They said La Nina would last for two years, and they were right. The second successive inundation has seen a red wipeout in the Hunter (not for the first time), waters lapping around and inside cellars in Griffith (for the first time in ages) and massive losses from disease and fruit damage across Australia’s southeast (just like last year). It’s also seen caused some exceptionally low yields in the emerging but perhaps less critical wine regions around Brisbane and Ipswich in Queensland.The timing of the rains has meant that while several regions have escaped with a slightly challenged white wine harvest that nevertheless should yield some pretty smart, brightly flavoured wines with pleasing levels of natural acidity, it’s the reds that will feel the brunt of the unseasonably inclement weather.The northeast Victorian regions of Rutherglen, Myrtleford, Heathcote and the King Valley are facing another supremely challenging vintage after the flood and botrytis-caused wipeout of 2011. Ironically, this news comes just weeks after the Winemakers of Rutherglen, a self-described ‘cautious bunch’ issued a press release headed with ‘Rutherglen Set For 2012 Vintage Of The Decade’ in which 2012 was referred to as looking like ‘the best vintage in ten years’. Sometimes it is indeed wise to wait until it’s in the can‰Û_Over the border at Griffith, home of 70% of the entire New South Wales harvest, growers are facing massive losses through floods and disease that will eat (devour) significantly (by an estimated 30,000 tonnes) into the region’s expected annual harvest of around 280,000 tonnes. Growers near Yenda have been particularly affected by flooding, with entire crop losses not uncommon. It was impossible to pump the water away from many affected sites since the irrigation channels were themselves overflowing. Having somehow survived the wet, cool season of 2011, many growers in this and other irrigated river regions have their business futures pretty well on the line this year. Even if they are able to harvest healthy crops another downside is that the current industry malaise in this sector of the market means growers are unlikely to receive higher prices than in 2011.We’ve had reports of the Casella family and staff laboring through 36 cm of water in their dry goods area, where around one million cartons of bottled wine were put under threat. Furthermore, the floods literally cut Australia’s largest export wine brand off from the world, since trucks were unable to break through the waters for delivery to the Port of Melbourne. Growers in cooler Victorian regions like the Yarra Valley are at the edge of their emotions as short dry spells are regularly punctuated by drenching rains and ongoing humidity, the catalyst for botrytis bunch rot and other diseases. But there are indeed linings of silver within the storm clouds. The key South Australian regions of the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Clare have been affected by rains, but have avoided the more damaging continuous inundations of other areas. While growers have needed to work hard and to time their harvests carefully, it’s indeed possible that a wide range of memorable wines will result.Furthermore, the rainfall experienced in western Victorian regions such as the Pyrenees and Grampians was more reviving than damaging, while growers in Coonawarra are expecting a very strong season.Let’s hope, however, that La Nina is done and dusted after two.
