Cold wet spring holds back Australian harvest
The Australian grape harvest is up to a month behind last year, with winemakers blaming the cold wet spring for the delay.
This is in sharp contrast to last year when the harvest in Victoria for one was early after a hot and dry season.
This year’s vintage is likely to start in early March, according to Warramunda Estate’s Robert Magdziarz, at the Coldstream, Yarra Valley.
“We would normally start picking mid-February, but I believe this year will be three weeks behind,” he told The Weekly Times. “The weather has been cool prior to Christmas with a lot of rain.”
However, this will not affect the grapes, he said, though some locations may have problems ripening the Cabernet Sauvignon as it needs to spend more time on the vine.
“I feel the quality of the grapes are looking great. Yields will be down on last year – however ,this is a good thing.”
Grape growers across Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia also reported a later vintage than usual. The exception was Queensland, where many wineries were reporting an earlier than usual harvest, starting last week in some places.
Owen Latta from Eastern Peake Vineyard and Winery north of Ballarat said he would be starting his harvest in mid-April, which was back to normal after harvesting seven weeks early last year.
“Last year was the driest, most brutal we’d even seen and it meant we had our earliest harvest,” said Latta. The region was a couple of weeks behind where it was last year, starting mid-February by a few sparkling wine growers, according to Geelong Winegrowers Association marketing officer Sally Vickers.
Wines of Western Australia chief executive Larry Jorgensen said all wine regions were behind by two to three weeks this year due to colder weather in September and October.