By Andrew Spence
A wet winter and a cool spring has South Australia – as the rest of the nation – well placed for another strong wine vintage – albeit a little later than recent years.
About two months from the 2017 vintage, South Australian growers are predicting a strong harvest in terms of quality and quality.
Nationally, this year was Australia’s second-wettest winter on record, with rainfall 82 per cent above average for the season.
South Australia produced 51 per cent of the nation’s crush in 2016 and about 75 per cent of Australia’s premium wine from some of the oldest vines in the world.
South Australia’s 18 regions include the Barossa Valley, which is home to iconic brands such as Penfolds Grange
Barossa Valley vigneron, Anthony Scholz, supplies Shiraz grapes to 11 wineries in the region.
He says the Barossa has just gone through fruit set following a good flowering period.
“Things look pretty good, we’ve got good soil moisture from the wet, wet winter we had – we certainly haven’t seen a winter like that for a long time. It’s been a cool spring and now we’re into summer the vines are growing quite rapidly,” he says.
“Last year was hot and dry and the aim of watering was to keep leaves on the vine whereas this year it’s a bit the opposite – the topsoil is starting to dry out to about 50cm but under that it’s still wet, wet, wet.
“We’ll probably start to pick about the 6th or 10th of March, which will be about three weeks later than last year and some of that will be crop load, it’s been a good year, and some of it will be just the cooler season.”
McLaren Vale Agronomist and Winemaker, James Hook, says his region is running about three weeks behind recent years, making it more akin to typical seasons in the 1990s, meaning most of the grapes will be picked in March.
“As soon as the weather got warm they grew very quickly so they probably did two month’s worth of growth in one month – it’s really accelerated growth because they had a belly full of water in winter and spring and it took a long time for the weather to warm up,” he says.
“We’re looking at a larger vintage again like last year. If the summer doesn’t turn into a scorching heatwave I think it will be a very good year.
“At the moment the Bureau of Meteorology is predicting average conditions so if that happens over the next two or three months it will be good for quantity and quality, which both sides of the market like – the grape growers get good tonnage and the consumer likes it as well because they get good wine.
“People are fairly optimistic and from a weather point of view if we get average weather from here it will be a good year.”
McLaren Vale’s Serafino Winery
Australian Vignerons board member, Colin Bell, says factors such as the wet winter coupled with a slow start to summer meant most regions were fairly consistent across all wine producing states.
He says the predicted later vintage will likely push grape picking back into autumn and away from the heat of summer, leading to potentially fresher and more aromatic flavours, particularly for white wines.
“With these earlier and compressed vintages we’ve been having, whites come in sometimes at a very hot time of year, so what we’re going to see across many regions this year is whites ripening a little bit later,” he says.
“I’m quite excited about the quality of whites that could come off in the late summer to autumn conditions – I’m hoping we’ll have a fresher, more acidic, aromatic profile than if we were to go through the last stages of ripening in 30-plus degree weather.”
While most of the nation had enjoyed a good start to the growing season, some vignerons in the prolific Riverland and Sunraysia regions were wiped out by hail storms in November, which Colin says may reduce the national crush by up to 75,000 tonnes.
Headline image is the Adelaide Hills’ Sidewood winery