruit, which suggests very low yields.’
Doyle did finish on a brighter notice: ‘The vines are rising rather well, and whereas the climate is a catastrophe for the vineyards and cereal crops of japanese Australia, the complete panorama and atmosphere has been recharged,’ he mentioned. ‘There shall be heaps of latest natural matter, and the organic lifetime of vineyards shall be wholesome for a number of years.’
