Tough country this. Just when you’re in the middle of one of the worst droughts of all time, seven inches of rain land on you in four hours, causing a flash flood that wipes away your frontignan vineyard, sends ten winery bins two kilometres down the creek, closely followed by several barrels of maturing wine. Sounds impossible? Then talk to Mudgee winemaker Pieter van Gent, who is presently undertaking his second major clean-up in just over ten years. Most of his packaged stock has to be unpacked, cleaned up and repackaged, his fencing needs replacing, he must repair the stock and facilities that collapsed under the weight of the water, and he has to start thinking about what to do where his frontignan once existed. The irony is that while the water has at least stopped flowing through his winery, he’s now hoping for follow-up rains to really end the drought. Seven inches of rainfall was just the ticket, but not all at once. While the van Gent winery is a separate issue, there’s going to be some lingering debate in the town of Mudgee, which copped what many believe to have been an entirely unnecessary flood. If the rumours are correct, the Cudgeegong River was deliberately turned on to full flow in the middle of the drought to help local cotton farmers. Then the rain came, and the river couldn’t cope. There’s no politics, they say, like local politics!
