A combination of poor weather at flowering, withering heat and four years of less than adequate rainfall has put a question mark against both the quantity and quality of the Year 2000 vintage in the warmer South Australia regions, especially Clare, the Barossa and McLaren Vale. Vintage is several weeks early in each of these regions and the varieties believed to be worst affected at time of publication appear to be chardonnay and shiraz, with crops at least 20-30% below estimates a common phenomenon. This set of circumstances closely matches the dreaded 1997 vintage, in which vineyards were generally able to achieve full sugar ripeness, albeit with slightly lower yields, but with fruit that failed to develop much in the way of flavour. The outcome in 1997 was an overwhelming preponderance of porty ripe wines without much stuffing, and which also presented a strange amalgam of under-ripe flavours. Given that the water situation is very much worse this time around, with some vineyards having their leaves turn yellow and move into senescence as early as January, the situation is hardly a happy one.
