Up, down, then up again is the rather bizarre and mysterious path of the 2004 wine vintage for Australian wine. It began looking as if all records were to be shattered, but a serious February heatwave was expected to knock the stuffing out of yields. Best estimates went down from 1.75 million to 1.65 million tonnes, or below. But the berries were bigger than they have been for several seasons, a factor that only became obvious when the harvesters started rolling. The Wine and Brandy Corporation now estimates the national crop at 1.755 million tonnes, up by 9% on the previous record set in 2002 and 25% above the difficult 2003 harvest. New plantings added a mere 5% to the increase, while the ratio of red to white grapes is estimated at 60:40.
