Unusually chilly climate means this season’s grape harvest has run later than any Ken Eckersley has skilled in additional than 30 years.
Key factors:
- The proprietor of a vineyard says cooler climate has delayed the wine manufacturing course of
- A researcher says latest situations are out of the peculiar whereas local weather change continues to trigger warming
- A 2020 report finds even cooler wine areas usually are not proof against warmth adjustments
“It has been so cool and we’re all working very late, so we’re nonetheless selecting,” the winemaker stated.
“The climate … has been fairly unkind to us. It has been very tough.”
Mr Eckersley owns and operates the Nicholson River Vineyard in Victoria’s Gippsland area together with his spouse, Juliet.
He stated some winemakers within the space had “given up altogether” this season because of the difficulties at getting their grapes to ripen within the cooler climate.
“[And] you are underneath stress, from birds — European wasps this season have been horrible — and so forth,” Mr Eckersley stated.
“The birds are getting hungrier and hungrier and so they’re attacking the nets. They’re getting in and you are still dropping a substantial quantity [of grapes] even underneath the nets.
“It is powerful. We’re selecting now a month later than we have now lately.”
Bucking a warming development
Mr Eckersley stated situations had been rising noticeably hotter till this season.
“The springs have been hotter, the grapes have been extra ahead, and we have been selecting on the finish of February,” he stated.
“[This season] is a reversal of the sample that was growing of shorter seasons, hotter summers.”
Wine Australia Analysis and Innovation basic supervisor Liz Waters stated this season’s chilly temperatures and excessive rainfall had been out of the peculiar.
“What we have now already seen, over the past 20, 30 years, is harvest states typically transferring ahead,” she stated.
“The local weather change we have already seen, the place we’re seeing hotter and drier rising seasons, has resulted in grapes ripening earlier within the yr than they’d beforehand.”
Wine Australia released its New Climate Atlas report in 2020, which predicted how local weather change would have an effect on Australian wine areas over the subsequent 80 years.
It discovered the Barossa Valley would grow to be extra just like the Riverland is now, whereas Tasmanian wine areas would resemble the present temperature of the Coonawarra.
The report stated even colder wine areas weren’t proof against warmth and aridity adjustments.
“We’re additionally seeing extra extremes, notably in scorching climate. One of many penalties of it is a larger danger from bushfires,” Dr Waters stated.
She stated winemakers had been making an attempt to adapt and funky down their vineyards, utilizing methods corresponding to spreading mulch, rising cowl crops and growing watering.
An ‘overripe character’
Mr Eckersley stated hotter temperatures had been altering wine flavours.
“Notably in South Australia, the massive change is that the grapes have been getting sweeter and sweeter, which suggests the alcohol has been going up lots,” he stated.
“In the event you look in your store, now you may see plenty of 15, 16 per cent alcohol wines.”
He stated some winemakers get “overripe” flavours as the new seasons accelerated the grape rising course of.
“If you get close to the tip, you get into this overripe character, which, with purple grapes, tends to be an all-purpose plummy, raisiny kind of [flavour],” Mr Eckersley stated.
“You are getting that uniformity coming in and it is getting harder to inform the distinction between, say, shiraz and cabernet.”
Mr Eckersley stated in cooler areas corresponding to Gippsland, winemakers had not been as affected.
However Dr Waters stated she was not conscious of such adjustments and the results of local weather change “should not make all the pieces style the identical”.
“It ought to simply make issues style completely different, and in a different way completely different, if that is smart,” she stated.
“It may simply be merely that individuals are producing wine for a market.
“They’re producing what a market desires, so it might be extra associated to what the market is in search of than something to do with local weather change.”
Gippsland wines
Statistics from Wine Australia present simply 15 per cent of Australia’s vineyards are situated in Victoria, with Mr Eckersley’s area of Gippsland one of many nation’s smallest patches of vineyards.
After a 45-year profession, Mr Eckersley stated he was planning to retire and promote his vineyard.
“We began out asking the query, ‘What can East Gippsland do? Can it make good wine?’ as a result of nobody knew,” he stated.
‘We needed to strive issues. We have pulled out grapevines, we have planted stuff, there’s been plenty of adjustments through the years.
“We predict in East Gippsland it is potential to make some actually good wines.”
Regardless of the challenges of this season, Mr Eckersley was “optimistic” about the way forward for Australian wine.
“Have a look at the satisfaction, take a look at the expertise and the understanding and involvement with folks and the sheer pleasure of it,” he stated.
