Frost wipes out up to 80% of vines in Australia's Great Southern region
Frost has hit some of Western Australia's Great Southern region, damaging up to 80% of the vines in the region, according to local reports.
The Frankland River wine region, renowned for its Riesling and Shiraz, was the most badly affected by record low temperatures for November, which saw the mercury plummeting earlier this week.
According to Frankland River Grape Growers and Winemakers Association president Hunter Smith, it was one of the worst frosts the region had ever endured.
“A lot of the growers through the region are affected anywhere to the tune of very little damage through to some growers reporting 70 and even 80 % crop loss through that one event,” he said.
The frost ws caused by a combination of a strong cold front and a high pressure system, according to the Bureau of Meterology which confirmed that Bridgetown and Kantanning experienced the coldest November night in 20 years on November 6th.
Unfortuantely, the frost hit at a crucial time for the vines, when new growth was coming close to flowering. “A lot of those vine leaves are quite thin, so it actually doesn’t take much of a frost to totally freeze those, and kill those shoots right off,” said Smith. “We are probably a week away from some of the early varieties, like Chardonnay going into flowering, so it’s a really critical time of year and that’s where we’ll see the most signicnat losses.”
Rodney Hallett of Alkoomi Wines has been one of the producers most badly affected by the frost, with around 80% of his vineyard suffering damage. He said that the majority of the vines were a “write off” for the forthcoming season and he had no insurance for the damage.
“The cost of insuring for frost is quite prohibitive,” he told ABC News. “It’s just one of those things and we just have to cop it on the chin.” The damage comes as Frankland River's wineries are still struggling to recover their losses from heavy hail in 2014 that left a trail of destruction across the region, and resulted in Hallett losing 90% of his crop.
"We're actually just recovering from all that and now it's happening all over again,” he said. However, Hallett is optimistic about the forthcoming vintage. "There is a potential to get some more than reasonable quality out of the wine varieties," he said.