Grapegrower and Winemaker

MAY 2012

Vintage

2012 Quality outweighs quantity

Best of the boutique

Why small is better

WISA winner

Chairman’s Award

2011

How to prepare for mobile bottling

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VIN_J000123

May 2012: Issue 580

Contents

Small-to-medium enterprises

features

winemaking

36

Pre-winter planning

61

Best of the boutique: Passion and patience

53

United Grower

69

Wineries embrace sensory analysis

79

WEA Conference preview

71

The addition of bentonite at different stages

98

Education & training

74

Essential oenology: Is there too much

100

Information technology

residual copper in your wine?

77

news

Ask the AWRI: How to and why identify matter other than grapes

sales & marketing

Regional roundup: Western Australia

88

Author reveals first steps to marketing magic

People & places: Scarce Earth project

90

Port: Foreign love affair

Letter to the Editor: MIS has its place

91

Wine trade gets serious with online forums

93

Preparation is paramount for mobile bottling

6

MyView: Rebecca Dolan

7

Quality outweighs quantity in vintage 2012

17 19 20

grapegrowing

runs 96

21

The light touch on wine quality

24

More strobilurin-resistant powdery mildew

Label Q&A: Floral design set to sparkle

business & technology

detected in vineyards 25

Recovery of grapevines from fire damage

97

SA wineries trail online for global traffic

33

New legislation for securing rights over fruit

98

Wine business philosophy

35

In profile: John Schiller

100

Going mobile to reduce errors in winery

36

Composting onsite for economic and

102

Export market snapshot

environmental gains 41

New grape training system for machine pruning

The United Grower Sponsored by

39 MAY 2012

cover As the 2012 vintage ended on a high for many regions,

Vintage

2012

Patritti winemaker Ben Heide

Quality outweighs quantity

captured this awesome shot Best of the boutique

of the fruit falling from the

How to prepare for mobile bottling

pick-up bins at their Adelaide

Why small is better

WISA winner

Chairman’s Award

2011

winery.

53 regulars 5 21 61 103 104

on the grapevine grapegrowing winemaking looking forward marketplace classifieds

61

In this issue May Publisher and Chief Executive Hartley Higgins General Manager Elizabeth Bouzoudis Editor Jen Barwick editor@grapeandwine.com.au Editorial advisory board Dr Jim Fortune, Denis Gastin, Dr Steve Goodman, Prof. Jim Hardie, Dr Terry Lee, Paul van der Lee, Bob Campbell MW, Prof Dennis Taylor and Mary Retallack Editorial Kellie Arbuckle Contributors Danielle Costley, Jeni Port, Chris Herden, Greg Howell, and Frank Smith Advertising Sales Chas Barter sales@grapeandwine.com.au Circulation: subs@grapeandwine.com.au Production Chris Nicholls Subscription Prices Australia: 1 year (12 issues) $77.50 (inc. GST) 2 years (24 issues) $145 (inc. GST) New Zealand, Asia & Pacific: 1 year (12 issues) $110 (AUD) 2 years (24 issues) $210 (AUD) All other countries: 1 year (12 issues) $174.50 (AUD) 2 years (24 issues) $339 (AUD) Students (Aus only): 1 year (12 issues) $66 (inc.

GST) Winetitles Pty. Ltd. 630 Regency Road, Broadview, South Australia 5083 PO Box 1006, Prospect East South Australia 5082 Phone: (08) 8369 9500 Fax (08) 8369 9501 info@winetitles.com.au www.winebiz.com.au Printing by Lane Print Group, Adelaide © Contents copyright Winetitles Pty Ltd 2012.

All Rights Reserved.

Print Post Approved PP535806/0019 Articles published in this issue of Grapegrower & Winemaker may also appear in full or as extracts on our website.

Cover price $8.25 (inc. GST)

4 Grapegrower & Winemaker

WOW, HOW THINGS can change in 12 months. This time last year, our national vintage wrap used words like ‘difficult’, ‘devastating’, and the seasonal favourite ‘challenging’. Due to bad weather, disease pressures and oversupply, many hoped it would see a lower crop but instead, the overall harvest produced a small increase.

Turn the clock forward 12 months and we see words like ‘perfect ripening’, ‘exceptional quality’ and a bevy of wine region spokespeople happily typing out cheery reports for our annual vintage wrap.

Unfortunately, not everyone is sharing in the spoils of a superb growing season.

The Hunter toughed out a wet harvest and floods across the Riverina region caused its share of heartache.

The May issue will be my last as editor at Grapegrower & Winemaker, so I wish to thank all the writers, contributors and industry people who have made it an absolute pleasure getting to know the wine industry. I would particularly like to shout out to G&W’s outstanding young journalist Kellie Arbuckle, who has been a delight to work with, the wonderful Wine & Viticulture Journal editor Sonya Logan, who has sat across the room from me and patiently answered a million questions and sub-editor Lauren Jones, who has helped me considerably by running her experienced eye over each draft issue.

I have thoroughly enjoyed getting a deeper education on a product I have happily consumed for many years.

I leave with a deeper level of respect and admiration for the passion and skill demonstrated by so many in this industry.

The May issue has been a great issue to finish up on, as well as the 2012 vintage wrap, I had the pleasure of helping compile and speak to some of Australian and New Zealand’s leading boutique producers (page 63). The Top 20, reviewed last month, may have the might to direct the industry but it’s producers like Stephen Doyle in Orange, Andrew Thomas in the Hunter and Marcel Giesen and Sherwyn Veldhuizen in New Zealand who deliver the passion, inspiration and commitment that will sustain it for many years to come.

This month, the issue has a special focus on small-to-medium enterprises (SME). Many of the articles inside offer practical advice specifically aimed at SME wine growers and businesses. We also asked a few of the authors of articles and people we interviewed to share a piece of hard-earned advice, which could be of benefit to smaller producers and wine companies. Check out their suggestions under ‘My Advice’.

Jen Barwick Editor

Contributors Chris Herden is a business, arts, entertainment and travel writer, as well as a board member of the management committee of the Queensland Writers Centre. He is also a versatile singer/actor with a career spanning a broad spectrum of musical styles. This month, Chris takes a look at the role of the PhD in wine education, on page 104.

Greg Howell is managing director of Vintessential Laboratories and author of the bimonthly Essential Oenology column in Grapegrower & Winemaker. This month’s article, on page 64 looks at the role of copper in winemaking. He can be contacted by email on greg@vintessential.com.au. A number of articles on related topics can be accessed on the www.vintessential.com.au website.

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May 2012 – Issue 580

on the grapevine More to come on calls for national collection Last month, Grapegrower & Winemaker journalist Kellie Arbuckle wrote an article regarding concerns that more money and work needs to be invested into a national germplasm collection. Highly respected viticulturists like Prue Henshcke and Kym Ludvigsen, along with other industry experts want to see a nationally funded, industry-owned and available clonal collection of Australia’s grapevines.

And, it’s an argument that’s gaining momentum – with Ludvigsen issuing a call to action last month after receiving confirmation from GWRDC’s executive director Neil Fisher that more investigation is needed to identify the best path forward. In a letter to Ludvigsen, the GWRDC questions the financial sustainability of current vine improvement associations and a future national collection. As such, the GWRDC intend to commission a paper which will collate the latest information on the current commercial and private clonal collections around Australia, best practice germplasm management and what sort of national collection would best suit industry needs.

Ludvigsen, as president of the Australian Vine Improvement Association issued a letter to state and national members asking: “Is this a reasonable response to a critical issue for the wine industry?”

Ed’s note: The Grapegrower & Winemaker would like to ask the same question. Is the paper a reasonable first step? Is a national germplasm collection critical for current industry needs? We’d like to hear your thoughts on this topic. Please email: editor@ grapeandwine.com.au

Visiting trade gets tour of Australian wine regions A group of international wine trade and media from the UK, Ireland and Europe were being chaperoned around Australia’s wine regions last month.

The Australian Sommelier and Independent Retailer Engagement (AusSIE) visit is the culmination of Wine Australia’s intensive wine education program, which aims to continue invigorating the specialist wine channels. The 20 visitors comprise a mix of top scholars from the A+ Australian Wine WSET-approved ‘One-Day Wine School’, the Sommelier Immersion Program (SIP), the inaugural University Wine Champions (Oxford University) and the 2011 ‘Young Wine Writer of the Year’.

In an emailed media release from Wine Australia – the only contact Grapegrower & Winemaker had regarding the event – the visit was funded through the Wine Australia Regional Visitors’ Program and Market Program membership.

The AusSIE trip included visits to regions across New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia – though we can’t tell you when or how long the visit went for as those details weren’t provided.

Hopefully it will, however, deliver the positive results Wine Australia is looking for with the a new export report highlighting the continued difficulties in the UK and Europe market. According to the Wine Australia Export Approval report the United Kingdom saw a drop in volume of 3 per cent between March 2011-12 but it remains Australia’s top export market, claiming 36% of the overall share of wine exports.

Treasury shares unique on-premise insights In a presentation hosted by Wine Communicators of Australia, in Adelaide, last month, Treasury Wine Estates captured audience attention with ‘flashes’ of thoughtprovoking data regarding on-premise statistics.

Australia’s largest wine company, teamed up with wine industry analysts Neilsen and Wine Intelligence at the third and final national Consumer Insights event. The predominantly industry-based audience were presented with the latest data on consumer purchasing trends in Australia, in China as well as Treasury’s data about on-premise purchasing and selling behaviour. While the Treasury information definitely piqued interest, it was the proactive and resourceful method of compilation Grapegrower & Winemaker liked. The company used its large team of sales people to collect wine lists and selling information from all the restaurants, hotels and clubs they sold wine too. This information was then collated and investigated to demonstrate trends in price-points, wine stocks and purchasing behaviour and used to develop targeted and informed approaches with its on-premise customers. Not a 100 per cent sure what that data is, as the presenter skipped through the presentation at ‘a blink and you’ll miss it’ pace but hopefully Grapegrower & Winemaker will have a chance to share some of it with you at a later date. Photos and an article on the event will appear in next month’s issue.

May 2012 – Issue 580

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what’s online Wine exports soured by dollar’s strength The volume of Australian wine exports fell by 7 per cent in the 12 months to March to 705 million litres valued at $1.9 billion, new figures from Wine Australia show. The average value of both bottled and bulk wine exports increased. However, an increase in the share of bulk wine exports in the mix resulted in the overall average value declining by 1% to $2.65 per litre. Wine Australia said the overall slide in export volumes was driven by a decline in bottled wine exports offsetting an increase in bulk wine exports, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Hopes high for late grape harvest This year’s national grape harvest is running two or three weeks later than usual but hopes are high that quality will not be compromised, the Bay of Plenty Times reported.

Winegrowers’ chief executive Philip Gregan says that despite the harvest being two or three weeks behind there are signs that the grapes were of good quality. “The vintage is late in many parts of the country but that does not mean we’re not going to have a good one,” Gregan says. “It’s important not to confuse lateness with poor quality.”

Leading Italian producer calls for greater professional standards (Italy) A leading Italian wine producer says there is too much confusion with labelling, and called for greater professional standards to be introduced, given the industry’s rapid expansion. Federico Carletti, owner of the 125ha Poliziano estate in Montepulciano, and head of the Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano said the confusion between the Sangiovese-based Montepulciano wines and those of its Abruzzo neighbours was “crazy”. He said Abruzzo wineries should change their labels to reflect the terroir and DOC first and foremost (as in Abruzzo), then the variety - Montepulciano, Harpers Wine & Spirit reported.

.com.au Australia’s wine industry portal by Winetitles Australia’s wine industry portal by

Winetitles

Daily Wine News is a snapshot of wine business, research and marketing content gleaned from international wine media sources, with a focus on Australian news and content. To subscribe visit www.winebiz.com.au/dwn.

Grapegrower & Winemaker

5

my view Family history with an eye on the future Rebecca Dolan

LIVING AND GROWING up at Saltram in a home that had been my father’s, and also his father’s, I was soon thoroughly entrenched in the heritage and culture of the Barossa Valley. I would follow my older brother Tim up to the Saltram crushers each day after school during vintage, ready to watch the grapes arrive. My involvement in the Saltram team soon lead to my first sales job, where I would sit in the cellar door car park selling small packages of walnuts, picked from a tree planted by the great Peter Lehmann. It was a natural progression that as I grew up, I would become a forklift driver unloading the grapes trucks, which appeared to me to be easily the most important job in the winery. Eventually, and of no great surprise, I took an interest in studying winemaking and eventually developed a passion for research and marketing in the South Australian wine industry.

While studying the Bachelor of Oenology at University of Adelaide, I began a casual cellar door job, discovering a side to the wine industry I had not previously experienced; customer service, relationship marketing, and the importance of communication. My instant passion for this side of the industry led me to undertake a commerce degree, majoring in marketing and management.

This took me into the Honours program, leading to the eventual offer of a PhD scholarship.

In 2007, we established Dolan Family Wines – our small family business, with the clear vision and intention of producing a focussed range of distinctive premium Barossa wines. As a collaborative project between my father Nigel, brother Tim and myself, the launch of Dolan Family Wines provided me with an exciting opportunity to take on the role of marketing and communications manager, being largely responsible for the label design and brand image, as well as sales and marketing. In such a competitive industry, the importance of integrity and quality has now become more valuable than ever. With a very distinct focus and style, the use and value of communicating our brand image, quality and personality through social media has been crucial, providing an inspirational springboard for what has now become the research topic of my PhD. Exploring and studying the effectiveness and value of social media

6 Grapegrower & Winemaker

In such a competitive industry, the importance of integrity and quality has now become more valuable than ever.

engagement within the small- to mediumsized segment of the South Australian wine industry provided the focus of my 2011 Honours thesis. Considering the high level of competition between smallto medium-sized wine producers within the Australian wine industry, it is not surprising we are now seeing many brands adopting new and innovative ways to communicate. Now more than ever, we are realising the importance of relationship management and brand community development through new media techniques. Social media sites www.winebiz.com.au

such as Facebook and Twitter have become increasingly popular consumer touch points in the wine industry. The viral and social capabilities of these online networks creating a new forum for consumer interaction. With the rise of new media, consumers now have complete access to any information they need. This has completely revolutionised the way consumers make purchase decisions, offering huge implications for the marketing strategies of many wineries, and further providing new opportunity for research and theory development.

Following the completion of my Honours research in 2011, I was fortunate enough to be awarded both an Australian Postgraduate Award and the 2012 Baillieu Research Scholarship to continue my research in this area, expanding the study into a somewhat daunting three year PhD with the University of Adelaide.

This has allowed me to combine my passion for wine, branding, and new media communication into an exciting research project. I anticipate that the results will have an impact not only in an academic theory context, but in providing a road-map to social media use. I hope to provide direction for brand managers of small- and medium-sized wineries, currently engaged in what can sometimes be a confusing maze of social media engagement and ROI measurement.

As for what comes after my PhD, I feel that the future is wide open, full of opportunities for anyone who wants to work hard for it, especially in an industry that is constantly growing and advancing.

So while my dream of becoming a forklift driver didn’t quite work out, the beauty of new media and online communication is that it has opened up a world of possibilities. In the wine industry, these new possibilities will allow us not only continue to create, but communicate great wine and brand quality.

My grandfather, winemaker Bryan Dolan, always emphasized the importance of quality, stating a simple but valuable philosophy, “Learn first to recognise wine quality, and then how to capture it”. If we can learn to use new media in the coming years to communicate not only great wine quality, but to capture the value and essence of Australian wine brands, the potential for our industry as a whole is enormous, and certainly very exciting.

May 2012 – Issue 580

Quality outweighs quantity in vintage 2012 Kellie Arbuckle and Jen Barwick

AS HARVESTERS RETIRED to the machinery sheds for another year, reports flowed in of a national harvest underpinned by quality, small crops and slowly improving markets.

Though vintage 2011 was a year most would rather forget, it did seem to have its benefits. Many regions, growers and wineries suggesting the previous year’s challenges had ensured spray programs were optimised and defences in place early against disease and rot threats – and it worked, where Mother Nature remained reasonably kind.

This has been an exciting national harvest report to compile, and the Grapegrower & Winemaker office can’t wait to sample the resultant wines.

There seems to be some decline in harvest sizes as well and, unlike last year where the rejected still somehow found its way into tanks, it’s possible the lower harvest figure the national organisations have been seeking could eventuate.

A month ago, Wine Grape Growers

May 2012 – Issue 580

Australia’s (WGGA) early national harvest estimate suggested 1.4 million tonnes, but it’s likely that this will increase. WGGA executive director Lawrie Stanford offers his take on this year’s harvest in The United Grower, beginning on page 53.

We only wish all the regions could have experienced a relatively smooth and successful vintage. Massive storm events and flooded vines mid-vintage, as happened across New South Wales, was definitely one of the crueller side-effects of working with fickle Mother Nature.

Not all of the 70-plus wine regions across Australia were contacted, but the report tried to cover east, west, north and south parts of each state, where relevant.

Not all responded, so the following is a snapshot of those who did take the time to answer our questions – thank you.

Western Australia Swan Valley Swan Valley growers were touting a quality vintage, thanks to a return to

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normal weather, after two consecutive hot and dry seasons the years prior.

Swan Valley and Regional Winemakers Association president Julie Church said it had been a “cracker year”.

“This year, we received excellent spring rains and generally mild summer temperatures. As a result, we have harvested outstanding white fruit, with fresh aromas and vitality, and deeply flavoured reds,” Church said.

By the end of March, most winemakers were busy with the last of the reds, with many boasting good quality and yields.

The estimated crush from the Swan Valley is about 3300 tonnes. “This does not include fruit crushed in the valley brought in from other regions, which is an additional 6000 tonnes,” Church said.

Key varieties grown in the Swan Valley include Verdelho, Chenin Blanc, Shiraz and fortified wines. Petit Verdot, Tempranillo and Grenache have also been popular in recent years.

Grapegrower & Winemaker

7

news Geographe Demand for winegrapes has increased in the Geographe wine region after ideal ripening conditions led to “excellent” grape quality.

Viticulturist Jim Campbell Clause says this season is dramatically different to last year in terms of prices, yields and quality.

“Last season’s lack of winter and spring rainfall resulted in small canopies and light crops, whereas this season canopies were good size, and bunch and berry size were larger,” Campbell Clause said.

“With ideal ripening conditions, fruit quality has been excellent. Buyers did come back into the market and some spot sales were achieved, especially for red grapes and, in particular, Cabernet Sauvignon and alternative varieties.”

The Geographe harvest was well under way by mid-February and was mostly completed by Easter, with the exception of Cabernet Sauvignon. The last of the grapes were expected to be crushed by mid-April.

Campbell Clause said, overall, the weather conditions were “fantastic”.

“The combination of winter, spring, early summer rainfall and full soil

8 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Reservoir Hill Sauvignon Blanc in Denmark being harvested.

profiles resulted in strong early shoot growth at most sites. Spring and summer rainfall delayed irrigation requirements and, at some sites, no irrigation was required,” he said.

Good soil moisture conditions early in berry development led to higher

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yields for Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache and Tempranillo.

Great Southern Vineyard managers in the Great Southern were on their game from the start of

May 2012 – Issue 580

budburst, following a wet winter and spring. Despite the pressure, growers managed to avoid any significant problems in terms of disease, with most vineyard managers diligent towards their spray programs.

Great Southern Wine Producers Association Inc chairman John Sprigg reported both yields and quality were up compared with last year.

“All varieties produced more than the dry 2011 vintage, some up by 30 per cent thanks to good winter and spring rainfall,” Sprigg said.

Most Great Southern growers started the season in the last week of February, with many finished by late March.

Blackwood Valley Vintage 2012 was kind to Blackwood Valley growers in Western Australia, with spring rains and few frosty mornings allowing for good canopy and fruit development.

A spokesperson for the Blackwood Valley Wine Industry Association said there had been few reports of disease and that yields were looking good.

“Being a region with few pest and disease issues, canopy management and a normal spray program kept mildews that affected other regions at bay,” she said.

The white varieties were subjected to a week of high temperatures, which brought the harvest forward. The reds then enjoyed a milder, dry period for ripening.

In an improvement on recent years, almost all growers with fruit for sale found a buyer at an acceptable price.

“The quality of the fruit was the selling point. The Blackwood Valley has done exceptionally well at wine shows in recent years and is being recognised as a premium supplier,” she said.

This will be a vintage to collect. There was very little uncontracted fruit in Coonawarra in 2012 and there was strong demand for what was available.

McLaren Vale McLaren Vale experienced a relatively early start and finish to its 2012 vintage, with the first grapes harvested in the first week of February. Most of the grapes were picked by the end of the first week in April. According to McLaren Vale’s Sami Gilligan, from Gilligan Consulting, and Derek Cameron, from DJ Growers, the region experienced relatively mild to warm days over the ripening period.

“Nights have been cool, culminating in great ripening conditions. We did have three rain events during harvest, but no significant disease problems occurred,” Gilligan said.

Overall, Gilligan and Cameron suggest yields are about 20-30% down on average.

“This has been due to a combination of lower yields because of smaller berries and bunch sizes, but also growers looking toward lower target yields for improved grape quality,” Cameron said.

In 2011 vintage was about 46,000 tonnes (38,000t red and 8000t white). This year, an early count suggests both Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc are down by about 20-30%, which could see around 5000t of white grape harvest from McLaren Vale.

McLaren Vale’s red harvest is also expected to drop, with the largest falls in yield affecting the high grade A and B Shiraz and Cabernet yields. Some growers recorded on average between 20-50% drops. C-grade blocks were less affected but still 10-15% down.

Cameron said the region was expecting about 30,000t from its

South Australia Coonawarra The 2012 Coonawarra vintage has been labelled “excellent” by the region’s winemakers.

In a report provided by Coonawarra Grape Grower and Vignerons presidents Dan Newson and Sue Hodder, good winter rains resulted in a full soil moisture profile, leading to ample vine carbohydrate reserves. These optimal growing conditions combined with an early burst of warm weather meant the vines started their growing cycle a couple of weeks early.

Flowering commenced in late October with mild, but windy conditions leading to a slightly poorer set than in the previous couple of years. Coupled with above average temperatures from November to January, berries were smaller than average.

Harvest began in early February on the whites, about two weeks ahead of long-term average, with good acid to ripeness balance being achieved and very strong flavours to boot. As the reds started to reach between 10-12 Baumé, a period of very cool nights and mild but warm days set in and slowed the whole ripening process down, giving the grapes time to reach optimum phenological maturity. Seed hardness was reached at the same times as sugar and flavour levels came into balance.

Good natural acid levels will be a big highlight of this season with smooth tannins showing through quite well in the early wines.

Overall, the tonnages were slightly down but this has definitely been replaced with quality. Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and Chardonnay have been fresh and full-flavoured, retaining their natural acidity.

It is difficult to pick a favourite amongst the reds. Merlot and Shiraz show full colour and swags of varietal character and weight.

Cabernet Sauvignon has that extra something this year with outstanding blackcurrant and briar notes, with full, ripe seed and tannins.

May 2012 – Issue 580

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

9

news Adelaide Hills

Picking at Paxton Vineyards in McLaren Vale.

Photo: James Hooke, DJ Growers.

red harvest. With less grapes and higher quality (particularly compared with 2011) the region has also experienced growing demand. Winemaker feedback across the board is pointing to a “higher than normal wine colour and good depth of flavour”.

The 2012 season began with some mixed weather messages in the Adelaide Hills.

Adelaide Hills Wine Region president Darren Golding said leading into September, and just prior to budburst, winter rainfall was close to the long-term average for most parts of the Adelaide Hills, resulting in soil moisture profiles being full.

“However, there were fluctuations between short periods of warmer than average days followed by similar periods of very cool temperatures. This resulted in some variable budburst and shoot development in most varieties,” Golding said.

Weather conditions continued to be variable through the period from October to December. “However, accumulated heat and degree days by mid-November resulted in phenology being earlier than average, suggesting an early vintage,” Golding said.

Golding said disease pressure throughout the season was moderate, with most growers using the previous year’s experience to bolster early defences and maintain appropriate spray programs.

Weather conditions remained mild during summer with a few short periods of hot weather where temperatures exceeded 30˚C. “Generally, conditions during the majority of the ripening period were ideal, with mild daytime temperatures and cold nights frequently below 10˚C, all conducive to excellent flavour development and the retention of natural acidity in the fruit,” he said.

Harvest began in early February with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for sparkling and a week later with Sauvignon Blanc.

“Lower than average crop levels contributed to fruit ripening relatively fast, resulting in another condensed vintage,” he said.

“The majority of fruit was harvested by the third week of March, with the later reds completed by the end of March.”

“Most varieties yielded 25-50% below average, with some reports of Pinot Noir and Shiraz being 75% lower than average, similar to yields experienced in 2002, which was another cool vintage.”

In summary, Golding said, the combination of low crop levels and mild conditions during the ripening period has resulted in some of the best quality fruit for a number of years.

Clare Valley Growing conditions leading up to vintage 2012 were relatively mild, with regular spring rains favouring good canopy growth, reported Kate Strachan, for Clare Region Winegrape Growers Association.

Budburst was approximately 10 days earlier than the long-term average. This followed through until harvest time, with most varieties coming in one to two weeks earlier than in a ‘typical’ year, starting in mid to late February, with most varieties harvested by early April.

“Harvest conditions were excellent, and the one substantial rain period during harvest occurred after most whites were already picked, and appeared to freshen up the reds, particularly the dry-grown blocks,” Strachan said.

“The mild conditions, and regular

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news rainfall after budburst did create some fungal disease pressure, made worse by the level of carryover spores from the previous year.

“Vigilance with crop protection paid off and very little fruit was rejected on the basis of disease.”

Unfortunately, two hail events caused significant crop loss in some areas of the valley, particularly the north.

Overall, yields were light in comparison to long-term averages, but some varieties were exceptions.

“Riesling and Merlot, in particular, seem to have been the most consistent bearers this season, with average to above average yields. Early winemaker reports indicate very good quality Riesling, thanks to the mild growing conditions,” Strachan said.

“Overall, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon yields have been lower than average. The lower yield expectations, coupled with lower Shiraz intake in 2011 has resulted in growers reporting steady demand and slightly better prices for Shiraz in 2012.

“At this early stage, winemakers are indicating that Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache quality is outstanding, with intense colour and excellent flavour development.”

Riverland Most Riverland wineries finished crushing before Easter, having launched into the start of harvest in late January.

Riverland Winegrowers Association executive officer Chris Byrne reported that the region had experienced a good vintage for growers and wineries.

This will be a vintage to collect.

Dan Newson Coonawarra

about 390,000 tonnes with approximately 330,000 produced by independent growers and about 60,000 produced by wineries,” Byrne said.

“Quality is certainly up according to winemakers and prices will ease up by between 10-15%. Total farmgate income to the region’s growers is likely to increase from approximately $86 million to a little over $100 million.

“Under the circumstances, these are pleasing results for this region, bearing in mind that the exchange rate is still making it extremely difficult to be competitive in export markets. Also, Riverland growers are still under pressure from surplus production of C-grade fruit from other regions.”

Barossa

“Despite some early nervousness caused by rain events and some fairly strong disease indicators most growers and viticultural officers were able to manage the risk and harvest the majority of grapes,” he said.

“Despite sudden heavy downpours in some areas, the Riverland was fortunate compared with Sunraysia and the Riverina.”

The region also had very few hot days and no drawn out heatwaves as has been experienced in recent years.

“When all the data has been tallied up by the Phylloxera and Grape Industry Board in four to five months, it is likely to reveal that yields will be up slightly to

A warmer spring and cooler summer saw the Barossa Valley begin vintage 2012 with some exceptionally healthy vines and expectations for early maturation.

Barossa Grape and Wine Association Inc communications manager James March reported maximum mean temperatures in the Barossa in spring (September to November) were slightly above average, which led to good vegetative growth, healthy vines and potentially early maturation, while summer mean maximum temperatures were cooler than average.

“In fact, between the start of November and mid-March, the Barossa Valley only had 11 days above 35˚C. The only time these days were in succession was four days between 31 December and 3 January,” March said.

“Since the beginning of vintage (the

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May 2012 – Issue 580

start of February to mid-March) there have been very few rain events, with only eight days recording any rain, and only three of these greater than 3mm.”

March said the mild and even season, with the vines so well set-up as they were coming out of spring, resulted in an early harvest and what appeared to be excellent quality across the board.

“Whites are aromatic and well balanced with natural acidity. Reds are densely coloured with fragrance and varietal definition,” March said.

Yields are slightly below average, with the caveat that some later sites and varieties are still to be harvested, possibly up to 20% below average.

At the time of updating this report in early April, March said the latest Shiraz vineyards in the coolest areas – mostly Eden Valley – and the last of the Mataro were still to be harvested.

“It was a fantastic end to the season though – no rain and warmth until after Easter,” March said.

Langhorne Creek Langhorne Creek growers and wineries issued a media release to celebrate a vintage they describe as “exceptional”.

Vintage wrapped up by early April, with Bremerton Wines winemaker Rebecca Willson reporting: “Quality and colour is amazing, it all looks quite sensational, so we are very happy.”

Langhorne Creek Grape and Wine Inc executive officer Lian Jaensch said after a few difficult years it was a pleasure to see the positive reports piling up.

Metala Vineyards vigneron Liz Adams said it had been a sensational vintage with

May 2012 – Issue 580

Growers in Tasmania are reporting good flavours and lower than average yields for the 2012 vintage.

Photo courtesy of Wine Tasmania.

www.winebiz.com.au

Grapegrower & Winemaker

13

news Victoria Pyrenees

From top to bottom is Wayne Fechner, Davin Robinson and Daniel Polson, all from Nepenthe Viticulture.

fruit able to hang in the vineyards that bit longer to get skin and tannin development and wonderful balanced fruit characters.

Tasmania Growers in Tasmania are reporting good flavours and lower than average yields for the 2012 vintage, with prices about the same as last year.

The Tasmanian winegrape vintage kicked off in late February and was still under way in early April.

Frogmore Creek senior winemaker Alain Rousseau estimated yields were down 30% on last year due to the cold easterly weather around flowering, but said the quality was definitely there.

“The Riesling has produced good flavours with a low Baumé of about 11.512,” Rousseau said.

Most growers had picked the fruit for sparkling wines in mid-March, and were starting to pick Pinot Noir grapes by the start of April.

Prices for Pinot were expected to be about $2600-3000 a tonne, while prices for Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc were expected to be about $2000-2200 a tonne.

With the exception of record rainfall in November for northern areas, Tasmanian weather leading up to flowering was characterised by warm days, mostly cool nights and average rainfall.

14 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Harvesting of grapes for sparkling wine and those with lighter crops started midFebruary in the small Pyrenees wine region, located between Bendigo and Grampians in central Victoria. It was about two-weeks earlier than the region’s average harvest dates, according to Pyrenees Grapegrowers and Winemakers Association president and DogRock Winery owner Allen Hart.

“However, others started closer to long-term average where normal yields prevailed,” Hart said.

“The relatively mild end to summer and autumn has seen some varieties ripen more slowly toward the end with mid-April the likely end to harvest in the Pyrenees for most.”

Hart said vintage 2012 had experienced “near perfect” ripening conditions, despite a couple of rain events, which briefly halted some harvest activities but did little to affect the overall quality.

“The stable and warm end to the season has allowed all fruit to be harvested with little to no disease pressure,” he said.

Yields, he said, varied from vineyard to vineyard, with some growers reporting reduced yields of between 20-50% and others keeping the status quo.

“Overall, quality is looking sensational in all varieties but especially Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.

“Most vineyards have managed to sell any excess fruit and prices have remained steady or slightly higher than in 2011.”

Mornington Peninsula The Mornington Peninsula experienced little disease incidence this year, with some mildew in early season and some botrytis late in cooler areas.

In a report from Mornington Peninsula Vignerons Association’s executive officer Cheryl Lee, despite some significant rain events, the region’s vineyards remained clean and comfortable. A much easier season than 2011.

Warmer areas started picking in late February/early March and were completed by the end of March while the cooler, elevated areas started at the end of March and werel finished by mid-April.

An extended difference of about one to two weeks more than the average was seen between harvesting in the north and south parts of the region this year.

Yields are slightly down and flavours are looking fantastic with winemakers expressing relief for another year that crops are in the shed and looking promising. A more personal Mornington account was also offered by Rosalie White, from Main Ridge Estate (the first commercial winery in the region).

“Bringing in the grapes at Main Ridge Estate is a traditional harvest festival, involving many friends of the White family. As the vineyard contains many clones of Pinot Noir as well as Chardonnay and Merlot, all of which ripen at different times, vintage continues for up to six weeks.

“The weekend crews are teams of longstanding friends of Main Ridge Estate, many of whom have risen at dawn in suburban Melbourne. Our weekly crew are local friends who pick day after day throughout the entire season. A school holiday bonus is their group of children and teens who swell the ranks.

“2012 is Main Ridge Estate’s 32nd commercial vintage and many of our friends have been involved in every one.

Real people take care of every bunch, reject imperfect fruit, filter out leaves and pine-needles, all of which would

Grapegrowers in the Riverina are thought to have lost up to 30 per cent of the vintage due to widespread flooding in early March. www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

be gobbled up greedily by mechanical harvesting machines. The vintage day continues until lunch time, with the rest of the day devoted to serious eating and drinking.”

NB: Other regions in Victoria, including the Murray Valley, Yarra Valley, and King Valley were invited to participate in this report but no response was forthcoming.

New South Wales Riverina Region-wide flooding in the early March destroyed the hopes of many growers for a promising vintage in the Riverina, in NSW. While mild temperatures at the start of the season allowed for the development of good quality fruit, the flooding meant up to 30% of the vintage was lost.

Riverina Wine Grapes Marketing Board industry development officer Kristy Bartrop said vineyards across the region, most notably in Yenda and along Mirrool Creek, suffered damage with up to a metre of water sitting in their blocks for up to three weeks.

“With Yenda-based wineries Casella Wines, Berton Vineyards and Terrell Estate inaccessible, growers who could gain access to their properties had the compounding issue of finding a place to have the fruit crushed before the imminent disease threat took hold,” Bartrop said.

“Recovery was slow – properties are drying out but are beyond harvestable for any purpose. Now it’s just a process now of figuring out the best way forward.”

Yields were variable, with about 3000 more tonnes of Pinot Gris picked

Much of the Hunter’s red winegrape yield was not harvested due to regular rain in February and March.

this season compared with 2011. All red varieties, particularly Shiraz, were down as a result of the floods in the midst of the red harvest. Final figures on the reduction in total tonnes crushed were not available at the time Grapegrower & Winemaker went to print, but estimates were that the loss could be up to 30,000t.

For the fourth year in a row, prices fell below the cost of production for many contracted growers, but Bartrop says some growers took the opportunity to seek a new buyer for their fruit.

“This proved a good option as spot market fruit was, at times, attracting a better price than the contract price,” she said.

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

15

news

IS YOUR RIESLING UP TO THE CHALLENGE? 13

THE HYATT HOTEL CANBERRA AND ALBERT HALL CANBERRA

8-13 OCTOBER 2 012 A COMPETITION DEDICATED TO RIESLING WINES TO SHOWCASE THE WONDERS OF THE RIESLING VARIETY The Canberra International Riesling Challenge is a unique opportunity for Riesling producers to showcase their product. The Challenge has become an internationally recognised wine show, and is the largest event of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

The 13th Canberra International Riesling Challenge attracts wines from Riesling producing countries around the world.

Judging is conducted on a regional basis which highlights the individual characteristics unique to each wines location in the world.

Ken Helm AM, Chairman Canberra International Riesling Challenge

SO IF YOU THINK IT IS, THEN ENTER. CALENDAR OF EVENTS SEMINAR ON RIESLING EXCELLENCE HOSTED BY CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY

Friday 12 October 2012 Hyatt Hotel Canberra

RIESLING MASTER CLASS Friday 12 October 2012 Albert Hall Canberra

EXHIBITORS AND PUBLIC TASTING Saturday 13 October 2012 Albert Hall Canberra

Bookings for the Seminar and Master Class are essential as spaces are limited.

For more information, visit www.rieslingchallenge.com or email info@rieslingchallenge.com

KEY DATES ENTRIES OPEN 1 JUNE www.rieslingchallenge.com ENTRIES CLOSE 23 JULY | JUDGING 9-11 OCTOBER WINNERS ANNOUNCED AT THE AWARDS PRESENTATION ON 12 OCTOBER 2012 16 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Hunter Valley The Hunter vintage started later than it has in the past few years, but closer to a traditional Hunter season with most picking taking place late January.

While Chardonnay and Verdelho were picked around Australia Day, Semillon was slower to ripen than normal.

Rain was intermittent throughout the white harvest and the majority of fruit was picked. Regular rain throughout February and early March, however, hindered the red harvest, according to Hunter Valley Wine Industry Association secretary Ken Bray.

“The rain contributed to the loss of fruit condition. Much of the red fruit in the valley was not harvested,” Bray said.

“White yields were average, with Semillon up slightly.

Pricing was stable, with little change over the last few years.”

NB: Other regions were contacted and asked to provide a small vintage report, but no response was forthcoming.

Queensland Granite Belt Granite Belt producers were expecting lower than average yields with outstanding quality, according to Jim Barnes, chair of the region’s wine body. Despite rain and overcast weather at the start of the season, growers were able to harvest quality fruit.

“The weather was a problem in the early part of the season with very vigorous growth but a great deal of vigilance prevailed with spraying following the 2011 vintage,” Barnes said.

Barnes says Granite Belt had been lucky not to receive the excesses of wet weather experienced by coast regions in Queensland.

“Quality was good for both reds and whites and prices were comparable with last year,” he said.

“Late in the season there were some fine sunny days which saw disease-free fruit being harvested.”

By January, harvest was well under way with sparkling bases and some Cabernet was still hanging in mid-April.

Wine Australia adopts pay-as-you-go model AUSTRALIAN WINERIES WILL now pay and choose for the market programs they want to participate in after Wine Australia changed its funding structure.

The change comes into force from 1 July and means Australian wine businesses no longer pay for a voluntary set membership fee covering programs in each market. Instead, they will be able to select the activities that best suit their brands.

Wine Australia’s general manager, market development James Gosper says the new model will give Australian wineries more options and greater flexibility.

“We believe our market programs are well established and we are now at the stage where we can build in a bit more flexibility without compromising what we offer,” Gosper said.

The user-pay activities include Australian pavilions at trade shows, on- and off-premise retail promotions, consumerfocussed festivals, sponsorship and events, and Australian category trade and media tastings.

The user-pay model will be used in conjunction with existing strategic marketing activities, funded through the Federal export levy revenue. The levies are used, for example, to cover the costs of maintaining Wine Australia’s international offices but have dropped significantly in the past few years due to a drop in Australian exports.

www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

regional round-up

Wineries look ahead with new markets in mind From varietal celebrations to unique research and international tastings, 2012 is shaping up to be a big year for wineries in the west GREAT SOUTHERN Howard Park plays starring role at opera Western Australia’s largest family-owned winery Howard Park Wines recently showcased its latest wares to about 3000 people at the opera production of La Traviata at Sydney Harbour. As official sponsors of the Handa Opera, the winery took the opportunity to show off its latest Regional Range and MadFish Vera’s Cuvee at the production, which took place from 24 March to 15 April.

Howard Park general manager Amy Burch says the timing was perfect as it coincided with the official release of the new wines.

“The sparkle and glamour of the opera matched perfectly with our MadFish Vera’s Cuvee which launched in WA by Vintage Cellars in March,” Burch said.

Howard Park was given the opportunity to be the sole wine partner for Handa Opera, following its successful partnership with Opera Australia with its Dinner on the Dock events.

Burch said the partnership was a good marketing opportunity.

“Having our wines aligned with these high quality events enables us to promote

May 2012 – Issue 580

Howard Park Wines played the starring role at the production of La Traviata, which was watched by about 3000 people at Sydney Harbour.

the Howard Park philosophy to craft outstanding boutique wines of great subtlety, character, balance and elegance with an uncompromising commitment to quality,” she said.

Wineries prepare for VINEXPO Six wineries from the Great Southern region will travel to Hong Kong in May for VINEXPO – the international wine

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and spirits exhibition for Asia-Pacific.

The Great Southern Development Commission (GSDC) will take the wineries to the exhibition, which takes place 29-31 May. Wineries that will participate are Bunn Vineyard, Ferngrove, Forest Hill, Hay Shed Hill, West Cape Howe and Xabregas.

The wineries hope the exhibition will

Grapegrower & Winemaker

17

regional round-up provide an opportunity to build long-term relationships with trade partners, develop existing relationships, and penetrate new markets across south-east Asia.

On 29 May, there will be a wine school seminar area in the pavilion and ‘Great Southern Wines, Western Australia’ will deliver a presentation on the key varieties of the region.

Following the visit to VINEXPO, the Great Southern delegation will be travelling to Seoul, Korea, for a targeted Great Southern Tasting.

Stay tuned for a bigger article devoted to this tasting in a later issue of Grapegrower & Winemaker.

Forty years of Riesling

SWAN VALLEY Swan Valley Winemakers release Vision for 2012 Swan Valley’s key wine body has released a report that highlights the threats to the Valley and what needs to be done to protect it.

In the document, John Griffiths, president of the Swan Valley and Regional Winemakers Association, calls on the state government and industry to maintain support of the Swan Valley Planning Act, which promotes viticulture and limits subdivision.

As Perth’s population increases over the next 20 years along with the value of the Swan Valley as a recreational area, tracts of agriculture land within the suburban region will become priceless.

He says any further decreases in size would see the Swan Valley losing its critical mass.

“The Swan Valley must be protected so that it continues to offer an attractive rural lifestyle for residents and the ultimate getaway for the people of Perth right in their backyard,” Griffiths said. The Swan Valley is one of the oldest wine regions in Australia with wine and tablegrapes grown in the area since 1830.

To read the full report, visit: www.swanvalleywinemakers.com.au

Plantagenet Wines recently relaunched a new label for its Plantagenet Omrah range.

This year marks 40 years since winemakers started producing Riesling in the Great Southern and the opportunity to celebrate has not been overlooked.

To mark the occasion, producers from four sub-regions of the Great Southern gave the public a chance to taste their Rieslings made from each decade through to the present.

Wineries that took part in the occasion were Alkoomi, Forest Hill, Galafrey, Karrivale, Jingalla, Plantagenet Wines, Howard Park and Harewood. For Jingalla Wines, the 3 March event was a double anniversary, marking 30 years since the Porongurup producer started making its Riesling.

Bordeaux wine importer, John Baker, and est. sommelier Paul Beaton.

This is the first year of the event, known as Bordeaux vs Margaret River, which took place 28 March at The Establishment, in Sydney.

“The event was very well received by guests.

It was a fun and education experience matched with brilliant food,” said Merivale PR and communications manager Brooke Burns.

Franck Moreau MS, Merivale’s group sommelier, orchestrated the event and said the highlight of the event was having Vanya Cullen present.

“As one of the country’s most recognised winemakers, guests really enjoyed her knowledge and enthusiasm for the region.”

MOUNT BARKER Plantagenet refreshes Omrah label

Producers have celebrated 40 years of making Riesling in the Great Southern.

MARGARET RIVER Bordeaux vs Margaret River More than 95 people came together in March to compare and contrast wines from Bordeaux and Margaret River over a five-course meal from three-hatted chef, Peter Doyle.

Award-winning winemaker Vanya Cullen, of Cullen Wines, co-hosted the event along with

18 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Plantagenet Wines have relaunched a new label for its Plantagenet Omrah range to reflect the freshness and cool climate of the Great Southern region.

The first wines to be released under the new design, which was unveiled at the start of April, include a Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Merlot and a Shiraz.

The design resembles tall trees and blue fairy wrens often found in the Great Southern region.

Plantagenet Wines marketing and sales coordinator Adam Portmann hopes it will conjure up images of escapism, relaxation and purity.

“We recognise that Omrah has a different target market to our more traditional Plantagenet wine drinkers. Therefore the design and imagery needs to be consumer-focussed, with more of an endorsement from the Plantagenet brand,” he said. www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

people & places

Wine region unveils sustainability program THE MCLAREN VALE wine region last month launched an Australian-first program to help grapegrowers improve sustainability in the vineyard.

Written by the growers themselves, the McLaren Vale Sustainable Winegrowing Australia program builds on the Generational Farming project, which began in 2010 and could set a benchmark for other regions to follow.

“MVSWA is the first program of its kind in Australia and we expect other regions will follow our lead and adopt the program, tailoring it to their region,” said McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism Association chair Peter Hayes.

Hayes unveiled details of the program last month at the McLaren Vale Bocce Club.

The program has been peer-reviewed

by Australian experts and is independent of farming practices, meaning all growers – conventional, organic and biodynamic – can benefit from participating.

Growers that participate will selfassess areas of their vineyard, including the management of soil health, nutrition, fertilisers, pests and diseases, biodiversity, water, waste and social relations.

They can then review their performance in terms of absolute best practice and against their peers.

Hayes says this approach will allow growers to assess their practices and finetune their business.

More information on MVSWA can be found at www.mclarenvale.info

May 2012 – Issue 580

Martin Suter, grapegrower, and Liz Hugo, from Hugo Wines.

MVGWTA chair Peter Hayes.

Mike Brown, from Gemtree Vineyards, with Jenny Wood, from the NRM Group.

Sue Trott, from Five Geese Wines; James and Carol Banman, from Banman Vineyard; and Mary Retallack, from Retallack Viticulture.

www.winebiz.com.au

Winemakers’ Federation of Australia chief executive Stephen Strachan and Mike Farmilo, from Boar’s Rock.

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letter to the editor

MIS schemes have a place in industry We are writing to respond to an article in the March 2012 issue of Grapegrower & Winemaker that is mainly an interview with Leo Pech.

As directors of two of Australia’s most successful wine/vine MIS businesses we believe the comments attributed to Mr Pech should not go unanswered.

While we acknowledge that he has had some minor input into the success of the Australian wine industry, we notice that every time Pech achieves some publicity he reverts to his old hobby horse of the simple progression of accelerated depreciation resulting in MIS scheme proliferation and, thus, the mass overplanting that ensued. Like the old saying goes, ‘point a finger and three point back at you.’ What is clear is that his statement is manifestly untrue.

Every grapegrower in Australia was entitled to claim the accelerated depreciation provisions. They were a result of the Labor Government of the 1990s giving these advantages, so that they could increase the forerunner to WET (wholesales sales tax on wine rising from 20-26%). Nearly all of the big investor-driven vineyards were

either planned or planted prior to the introduction of the MIS rules in 1998-99.

Both of our companies were developing vineyards long before 1998 and all our projects (totalling almost 2000 hectares) were fully backed by long-term contracts with one or more of the top 10 wine companies in Australia.

While Pech may wish to champion the ‘independent’ grapegrower, he needs to look into a mirror and ask himself why were such large and long-term contracts on favourable terms offered to non-independent growers?

We agree that many of the post-MIS projects were poorly constructed and executed. However, even in the case of Great Southern, they took over vineyards of at least three mid-level wine companies and made it part of the takeover provisions that these wineries pay outstanding payments (many over one year old) to independent grapegrowers.

In the mid-1990s, there were prospectuses issued that contained expert viticultural reports. One group used one of Australia’s well-known viticultural consultants who wrote a glowing report where investors were being asked to pay about $175,000 per hectare. [No, this is not a typing error; it was almost 18 years ago, in a non-proven viticultural area and over twice what it would cost today]. Investors lost everything.

Pech and other MIS bashers need to keep in mind another extremely important fact. These MIS investors could have claimed a 100% tax deduction in a myriad of projects such as almonds, blue gums, etc, but they decided on grapes. We collectively have more than 2000 loyal investors and the vast majority of them are wine drinkers who, like us, find it fascinating that they are being constantly criticised for investing in an industry they believe in and enjoy the produce of their investment.

Pech continues to wax on about how the accelerated depreciation legislation “…saw massive increases in plantings, largely funded by investors who didn’t

Over 10,000 subscribers and increasing daily 20 Grapegrower & Winemaker

need the kind of returns that traditional, full-time grapegrowers need...”. This is pure nonsense and continues to be trotted out by the Leo Pechs of this industry; it is about time it stopped. Most of our investors, unlike other schemes, never received 100% tax deduction in any year and were treated like any other farmer in Australia receiving, as a by-product of the investment, deductions over four to 13 years.

Here are facts as best they can be ascertained: We collated information from nurseries, post and wire suppliers, as well as most large wineries in the early 2000s to see who had planted the 50,000-plus hectare in the 10 years prior.

Around 60-65% was planted by the Pechs of the industry, the independent growers, about 18-22% by the top 10 wineries and around 18-20% by all forms of investing operations and smaller wineries (MIS, friends groups, corporate, city families, etc). Therefore, it was not just the investor types who caused the massive plantings but traditional independent grapegrowers.

Large commercial growers, like our two companies, are now an integral part of the Australian wine industry.

Both signatories to this letter have served (or still serve) on various wine industry committees; we have championed alternative grape varieties when ‘traditional’ growers refused to plant (like Tempranillo, Sangiovese, Dolcetto, Monte, etc) and our respective operations are ‘state of the art’, modern professional grapegrowing operations.

The quality of our fruit is recognised by the wine industry for all of the different price points and quality levels that we service.

Thank you for the opportunity of putting an alternative view to Leo Pech.

Chris Day and Ron Collins, managing director of FABAL Limited and founding director of Blaxland Vineyards Limited, respectively. n Do you have something more to say on this subject? Tell us at editor@grapeandwine.com.au

Drive more traffic to your website with Australia’s LARGEST circulating wine industry enewsletter, contact Nicole Evans on 08 8369 9515

www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

grapegrowing The light touch on wine quality New Zealand study looks at balancing the effects of leaf removal and ultraviolet radiation to influence the biochemical composition of grapes at harvest Professor Brian R. Jordan

Ultraviolet radiation (UV-A: 380-315nm; UV-B: 315-280nm; UV-C: 280-220nm) is a significant component of the light environment, with UV-B being considered the most important component of wavelengths. UV-B remains largely overlooked, considering the potential effects upon grape biochemical composition and subsequent winemaking. UV-B is highly energetic radiation absorbed by a large variety of biological molecules, including DNA, proteins and lipids. Consequently, UV-B radiation can cause direct cellular damage, both to the plant itself and to microbes on exposed surfaces. Plants generally respond by producing a battery of protective compounds, including UV-B absorbing phenylpropanoids and antioxidants. These responses involve complex changes in gene expression that, ultimately, would determine the biochemical composition of the grape.

Interestingly, the biochemical response to UV-B has similarities to the plant’s response to protect itself against pathogens.

However, a number of other factors make predicting the precise response to UV-B difficult. In particular, the response to UV-B varies between species and between varieties of the same species.

May 2012 – Issue 580

The response to UV-B is also determined by other environmental parameters such as light, water, carbon dioxide and temperature. Therefore, it is difficult to predict a response in a particular grape variety and also in the context of future global climate scenarios.

In addition, the UV-B component of the environment will vary with region (e.g. latitude) and geographical location (e.g. altitude).

All of these factors that influence UV-B responses must then be considered in the context of the common viticulture practice of leaf removal during canopy manipulation. This will expose the fruit to UV-B radiation, which can change the biochemical composition, enhance endogenous protection against pathogens and even directly damage pathogens on the fruit surface.

In this short article, I will overview UV-B and leaf removal responses from studies on Sauvignon Blanc growing at Lincoln University, in the cool climate environment of New Zealand.

It is interesting to note that Lincoln University is at an equivalent latitude to Bordeaux, in France, and, yet, receives approximately 30 per cent more UV radiation.

www.winebiz.com.au

A

B

Field experiment to study the effects of canopy manipulation and UV radiation exclusion on Sauvignon Blanc berry composition showing; (A) leaf removal treatments with exposed fruit compared with neighbouring control (full leaf canopy) vines and (B) the positioning of the screens over the exposed fruiting zone.

Grapegrower & Winemaker

21

grapegrowing The consequences of leaf removal In grapevine management, leaf removal is commonly used to reduce humidity and lower disease pressure. As a consequence of leaf removal, the supply of assimilates from the leaf (sugars, amino acids, etc) to the berries will be affected and the berries will also be exposed to higher irradiance, including UV-B, and enhanced temperatures. This practice undoubtedly has effects upon the biochemical composition of the grapes and, consequently, upon the wine.

In addition, the exposure of the fruit to UV radiation will have an effect on the pathogens present on the grapes.

The levels of three important groups of compounds have been investigated in response to leaf removal and exposure to UV radiation: flavonoids, amino acids and methoxypyrazines. Experiments have been carried out in the Lincoln University vineyard over three seasons using UV screening materials placed over Sauvignon Blanc vine fruiting zones. The main treatments include: leaf removal; leaf maintained, screens that transmit all UV, screens that exclude all UV, and screens that only exclude UV-B. The most obvious physical consequence of leaf removal is that following veraison, berries show increased pigmentation in localised spots. Interestingly, no physical symptoms appear until after veraison, despite the fact that the berries were exposed to the highest levels of UV-B prior to veraison. Therefore, the development of the fruit appears to override the UV-B response.

In addition, leaf removal that exposes the fruit will give an increase in flavonoids, which absorb in the UV region and protect the grape from damage. The major flavonoids that increase are known as flavonols and include quercetin and kaempferol. If leaf removal has taken place early in the season and leaf regrowth is allowed to take place then these UV absorbing compounds decline.

Leaf removal post-flowering (early January) will cause flavonoid levels to increase up to veraison compared with maintaining the leaf canopy. The flavonoid level then declines through to harvest and the composition of individual flavonoids is changed compared with pre-veraison.

At all stages of development quercetin3-O-glucuronide accounted for the majority of the flavonoids, followed by quercetin-3-O-glucoside and kaempferol3-O-glucoside. The concentration of quercetin-3-O-glucuronide peaked just before veraison and subsequently declined to harvest, while quercetin-3-Oglucoside and kaempferol-3-O-glucoside increased through development and their levels were greatest at harvest.

22 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Through the use of UV screens we have determined the increase in flavonoids is a direct consequence of UV-B radiation and takes place in the skin cells of the berry. We have also determined that the genes involved in the biosynthesis of these compounds are regulated by UV-B and this is a key mechanism involved in flavonoid production. Temperature is not thought to be involved in this response and, therefore, an increase in berry flavonoids is an excellent indicator of fruit exposure to light/UV-B. Although we have not studied UV-B responses in red grape varieties similar changes are likely to take place.

UV-B is also known to influence other biochemical constituents of plant epidermal cells, such as the levels and biochemical composition of wax. These changes in skin biochemistry should, therefore, be taken into consideration during winemaking manipulations, such as the duration of skin contact.

In contrast, UV-B radiation does not seem to play a major role in determining amino acid levels in Sauvignon Blanc grapes, although in some varieties, notably Riesling, amino acid levels have been reported to respond to UV-B. The levels of amino acids in the berries are, however, strongly influenced by the presence of leaves over the fruiting zone. Maintaining the leaves over the fruiting zone gives higher levels of 16 out of 20 amino acids. This is clearly a significant consideration in respect to yeast-assimilating nitrogen (YAN) for fermentation.

Another important observation is that when leaves are maintained the non-yeast available amino acid, proline, becomes the major amino acid at harvest. This is clearly an issue in terms of the potential for difficulties during fermentation, such as stuck ferments. The timing of leaf removal is being investigated in an effort to reduce this increase in proline accumulation.

The levels of methoxypyrazines have also been found to depend upon leaves over the fruiting zone. With leaves retained, the major methoxypyrazine, IBMP, levels increase to a maximum just prior to veraison and then decline.

With leaves removed pre-veraison the levels are substantially reduced throughout development. The reason for the reduced levels after leaf removal remains unclear. The reason could be the need for the proximal leaves to import methoxypyrazine into the berries, temperature and or light effects as a consequence of this leaf removal. From our studies we do not believe that the reduction in methoxypyrazines is UV-B induced. There is, however, a strong www.winebiz.com.au

variation in methoxypyrazine levels due to different seasonal climates. To elucidate what is happening, the activity of genes thought to be involved in methoxypyrazine biosynthesis are being investigated after leaf removal and in response to UV-B.

The balance The combination of physiological experiments, biochemistry and molecular biology used in the Lincoln University trials is providing understanding of the complex events taking place through vine development and in response to the environment. By understanding the molecular mechanisms involved it should be possible to provide options for the winemaker in terms of a predictable juice composition.

Overall, our results suggest that canopy manipulation at different periods throughout berry development can determine the final biochemical composition of the fruit. An important consideration for the viticulturist is, therefore, to balance the manipulation of the canopy to reduce disease pressure and, yet, optimise the berry chemical composition. It is particularly pertinent to note that disease reduction may be due to UV-B exposure and not just reduced humidity. Consequently optimising trellis design and canopy management for exposure could help to provide the composition/disease reduction balance.

Acknowledgements The author acknowledges the contribution of colleagues at Lincoln University, in particular Scott Gregan and Linlin Liu; Massey University; Plant and Food Research; International collaborators and, in particular, New Zealand wine industry colleagues for sharing their experience and insight.

Financial support has been provided by the Foundation for Research Science and Technology Sauvignon Blanc program, New Zealand Winegrowers, Lincoln University and International Travel Fellowships. This article was adapted from presentations made at the 2011 Bragato conference, in Auckland, New Zealand, and the 8th International Cool Climate Symposium 2012 in Hobart, Tasmania. Further details can be found in Gregan et al. (2012). The effects of solar ultraviolet radiation and canopy manipulation on the biochemical composition of Sauvignon Blanc grapes.

Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research. In press.

Professor Brian R. Jordan is based at the Centre for Viticulture and Oenology, Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, PO Box 84, Lincoln University, Lincoln 7647, Canterbury, New Zealand.

May 2012 – Issue 580

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grapegrowing

More strobilurin-resistant powdery mildew detected in vineyards New advice to help prevent resistance Dr Trevor Wicks and Doug Wilson

POWDERY MILDEW STRAINS resistant to the strobilurin fungicides Amistar, Cabrio and Flint have recently been confirmed in vineyards in Victoria and Western Australia.

Testing of samples of powdery mildew in these vineyards confirmed a high level of the resistant G143A gene – which prevents strobilurin chemistry from binding to the fungus, rendering the strobilurin fungicides ineffective.

The development of these recent strains – as well as a case reported from South Australia last season – signal the need for a different approach to using these products on wine and tablegrapes in Australia.

In Europe and parts of the US where strobilurins have been used for a longer time, resistant strains of both powdery mildew and downy mildew have been causing crop losses in vineyards since the early 2000s.

The South Australian vineyard with the first confirmed Australian case of strobilurin resistance had received four consecutive sprays of strobilurins; the site also had a history of

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A bunch of Chardonnay grapes infected with powdery mildew despite a robust spray program that included two strobilurin applications. Samples of mildew taken from this bunch were tested in Germany and confirmed to be resistant to the strobilurin fungicides.

trials that included more applications than is now recommended.

Aiming to avoid further development of resistant strains in Australian vineyards, a resistance management strategy for strobilurin use was introduced last year, recommending that no more than two strobilurin sprays be applied to grapevines per season.

Since their introduction for use on grapes more than 10 years ago, strobilurin fungicides have provided excellent control of both powdery and downy mildew in Australian vineyards – and they still have a place for their effectiveness against downy mildew, in spite of these recent reports of powdery mildew resistance in more vineyards.

The strobilurins are most effective when applied around flowering.

As the occurrence of resistance to powdery mildew and potential crop loss cannot be predicted, growers are advised to tank mix any strobilurin fungicide with the registered rate of another powdery mildew fungicide as a further precaution.

A number of fungicides with different modes of action are registered for the control of powdery mildew on vines, and most will be suitable to mix with a strobilurin fungicide.

Compatibilities of different mixes should always be checked with the manufacturers before mixing.

In recent trials, good control of both downy and powdery mildew was achieved with spray programs that included different fungicides before and after flowering – with a tank mix of Filan and Cabrio applied at early flowering, followed by either Vivando, Legend or Prosper at capfall.

Dr Trevor Wicks is the senior research scientist in horticulture pathology at the South Australia Research and Development Institute. He can be contact on phone: 08 8303 9563 or email: trevor.wicks@sa.gov.au. Doug Wilson is the research and development projects coordinator at Nufarm and Crop Care.

He can be contact on phone: 03 9282 1427, mobile: 0427 806 386 and email: doug.wilson@au.nufarm.com

www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

Recovery of grapevines from fire damage Research offers new advice on managing vines after a fire, with consideration given to the timing and severity of the fire and value of the grapevines to justify the cost of remedial treatments

John Whiting

IN RECENT YEARS, bushfires have impacted on grapegrowing in several states. Climate change projections suggest hotter and drier conditions are likely to increase the risk of annual fire events by 4-25 per cent across southern Australia by 2020 (Hennessy et al. 2005). One consequence of bushfires has been the direct burning of grapevines in vineyards. The effects in vineyard blocks can be patchy and sporadic, making it difficult to undertake research studies. Several instances of grapevine damage and recovery have been reported in the Adelaide Hills and Yarra Valley (Wilkinson and Collins 2010, Scarlett et al.

2011).

Following a fire in a vineyard near Redesdale, Victoria, on 7 February 2009, a pilot study was made on pruning treatments applied to burnt Shiraz vines grafted to 5C Teleki rootstock to assess vine recovery. In addition, this report includes observations on vine recovery in several other blocks in the Redesdale vineyard, as well as observations from a fire in a vineyard at Mafeking in 2006. Any remedial response to direct fire damage to grapevines will depend on the timing and severity of the fire and the value of the grapevines to justify the cost of remedial treatments.

Pruning treatments applied after the fire In early March 2009, five pruning treatments were applied to one row of vines burnt by a bushfire and observations and measurements made at several stages after that. The level of damage was classed as severe (Figure 1) (see also

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Figure 1. Fire damage to the outside rows of the vineyard block used in the study compared with undamaged vines in the background.

May 2012 – Issue 580

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Scarlett et al. 2011). Measurements included the number and length of shoots that grew after the fire, and budburst and fruitfulness assessments in the following season. Several other blocks of vines on the property were also monitored. Vine survival was assessed in several ways based on observation of the canopy after the fire, trunk incision before budburst and assessing vines that made strong and healthy growth in the following season. Bud dissections were also used to assess bud viability and fruitfulness during dormancy.

The vines had previously been cane pruned and the trial pruning treatments were applied about three weeks after the fire. There were five replications of the pruning treatments, which were: • no pruning (control) • cordon removed back to a crown, replacement spurs retained (crown) • cordon retained and shoots pruned to 2-3 node spurs to simulate mechanical pruning (long spurs) • cordon retained and shoots pruned to short spurs (short spur) • cordon removed and new canes laid down (cane).

The observations and measurements in the Redesdale study were made at three stages: in autumn before leaffall (April 2009), just prior to budburst (September 2009) and just after flowering (December 2009). Data was analysed by two-way analysis of variance.

Results Severity of fire The intensity of the fire varied considerably across the vineyard (Figure 1) and even within a block of vines. Generally, the end of the rows and the sides of the vine blocks facing the oncoming fire suffered the greatest. In the Redesdale situation, the fire primarily ran across grassed paddocks into the vineyard. Damage diminished further into the block, where the radiant heat only came from the remaining grass sward between the rows. The leaf and trunk damage observed in the trial row was equivalent to the severe rating described by Scarlett et al. (2011).

April 2009 The vines in the pruning trial were assessed for survival by recording those vines that showed regrowth after the fire.

At that stage, 50% of the vines overall showed regrowth and there were no significant differences between the treatments (Table 1). Most of the buds on the control vines remained dormant and where vines were pruned back hard (crown, short spur) a much higher proportion of buds burst.

The control treatment produced significantly more shoots per vine than the other four treatments and the long spur treatment produced more shoots than cane pruning. While total shoot length was greatest on the control and long spur treatments, differences were not significant due to high vineto-vine variability.

VINE TALK Growers mostly appreciate the importance of an effective fungicide resistance management strategy. However, herbicide resistance management is often overlooked. With vintage mostly behind us for the season it is timely to consider your weed management strategy for the coming season.

Adopting an Integrated Weed Management (IWM) approach is the key to minimising the risk of weeds developing resistance to commonly used herbicides such as glyphosate. Courtesy of the University of Adelaide’s Dr. Chris Preston and the Australian Glyphosate Sustainability Working Group, here is the latest information on glyphosate resistance and some key points to ensure its sustainable use.

“The first documented case of glyphosate resistance in Australia was a population of annual ryegrass (Lolium rigidum) or ARG in Victoria in 1996. There are now 309 confirmed populations of resistant ARG across Vic, NSW, SA and WA. Vineyards account for 21 of these and 63 along fence lines. In addition, since 2007, resistance has been confirmed in populations of awnless barnyard grass (21), liverseed grass (3), windmill grass (2) and fleabane (49).”

The good news is that all of these have occurred where glyphosate (Group M) has been used for 15 years or more, with little or no alternative control methods. Reducing your reliance on glyphosate and implementing effective IWM can be achieved by following these key points: • Use herbicides with alternate modes of action including preemergent herbicides • Use a double knock strategy where a glyphosate application is followed by tillage or the full label rate of SPRAY.SEED (Group L) • Adopt physical control practices ie tillage, mowing, grazing, mulching • Prevent any possible herbicide resistant weeds from setting seed • Maintain low weeds numbers • Ensure good vineyard hygiene especially considering stock and machinery • Utilise cover crops to compete with weeds Where herbicides are used it is important to understand what application rates, methods and environmental conditions will achieve the optimum results. Knockdowns will be more effective and require a lower rate when targeting small weeds. Remember weeds may appear small and still have an established root system if they have been cut, grazed or sprayed previously so it is best to dig some up and check.

Pre-emergent herbicides work best with bare soil and the right rainfall or irrigation conditions.

Note that these IWM techniques will be more or less suitable in different vineyards and it’s important to understand what will and won’t work given your particular situation.

More detailed information can be found online: Preston, C. (2012) Australian Glyphosate Resistance Register. Australian Glyphosate Sustainability Working Group. www.glyphosateresistance.org.au

Table 1. Vine response to fire damage after 10 weeks.

Treatment

% vines alive

Approx. % buds that burst

Shoots per vine

Shoot length per vine (cm)

Control

71.6

61.5

20.9

347

Crown

50.0

50.0

2.7

73

Long spur

48.4

46.1

10.8

310

Short spur

60.0

42.9

7.9

110

Cane

65.0

50.0

2.0

59

Sig.(LSD) NS

NA

P=0.003 (8.4)

NS

Sig. (LSD)

NS = not significant, NA = not applicable.

May 2012 – Issue 580

Richard Lillingstone B.Ag.Sc. M.Oen Technical Services Lead - Viticulture Syngenta Crop Protection richard.lillingstone@syngenta.com - 0407 868 697 For details, please call the Syngenta technical product advice line on 1800 067 108 or visit www.syngenta.com.au

www.winebiz.com.au

Grapegrower & Winemaker

27

grapegrowing September 2009 Vines were assessed for survival using a trunk incision method similar to Scarlett et al. (2011). An incision was made in the trunk below the graft union. The incision was made with a grafting knife, sufficiently deep enough to expose the cambium, phloem and 1-2mm into the xylem (internal wood). Undamaged tissue remained white or tinged with green and was moist. Damaged tissue was pale yellow to light brown and partially

Figure 2. Healthy tissue (left), damaged tissue (middle) and dead tissue (right).

dry, while dead tissue was brown and completely dry (Figure 2).

Overall survival was assessed as 51.5% and there were no apparent impacts of pruning treatment on vine survival, similar to the April 2009 assessment. Bud samples from canes that had grown before the fire (old canes) and after the fire (new canes) were collected prior to pruning.

These were dissected to assess the viability of primary and secondary buds, along with the presence of inflorescence initials in the primary bud. In the ‘old canes’, 16% of the primary buds were dead and there were, on average, 1.24 inflorescence initials per bud. In the ‘new canes’, 4% of the primary buds were dead but no inflorescence initials were detected. In both ‘new’ and ‘old’ nodes, viable secondary buds were present in all cases.

December 2009 After the September assessment, many vines had been pruned back fairly hard beyond any suspect damaged tissue.

Nodes per vine were counted and the only apparent difference was the short spur treatment had more buds retained than long spur (12.9 vs 2.9, respectively).

An assessment of vine viability was made after flowering, based on healthy strong growth. Some vines that did not burst or had poor growth had been replaced. The earlier estimates of survival were optimistic compared with the number of vines that were growing healthily in the season following the fire (Table 2). Estimates of survival with the

28 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Figure 3. Poor regrowth on fire damaged vines in the season following the fire.

initial observations and trunk incision technique were similar but after budburst in October 2009 some vines grew initially and then collapsed, and others produced very poor growth (Figure 3). All vines that did not look strong and healthy were removed and replaced.

Table 2. Per cent survival of grapevines at several stages after fire damage in Feb 2009.

Assessment

Method

April 2009

Observation

% survival 50.0

September 2009

Trunk incision

51.5

December 2009

Observation

29.4

Since more than 70% of the vines had been replaced, it was not feasible to statistically analyse the results. However the control and short spur treatments had the highest shoot number and bunch number per vine. Across all vines that survived, percentage budburst was around 80% and bunch number per node was around 0.53. There were no unburnt vines nearby to compare with but a typical bunch number per vine estimated from a combination of bud numbers per vine, % budburst and bunch numbers per node, would be about 30 bunches per vine. Across all the fire-damaged vines in the trial row bunch number per vine was reduced by an estimated 57-97%.

Other observations Hard pruning back to basal nodes was implemented in a block of Vermentino vines in the Redesdale vineyard immediately after the fire. Shoots that www.winebiz.com.au

grew after the fire had inflorescences on them, but by April, they had just flowered and did not produce a viable harvest.

During winter pruning, the spurs were pruned to 1-2 node spurs. In December 2009, the regrowth was strong with an average of 1.3 shoots per count node. The shoots that grew were primarily from the post-fire growth and fruitfulness was very low at 0.13 bunches per shoot.

Another block of Shiraz on the property was less affected by fire, with only sporadic leaf desiccation and no post-fire treatments were applied. The vines were cane pruned during the winter and observations in December 2009 showed regrowth was strong (1.1 shoots per count node) and the potential crop (1.6 clusters per shoot) was similar to expectations from non-fire affected vines.

The crop was left on some vines in another block, which incurred minimal fire damage but smoke taint was evident in wine made from the grapes. Within vine-row drip lines were able to be replaced immediately after the fire but other damage to irrigation infrastructure delayed the application of water to the vines.

Discussion Assessment of fire damage The visual assessment of vine survival and the trunk incision method showed similar results (about 50% survival), however, both were an over-estimate of vine recovery after budburst in the following season (about 30% survival).

May 2012 – Issue 580

Scarlett et al. (2011) reported four methods for assessing vine viability after fire but no data was presented to show how well those assessments related to vine survival in the following season. Based on similar proportions of vines with cambium damage in this work (50%) and in Scarlett et al. (2011) (55%), and the extent of leaf desiccation, all the vines used in the post-fire pruning trial were severely damaged by fire.

Different fire damage situations probably require different damage assessments. After a fire, the first decision is usually whether to retain a block of vines and continue to manage them or to undertake no further management and remove the block.

Retaining a severely damaged block may require the replacement and retraining of many vines – a costly exercise.

Above a certain threshold of damage it may be better to clear all the vines and consider replanting the complete block with vines that can be managed all at the same stage of development.

For large blocks of vines with substantial fire damage, mapping the extent of damage by visual inspection followed by trunk staining or trunk incision of a random sample of vines would provide enough information to determine what to do.

Scarlett et al. (2011) favoured trunk staining to confirm vine viability but cambium viability determined by trunk incision also correlated well with severity of fire damage. Mapping the damage may lead to a decision to only remove sections of a block to lessen the need for replanting.

On smaller blocks or blocks with more valuable vines, such as heritage vines or special varieties, a vine-by-vine assessment may be required and visual assessment and trunk incision would be preferable. The trunk incision is not destructive and enables the vine to be retained after confirming it is still viable.

Conducting this assessment soon after a fire enables an early order to be placed with nurseries about how many vines are needed for replacements, remembering the assessment may be an over-estimate of survival into the following season.

Latent bud analysis immediately after a fire is timeconsuming and probably not useful in determining whether or not a block of damaged vines should be retained or removed.

Collecting the information later in early winter would be useful in determining how to prune fire-affected vines. Even on severely fire-damaged vines many buds are viable and bud analysis at various node positions along the cane would assist in determining the length of bearer (short spur, long spur or cane) that should be retained.

Wilkinson and Collins (2010) reported substantial reductions in shoot and bunch number per vine in the season following fire damage where vines were pruned to two-bud spurs and they suggested longer spurs or cane pruning may be beneficial.

However, they did not describe whether the spurs were from

wood that had grown before or after the fire. In the current trial shoots arising from post-fire growth had low fruitfulness and those arising from pre-fire growth had reasonable fruitfulness of 1.24 bunches per bud. From a potential cropping aspect there was little difference between spur and cane pruning in the Redesdale trial but this result needs to be tested elsewhere in a more systematic way.

Pruning immediately after fire damage Growers generally want to consider some form of remedial action, such as pruning immediately after a fire. The results of this trial and other observations would suggest no advantage in cutting vines back and generating fresh growth. New growth relies on stored carbohydrate for the initial growth phase and the short period of subsequent growth is insufficient to replace the carbohydrate in the trunk and roots before the leaves senesce.

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

29

grapegrowing No viable crop is produced from the regrowth but this may differ if the fire damage occurs earlier in the season. Even the unpruned vines produced regrowth but some of the carbohydrate used for growth could come from existing canes.

My advice “Fire damage across a block of grapevines can be patchy and, in smaller vineyards, the viability of vines can be assessed

Timing of fire damage This and other reports (Scarlett et al. 2011, Wilkinson and Collins 2010) studied fire damage occurring in February or March. At that stage of the season, there is insufficient time to ripen any crop produced on the regrowth, nor to produce fruitful buds for use in the following season.

If fire damage occurred earlier, say from November to December, regrowth may have enough time to ripen a crop from secondary buds and to produce fruitful buds for the following season. Fire damage at an early stage of the season would be akin to the regrowth observed with double pruning and provide limited time for the vine to accumulate and store carbohydrate.

Hence a decision on whether to apply remedial treatments immediately after a fire may be different if fire occurs earlier

Fire intensity and response The intensity of fire can vary considerably across a vineyard or a block of vines, as illustrated in previous articles (Wilkinson and Collins 2010, Scarlett et al. 2011). This results in a wide range of damage to the vines, making it difficult to apply standard remedial treatments across blocks of vines. The ends of rows and sides of blocks facing the fire front have the greatest fire/heat damage whereas heat from a burning slashed interrow sward is low. Flammable under-vine materials, such as straw and hay, exacerbate the heat around the vines and total kill of vines has been observed. Less flammable mulches may create

individually and non-destructively. Any crop on damaged vines should be moved but vines do not need to be pruned back if damage occurs after fruitset,” John Whiting, DPI.

fewer problems. Leaf damage is easily observed (Scarlett et al.

2011) and scorched leaves alone are not usually fatal. However, greater leaf damage reflects greater radiant heat on the cordon and trunk, and it is the superheated cell water in the trunk and cordon that causes tissue damage and decreases the ability of the vines to survive.

It is the level of fire intensity that will determine any recovery after the vines have been burnt. Low intensity fire damage (minimal leaf desiccation, no trunk damage) appears to have little effect on growth and fruitfulness in the following season and no post-fire pruning is required.

Medium intensity fire damage (incomplete leaf desiccation, some secondary budburst after the fire, minimal trunk damage) also appears to have minimal effect on budburst in the following season but there may be a reduction in fruitfulness.

Some vines may have more internal damage than expected and they may grow poorly or collapse in the following season. No post-fire pruning is required.

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May 2012 – Issue 580

Pruning after fire Some points about the five pruning treatments trialled were

Control (no treatment after fire) • no cost involved • pre-fire cane growth is available for cane pruning next season if bud assessments deem basal bud fruitfulness is poor • there is relatively high total regrowth after the fire, which will draw down stored carbohydrate.

Pruning back to a crown • a cost involved • regrowth after fire is not very fruitful so there is limited crop in the following season • the low amount of shoot growth may not reduce stored carbohydrate much.

High intensity fire damage (complete leaf desiccation, numerous secondary budburst after fire, obvious trunk damage) is usually sustained where the fire front hits a vineyard and from the burning of dense grass and/or straw mulch applied along the vine row. If a substantial amount of trunk damage has occurred, the vines are unlikely to survive and no remedial treatment can be justified. If the damage is extensive across a block, complete removal and replanting is an option. If the trunk is only partially damaged (>50% trunk viability), vines could be left unpruned or pruned back to short spurs.

Conclusions The variability of fire damage encountered in this pilot study with

Cordon retained, long spurs (simulated mechanical pruning) • a cost involved but, if mechanised, it’s the cheapest of the four methods trialled • relatively moderate fruitfulness in the following season • there is relatively high total regrowth after the fire, which will draw down stored carbohydrate.

Cordon retained, short spurs • relatively good recovery in % budburst and bunches per vine in the following season from pre-fire buds • if post-fire growth is used for winter pruning and shoots are pruned back to basal nodes, the fruitfulness is very low • relatively moderate to low regrowth may not reduce stored carbohydrate much.

uncontrolled fire has made it difficult to be conclusive about remedial actions.

Seasonal timing and the intensity of the event will both affect the potential damage to the vine. A better assessment of grapevine response to fire damage could be made by controlled burning of vines, perhaps with a system of gas burners. For low and medium intensity fire damage, remedial pruning after the fire is not justified and vine survival is likely to be high and crop reductions in the following year minimal. High intensity fire damage can kill vines and if the proportion of dead vines is high, a decision will be required on the value of attempting to rejuvenate the surviving vines versus removing all vines and replanting.

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Cane pruning • a cost involved (highest cost) • relatively low regrowth that may not reduce stored carbohydrate much • relatively moderate fruitfulness in the following season • cane pruning could not be maintained in the following season due to insufficient hardening of the regrowth to form a viable length of hardened off cane.

Summary • if the decision is made to retain fire damaged vines, then none of the remedial treatments tried could justifiably be applied due to the cost and the ability of untreated vines to recover just as well or better than treated vines.

Acknowledgements Sincere thanks to Chris Gillies and John Williams for providing access to their vineyard.

John Whiting is senior horticulture biosecurity officer at the Department of Primary Industries, PO Box 3100 Bendigo DC, Vic. 3554. He can be contacted on email: John.Whiting@dpi.vic.gov.au

References

Hennessy K, Lucas C, Nicholls N, Bathols J, Suppiah R and Ricketts J (2005) Climate change impacts on fire-weather in south-east Australia. Consultancy report by CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Bushfire CRC and Australian Bureau of Meteorology, http://www.cmar.csiro.au/e-print/open/ hennessykj_2005b.pdf.

Scarlett N, Needs S and Downey MO (2011) Assessing vineyard viability after bushfire. Aust. NZ Grapegrower Winemaker 564:21-25.

Wilkinson K and Collins C (2010) Grapevine recovery following fire damage. Aust. NZ Grapegrower Winemaker 556:42-43.

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New legislation for securing rights over fruit New legislation called the Personal Property Security Act (PPSA) will improve grower rights to reclaim their fruit, or the value of it, from financially stressed purchasers who can’t pay their debts.

The legislation came into effect in January 2012 and replaces the need to use the contract clause known as Retention of Title (ROT).

A ROT clause specifies when ownership passes from the seller (grower) to buyer and the wine industry’s Code of Conduct states that an “… agreement must state when title in the winegrapes passes from the winegrape grower to the winegrape purchaser”.

The specified point of hand-over in title is usually when full payment has been made. That is, until the fruit is paid for, it remains the property of the grower. If the buyer becomes insolvent and is, therefore, unable to pay for the grapes, they should be returned to the grower.

The first difficulty with ROT clauses is that a grower’s grapes are

hard to identify when a purchaser is in possession of them – because they are mixed with others or, creating even greater difficulties, when they are converted into wine. Nevertheless, a ROT clause gives the seller some recourse to reclaim the value of their grapes from the sale of the resultant wine.

The second difficulty then arises. If a business becomes insolvent, the value of its assets (including the wine) goes first of all to ‘secured’ creditors and ‘unsecured’ creditors will be paid only if there is any value left over. Growers are, unfortunately, unsecured creditors in these transactions.

However, the new PPSA legislation makes the provision for growers to become secured creditors. Moreover, because as a secured creditor, the grower draws on the asset value of the business rather than regaining the original fruit, the problems of fruit co-mingling and conversion into wine is overcome. To access the rights provided in the PPSA, certain things have to happen:

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• a contract that is compliant with the PPSA legislation needs to exist (for example, it will need a ROT clause).

• the buyer needs to agree to the contract being jointly registered on the Personal Property Security Register (PPSR).

• registration on the PPSR will involve a small charge. Registration can be done by an agent or it can be done by the grower on a government-controlled website.

The reader should note that this article does not represent legal advice but rather, a non-expert interpretation of the PPSA provisions. Independent legal advice is recommended. The benefits could be great, particularly with the challenging conditions currently in the wine sector. There are a number of law firms that are responding to the new legislation by providing advice and services including registration of contracts.

Written and submitted by Lawrie Stanford, Wine Grape Growers Australia.

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grapegrowing

Cool wine regions to benefit from research on new pathogen RESEARCH IS UNDER way to control the spread of a recently identified pathogen, which caused up to 80 per cent fruit loss in the Tumbarumba region.

The National Wine and Grape Industry Centre (NWGIC) will be home to the research after scientists at the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) identified the new pathogen as Pseudomonas syringae pv. Syringae (Pss).

The pathogen, which favours cool and moist conditions, is thought to be most problematic in cool wine regions where many growers use overhead sprinkler systems to prevent frost damage, unintentionally creating conditions in which Pss thrives.

NSW DPI research scientist Dr Melanie Weckert said the new research aims to develop a better understanding of Pss and will hopefully lead to effective management strategies.

“We have confirmed that Pss was responsible for bacterial inflorescence rot (BIR) which damaged young bunches in the Tumbarumba vineyards during the last two seasons,” Weckert said.

“Now, we’re able to focus on control measures with a trial of six different treatments in the form of soil drenches

and trunk injections, currently under way in Tumbarumba.”

The NWGIC and Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation decided to fund a doctoral study into the effect of Pss on grapevines after evidence of Pss was detected in sap from the damaged vines.

“We found that Pss overwinters in the trunk and buds, which explains why copper fungicide sprays have been ineffective in stopping the spread of BIR in Tumbarumba,” Weckert said.

“Once it has spread to the trunk we are unable to prune the infected section.”

The NSW DPI is working directly with growers in the Tumbarumba district and running vine health field days with the NWGIC to keep growers up-to-date with research progress.

Though Pseudomonas syringae affects many horticultural crops, it has not previously been seen as a serious threat to winegrapes. Mild symptoms of Pss in winegrapes were first recorded in South Australian vineyards during spring 2000.

The pathogen has rarely occurred in grapevines overseas, with cases recorded in Argentina, Sardinia and Azerbaijan in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Doctoral student Stewart Hall exploring the effect of Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae (Pss) on grapevines under the supervision of NSW Department of Primary Industries research scientist Dr Melanie Weckert.

Image supplied by Sharon Kiss, NSW DPI.

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May16/03/12 2012 – Issue 580 12:36 PM

grapegrower

John Schiller is a grapegrower in the Barossa Valley, owning and operating 56.5

hectares of vineyard north of Nuriootpa while running his own contracting business for local vignerons. After completing year 11 at Nuriootpa High school, Schiller bought a 12 hectare neglected vineyard, which went on to produce grapes for Penfolds’ Grange in 1996 and 1998. After a serious motorbike accident, Schiller changed roles and became a vineyard supervisor at Penfolds’ Kalimna Vineyards. Schiller left Penfolds in 1998 and bought farm land at Ebenezer, where he concentrated on developing his own vineyard and contracting business.

What inspired you to work in viticulture and how have you got to where you are now?

After being born and bred on a vineyard, the last thing I wanted to pursue as a career was grapegrowing.

My first love was machinery and cars, so successfully receiving a motor mechanic apprenticeship at 16 was a dream come true. I was slowly drawn back to what I grew up with and realised that both vineyard and well self-maintained machinery went hand-in-hand.

What aspect of your work do you get the most satisfaction from?

The most enjoyable aspect about running a vineyard is taking a bare patch of land, developing it and, finally, picking the first bunches of grapes. That is truly ‘seeing the fruits of your labour’. Striving to produce the right balance of the vine to make the best wine possible is a rewarding challenge.

Who do you think is the most influential person in the Australian wine industry today?

I don’t personally know these people but I am very aware of Jane Ferrari, Yalumba’s communications and brand ambassador, and Peter Gago, Penfolds’ chief winemaker and promoter, and the work they do in promoting their particular wines and the Australian wine industry.

What is your favourite time in the vineyard and why?

Vintage is by far my favourite time.

It’s when all the hard work throughout the year comes to fruition. This time, however, is often very challenging and stressful, but the end result is rewarding.

What do you like to do when you’re not working in vineyards?

In my spare time, I love tinkering and inventing things in my workshop. I particularly love old cars, old motorbikes, old tractors and, in general, all things old.

I am also a passionate football supporter, spending most weekends following my son’s football career with Central District Football Club. I enjoy sailing, swimming, good food, great wine and quality time with friends and family.

May 2012 – Issue 580

It is interesting to see the practices other grapegrowers use from all different regions to grow grapes. I find there are always new and innovative machinery developments to read about. Thanks for a great read.

What keeps you awake at night?

Usually nothing can keep me awake at night, however, rain during vintage has been known to cause a few restless sleeps.

What has been the best business decision you’ve made for your business?

How do you de-stress after vintage?

Leasing my father’s vineyard in 2006 has been a really great and rewarding challenge. The fruit from this vineyard has proved quite valuable because of its age and has produced some quality wine.

Just having the last bunch of grapes picked causes an instant stress relief.

Catching up with friends that we have neglected during vintage over a nice meal and a bottle of wine proves to be an excellent remedy, too.

From a research and development perspective, is there one single piece of research in the wine industry that has really influenced you or your directions in viticulture?

What was the last big-ticket equipment purchase you made for your business?

Would you recommend the equipment to colleagues?

The last piece of equipment I bought was a John Deere 6330 tractor three years ago that we use to pull our grape harvester. I have found the tractor to be very reliable and it has proven to be a great asset to our business. www.winebiz.com.au

I am always on the lookout for new techniques that are proven to help enhance my vineyard and the development of machinery to cut down on operating costs.

The Ark question. The world is flooding... which two wines (white and red) would you take onto the Ark?

I wouldn’t waste the space with a white wine but would definitely take a 2006 Grange and a Whistler Wines Mother Port.

Grapegrower & Winemaker

35

pre-winter planning

Composting marc onsite for economic and environmental gains Wineries find benefits using grape marc in the vineyard Kellie Arbuckle

MCLA R EN VALE WINERY d’Arenberg is composting unwanted Post-harvest grape marc for use on vineyard care problematic vineyards to improve soil quality and reduce disposal costs.

Since 2001, the winery has engaged local composting and garden supply company Peats Soils to compost the grape marc – a resource that the winery’s viticulturist says has proven valuable for conditioning problem soils.

“The grape marc as compost delivers moisture retention, organic carbon and can help free-drain the soil – all benefits that can lead to better quality grapes,” said d’Arenberg viticulturist Giulio Dimasi, who uses the product on d’Arenberg’s Biscay soils and Blanchetown clays.

The marc is mixed with about onethird of seed mulch, which introduces microbes that will start the composting process. It is then batched into windrows and turned over regularly over a period of about 12 weeks to provide consistency through the pile. Before each turn, the compost is also monitored to ensure the temperatures have reached the required levels before it is ready for spreading.

In addition to improving soil quality, the winery has also benefited from cost savings. Prior to composting the marc, d’Arenberg would send the grape marc away for distillery.

Dimasi says the process became unviable when the price of alcohol dropped.

“Historically, we used to pay a company to distil the grape marc and

return the alcohol to us. In the end, it wasn’t viable – we had to pay them to take the material and we had to decide whether we wanted to keep paying for that or lower our costs,” he said.

“Distilling prices are really quite low now and the extraction rate of alcohol from marc is very low, which means it’s a costly process with a poor return.”

In 2001, d’Arenberg sent the grape marc off for compositing but, after identifying another avenue of cost savings, d’Arenberg eventually commissioned Peats Soils to compost the material onsite.

In doing so, Dimasi estimates the winery is saving about $5 a cubic metre in transport.

“The processing costs are similar but

My advice I would have to quote a piece of advice given to me at an irrigation and soils seminar I attended more than 20 years ago. There was a guest speaker from a large vineyard in South Africa who was talking about soil moisture monitoring. He said: “Buy yourself a gold-handled shovel. You will never let a gold-handled shovel go – you’ll always have it with you.”

He was emphasising the need to walk the vineyard and dig the soil... that carrying a shovel around with you all the time is beneficial, so you can actually get your hands dirty. If you don’t get your hands dirty, you will miss a lot of things. Soil is so interactive that you need to be involved with it,” Giulio Dimasi, d'Arenberg.

The site at d’Arenberg winery where the grape marc is composted.

At Peats Soil we supply certified composts and mulches to improve soil health, provide vital nutrients and protect against moisture loss and weed invasion.

We also carry a range of manures to suit a wide variety of applications and soil requirements.

Renovate your soil now and reap the rewards next vintage Call us today for a free no obligation quote

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May 2012 – Issue 580

pre-winter planning Wineries using grape marc as compost

Compost, including grape marc, being spread on a vineyard at d’Arenberg, in McLaren Vale.

obviously, a thousand cubic metres put on a truck and taken away for processing only for it to be returned makes it a costly thing – there’s no use transporting it offsite just to bring it back in,” said Dimasi, who spends $15 a cubic metre composting 1000 cubic metres of grape marc.

Despite the soil and economic benefits, there are some limitations. As grape marc contains high levels of potassium, using grape marc as compost has the potential to increase pH levels in wine.

The marc can also contain high levels of nitrogen, which can also be detrimental to wine quality, which means it needs to be heavily composted for nitrogen values to reduce.

“I think it’s a good way of utilising the

d’Arenberg viticulturist Giulio Dimasi says grape marc as compost increases soil carbon and moisture retention.

product if you have the need for it in your vineyard,” Dimasi said.

“At the end of the day, it depends on the vineyard requirements. If we didn’t have problematic soils in portions of the vineyard, then I wouldn’t bother.”

Dimasi says there is a trend for wineries to use grape marc as a compost and encourages wineries, particularly those that are waste conscious, to consider it as an option.

“There are a lot of small wineries that don’t know what to do with grape marc and, as they get bigger, they have started relationships with companies who compost it for them, which is a good thing,” he said.

“Some very small wineries use the grape marc as feedlot material but there is definitely a recognised direction in recycling all grape marc into compost.”

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Compost for Soils is a national program that intends to spread knowledge about the benefits of compost in a variety of soils and applications. A number of wineries have worked with the program to provide case studies on these benefits.

Here are a couple of examples of wineries using grape marc as compost with other organic material and the benefits they have reaped.

De Bortoli Wines (Yarra Valley, Victoria) have been making its own compost using grape marc, coarse wood chips and hay. By using compost, De Bortoli Wines have increased earthworm numbers and beneficial soil fungi. It has also maintained high levels of organic matter and increased moisture retention in its soils.

Kalleske Wines (Greenock, Barossa Valley) make its compost from a combination of grape marc, chaff dust, hay waste, basalt fines, gypsum, lime, humates, composted cow manure and chicken manure. Biodynamic compost preparations are also added. Vigneron Kym Kalleske said using compost over the last nine years has continually improved the health of the soil. The soil now holds more moisture, is more friable and earthworm numbers have increased.

Treasury Wine Estates (Fleurieu vineyards in Victoria, McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek in SA). Over the years, Treasury Wine Estates has tried a wide range of mulches, including grape marc, manures, straw, rice husks. Its best results have been achieved with the two composted blends they now use. The company has measured a range of benefits from using compost mulch at its Fleurieu vineyards, including stronger vines, increased yields and leaf greenness and improvements in the root system and soil health. Infiltration of irrigation was also improved.

For more information, visit: www.compostforsoils.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

Forcing fruit quality in hot climates Frank Smith

CLIMATE CHANGE IS upon us and it seems unlikely that world leaders can cobble together an agreed carbon pollution reduction program in time to prevent a 2˚C rise in average temperatures by 2050.

That’s equivalent to moving Margaret River north to the Swan Valley.

Rainfall patterns are also changing.

For example, in the southwest of WA precipitation has decreased by 15 per cent since 1976 and is projected to fall a further 9-20% by 2030.

Even if all carbon dioxide emissions were turned off tomorrow some Australian scientists predict it will be drier and warmer for the next 20 years, according to Tom Lyons, Professor of Environmental Science at Murdoch University.

A result of the changing climate already being acknowledged in most wine regions is that ripening dates are getting earlier.

Pruning

Later harvests A study by Dr Leanne Webb and co-workers at the University of Melbourne and CSIRO, using 64 years of data, found that maturation dates had advanced by eight days per decade in southern Australia. Other reports from France and Germany conclude ripening is eight and

four days earlier per decade, respectively.

But not all of the change in ripening date is due to climate.

Webb’s group found that warmer growing season temperatures, lower soil moisture and lower crop yields all independently drive earlier ripening.

Two separate mechanisms appear to be acting – hotter autumns and drier soils. Grape ripening is largely controlled by temperature, not day length as in many other plant species. So, warmer weather encourages early maturation.

Also, drier soils warm rapidly leading to increased vine growth and higher sugar levels in the grapes.

Moreover, roots grown in drier soils produce more of the hormone abscisic acid which, in turn, reduces evapotranspiration in the leaves.

Lighter crops, whether the result of restricted irrigation or crop-thinning, also encourage earlier ripening.

While viticulturists cannot control the weather, they have at least some control over grape variety, soil moisture, soil temperature and crop yield.

So, what can growers do to delay ripening and limit the damage to their business?

Webb said choosing grapevine varieties suited to a changing climate should become part of any vineyard establishment strategy.

“Some grape varieties could be planted

in regions where they would previously have struggled. For example, varieties that are best suited to a cool climate, such as Pinot Noir or Sauvignon Blanc, may be reduced in most parts of Australia, though they may increase in Tasmania,” Webb said.

In areas getting warmer, hot climate varieties such as Grenache, Mourvèdre, Tempranillo, Vermentino and Carnelian should be considered.

“The industry may also need to breed grape varieties to suit warmer climates,” she said.

“There was (also) a suggestion given that the earlier trend in ripening was driven by drier soils. Presumably, given mulching assists soils to retain moisture, it may slow the ripening rate. This was not quantified in the study.”

Pruning options From California comes a more outsidethe-box proposal to delay the ripening process by radical pruning, so that grapes ripen in cooler autumn weather rather than in the heat of summer.

Professor Sanliang Gu, of California State University, in Fresno, is developing a way to manipulate the growing cycle of grapes in California’s hot San Joaquin Valley. He calls it crop forcing.

He says initiation of flower primordia for the next year’s crop takes place early during the current season. But

Rob Stanic: 0412 550 250 May 2012 – Issue 580

www.winebiz.com.au

Grapegrower & Winemaker

39

pre-winter planning they normally do not develop until the following season, due to inhibition by growth-arresting factors produced by shoot tips, summer laterals and leaves.

However, since they are not fully dormant and do not require chilling, they can be forced to develop if the cause of inhibition is removed.

In an earlier trial, he hedged vines at the pea-sized berry stage to six nodes and removed all possible combinations of primary clusters, leaves and laterals.

Dormant buds developed when the vines were hedged to remove shoot tips and a large portion of the shoots. Control vines did not produce any forced shoots or clusters and, in turn, no forced crop.

The highest yield of forced crop and greatest vine vigour occurred when all A vineyard in Fresno, California showing the canopy of forced vines on the left and conventionally shoot tips, summer laterals, leaves and pruned vines on the right primary clusters were removed.

In a field trial, he hedged all primary shoots to six nodes, while all clusters, ripen slowly during the cool autumn period of October and laterals and leaves were removed at different times, ranging early November, rather than during the hot period of July and from two to 10 weeks after flowering.

August.

New shoots formed shortly after pruning and the vine Gu said grapes grown in hot climates ripen before the began to fruit again. The earliest pruned vines ripened at flavour compounds fully developed. Therefore he compared late the usual time and the late pruned vines did not ripen at ripening grapes with grapes grown under control (conventional all. However, vines that had been pruned four to six weeks hot climate) conditions. after flowering reached veraison in September when Fresno’s Yield and vine vigour was slightly lower than the control, summer temperatures began to fall. They then proceeded to and time between flowering and veraison was five days shorter. However, ripening took 60 days as opposed to 40 days for the control, taking the ripening period into much cooler weather.

He says fruit harvested from the forced crop had acceptable total soluble solids, smaller berries, lower pH, and higher titratable acids, as well as markedly higher content of anthocyanins, tannins, and total phenolics when compared with conventionally grown crops.

The grapes have enough sugar to make a wine with slightly over 13% alcohol. This he says is on par with France but light compared with most ‘big’ California wines that hover near 15%.

In earlier experiments, Gu had tried manipulating irrigation and canopy management to slow ripening.

“Nothing made a difference because the overriding factor is temperature,” Gu said.

“I thought that if we could shift the whole thing until later, it would be like growing in a cooler region.”

Gu doesn’t expect to replicate Napa quality in the Central Valley, but he does think growers can improve the value of grapes grown there.

He says the next challenge is to find out to what extent forcing the grapes into a second round of fruiting will stress vines and use up water and nutrients. The second challenge is to reduce labour costs.

“We will look into the mechanisation and chemical means to conduct the forcing soon,” Gu said.

Crop forcing might be a way of continuing to grow quality fruit as the climate warms up.

Further reading Crop forcing enhances quality of Cabernet Sauvignon wine grapes. Feb 2012 ARI Project No. 11-7-001 Sanliang Gu, Viticulture and Enology Research Centre California State University Fresno. email: sanliang@csufresno.edu

40 Grapegrower & Winemaker

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May 2012 – Issue 580

A new grape training system to suit machine pruning Viticulture research in northern Italy has attempted to overcome the problems of high bud load, yield excess and inadequate ripening in cv. Sangiovese (Vitis vinifera L.) trained to the classic Australian ‘minimal pruning’ with a new training system shaped for a rapid but more severe mechanical pruning. The system was called semiminimal-pruned hedge (SMPH), and was derived from adult handpruned spur-pruned cordon (SPC) vines, which were altered to form a vertical hedge wall, which was easily mechanically pruned.

Cesare Intrieri and Ilaria Filippetti

Grapevine pruning is traditionally performed by hand during winter to control bud load and hence, bunch number. Yet winter pruning is costly, requiring from 70 to 100 man-hours of labour per hectare to remove up to 95 per cent of one-year-old wood (Winkler 1974) leaving about 15-20 buds per linear metre of hedge-wall (Intrieri et al. 2000).

As an alternative, Australian researchers in the 1980s devised a minimal pruning (MP) technique (Clingeleffer 1983, 1984). MP is machine harvested and pruned. In the light pruning process, only 5-10% or less of oneyear-old wood is removed (Clingeleffer 1988), curtailing labour demand to 5 to 10 hours a hectare, but also leaving a bud number as high as 500 to 700 per metre of hedge-wall.

MP has been widely adopted in hot, dry Australian districts and in irrigated vineyards of premium cultivars like Riesling, Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. The results have been satisfactory in terms of crop yields and quality and, given the small and loose bunches, even vine health (Clingeleffer et al. 1987, Possingham 1994, 1996). However, MP trials in colder and wetter districts in Australia – as well in the US, France, Spain, and Germany – have shown its success may depend on more severe cuts and even post-berryset fruit thinning to limit yields and prevent delayed ripening, although looser clusters improved berry sensory profile (Pool et al. 1993, Carbonneau 1991, Ollat et al. 1993, Martinez de Toda et al.

1998, Schultz et al. 1999).

Generally speaking, MP proved to be better adapted to warm climates and to mid-season (Pool et al. 1993, Sommer et al. 1993) or early varieties, as showed by Italian trial results, positive with MP on early ripening cultivars like Chardonnay (Iacono et al. 1998 and Poni et al. 2000) May 2012 – Issue 580

but less than satisfactory on mid- to late ripeners like Sangiovese (Vitis vinifera L.) in northern Italy (Intrieri et al. 2001).

This latter investigation by Intrieri et al., (2001) on MP-trained vines with almost 650 buds per metre of row showed that the MP vines doubled the yield with respect to traditional hand SPC with about 20 buds/m of row, but MP ripening was delayed and grapes had inadequate sugar content at harvest. Once again, however, the less compact bunches lowered susceptibility to rot.

While MP showed signs of being a good approach to improving berry health in Sangiovese, whose clusters are very compact and rot-susceptible, it was clear that future work was needed to counter the excessive yield and the ripening delay without losing the feature of less compact clusters.

To achieve these goals, the idea was to revisit the MP in conjunction with cv. Sangiovese to develop a new training system to be compared with the traditional vertical shoot positioned SPC. What came to be called semi-minimal-pruned hedge (SMPH) features a hedge shaped for mechanical harvest and for an easy but more severe mechanical pruning regime to reduce bud load and bring yield into greater balance without sacrificing other advantages, like simplified management and bunch resistance to rot.

Materials and methods After a preliminary trial running from 1998 to 2000 (data not reported), a new experiment was conducted at the

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the SPC control vines before and after pruning (A and B) and of the SPC vines converted to SMPH (C and D). (Reworked from Intrieri et al., 2011). www.winebiz.com.au

Grapegrower & Winemaker

41

pre-winter planning

42 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Figure 2. A view of the completely shaped SMPH during winter mechanical pruning on top and along the sides of the system. To overcome the practical difficulty of distinguishing the growth of one vine from the one next to it, the data was collected as per metre of row length instead of per vine.

180 160

a

a

b

b

a

a

b

b

a

2006

140 Shoot Length (cm)

120 a

100

b

80

b a

60 40

NS

a

NS

b

NS

20

b

Main shoots SPC

Lateral shoots SPC

p

ug

Se

-A

6-

30

u

ug -A

-A

16

23

g

g

Au

Au

2-

9-

l

l

-Ju

-Ju

19

26

l

l -Ju

12

n

Ju 5-

n

-Ju 28

n

-Ju 21

n

14

-Ju

ay

Ju

-M 31

SMPH

7-

ay

ay -M

24

ay

-M

-M

17

10

pr

ay M

3-

pr

-A

-A

26

19

r Ap

-A

5-

pr

0 12

University of Bologna (Italy) in a vineyard of a non-irrigated, adult Sangiovese vines, grafted to SO4, trained to routine SPC with vertical shoot positioning and spaced 3m x 1m (inter- and intra-row). In 2002, three blocks of vines were selected and, within eack block, two groups of six consecutive vines were randomly assigned as follows: (1) unmodified SPC control, traditionally spur-pruned (Figure 1, A and B, page 41); (2) modification from SPC to form 80cm vertical hedge wall (SMPH). The SPC vines assigned to form the SMPH were pruned so that some of the canes from the preceding year were removed and the remaining intact canes were tied to the foliage wires (Figure 1, C and D). Extra vines in parallel rows were modified from SPC to SMPH in order to test mechanical harvesting.

From 2003 to 2008, SPC control vines were manually pruned in winter to retain six two-bud spurs per metre of cordon while the SMPH vines were winter mechanically pruned by a multiple cutter-bar unit operating on the top and along the sides very close to the foliage wires to form and maintain the hedge profile (Figure 2). No summer pruning was performed in SPC and SMPH vines.

Data collection for both SPC and SMPH vines began in spring 2005 and ended in 2008. The data collected during the four-year trial from SPC and SMPH were almost always expressed per metre of wall given the practical difficulty of distinguishing the growth of any given vine from the one next to it.

The parameters recorded were: postwinter pruning bud number; shoot number/m of vine row counted in late spring; leaf area per shoot and total leaf area/m of vine row at the end of shoot growth. At harvest, the parameters were: fertility (number of clusters per shoot); cluster number/m, cluster weight; berries per cluster; berry weight and total yield/m of vine row; cluster compactness by OIV index; botrytis infection as percentage (%) of cluster surface affected; must composition (Brix, pH, titratable acidity) and grape total anthocyanins (as mg/g of skin and as mg/kg of berries) after Mattivi et al., skin weight per berry and total skinto-pulp ratio.

Additional parameters recorded in 2006 were: main and lateral shoot growth from budbreak to mid-September; total belowvine canopy light interception throughout the season; leaf photosynthetic capacity in June, July and August. It should also be noted that, in 2008, an over-row horizontal shaker unit was used to harvest the SMPH vines in parallel rows.

More details about materials and methods can be found in a recently published paper (Intrieri et al. 2011). All

Date

SMPH

Figure 3. Seasonal variation of Sangiovese main and lateral shoot length of SPC and SMPH in 2006.

At each date, different letters within main or lateral shoot length show significant differences at p<0.05. (Reworked from Intrieri et al., 2011).

Table 1. Budload and vegetative canopy development for SMPH compared with SPC. Data averaged over 2005-2008 (Reworked from Intrieri et al., 2011).

Buds (n/m)

Budburst (%)

Shoots (n/m)

Leaf area /shoot (cm2)

SPC

Treatments

18 b

100 a

18 b

2880 a

Total leaf area (m2/m) 5.2 b

SMPH

332 a

62 b

205 a

437 b

8.9 a

Within columns, values assigned different letters are significantly different, p<0.05

data was subjected to statistical analysis and the means separated by t-test at pÂŁ0.05.

Results and discussion Retained nodes, budburst rate, shoot growth and leaf area The SPC vines were pruned at an average of 18 buds per metre of cordon (Table 1). The SMPH vines were mechanically pruned at 10-15cm above and on the sides of the hedge (Figure 2) and, unlike the www.winebiz.com.au

load of 644 buds per metre of vine row left in the past MP trial (Intrieri 2001), had an average load of 332 buds per metre of vine row (Table 1). As occurred in early MP trials, conducted by Clingeleffer (1983, 84, 88), SMPH exhibited a self-regulating budburst, resulting in a 62% budburst (205 shoots/m) compared with the 100% (18 shoots/m) in the SPC control vines (Table 1). The higher shoot number on the SMPH vines reduced the rate of growth May 2012 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Issue 580

pre-winter planning measured during 2006 in single shoots, in which the main and lateral elongation after the end of July was practically nil (Figure 3). Average leaf area of individual shoots was much lower in SMPH than in SPC. However, the total leaf area of SMPH canopies was almost double as compared with SPC vines, or 8.9m2/m of hedge-wall against 5.2m2/m (Table 1, page 42).

60 a Total ambient light interception (%)

50

Leaf photosynthesis and light interception

a

40

b

30

a

b

20 b 10 SPC

SMPH p

ug

Se

6-

ug

-A 30

u

-A 23

Au g

-A

9-

16

-Ju l

Au g

2-

-Ju l

26

19

Ju l

-Ju l

12

-Ju n

5-

28

-Ju n

-Ju n

14

21

ay

Ju n 7-

ay

31

-M

ay

-M 24

ay

-M

-M

10

17

pr

ay M

3-

pr

-A 26

pr

-A

-A

19

12

Ap r

0 5-

The higher total leaf area of SMPH compared with SPC did not statistically affect preand post-veraison photosynthetic rates of leaves measured in June, July and August 2006 (Table 2), thereby determining for the SMPH canopies, at least in that year, a potentially higher overall photosynthetic capacity.

This assumption is supported by the light interception measured during the same 2006 season, which was higher in SMPH vines starting about one month after budburst (Figure 4).

NS

NS

Date Figure 4. Seasonal variation of % light interception of Sangiovese canopies of SMPH and SPC in 2006. At each date different letters show significant differences at p<0.05. (Reworked from Intrieri et al. 2011).

Table 2. Carbon dioxide assimilation rate (μmol m-2s-1) for main and lateral shoot leaves recorded in 2006 for SPC as compared with SMPH (Reworked from Intrieri et al. 2011).

June 15

Treatments

July 25

Main leaves

August 29

Lateral leaves

Main leaves

Lateral leaves

Main leaves

Lateral leaves

SPC

12.8 a

8.1 a

7.1 a

7.0 a

8.0 a

9.5 a

SMPH

10.1 a

7.8 a

6.7 a

6.9 a

7.0 a

7.0 a

Within columns, no statistical differences were found between treatments.

Table 3. Yield components and bunch traits for SMPH 80 as compared with SPC.Data averaged over 2005-2008 (Reworked from Intrieri et al., 2011).

Fertility (clusters/shoot)

Clusters (n/m)

Cluster weight (g)

Berries/cluster (n)

SPC

1.22 a

22 b

265 a

SMPH

0.27 b

56 a

141 b

Treatments

Berry weight (g)

Yield (kg/m)

113 a

2.38 a

5.8 b

73 b

1.94 b

7.9 a

Rot infection (% of cluster surface)

Leaf area/yield ratio (m2/kg)

6.8 a

9.7 a

0.9 a

4.6 b

1.4 b

1.1 b

Cluster density (OIV index 1-9)

Within columns, values assigned different letters are significantly different, p<0.05 Table 4. Must composition, total anthocyanins and skin-to-pulp berries ratio for SMPH 80 compared with SPC. Data averaged over 2005-2008 (Reworked from Intrieri et al. 2011).

Soluble solids (°Brix)

pH

SPC

20.8 a

3.33 a

7.47 a

SMPH

21.4 a

3.36 a

7.44 a

Treatments

Titratable acidity (g/L)

Total anthocyanins (mg/g skin)

Skin weight (g/berry)

Total anthocyanins (mg/kg berries)

Skin/pulp ratio (g/g)

5.15 b

0.31 a

674 b

0.13

5.55 a

0.26 b

714 a

0.14

Within columns, values assigned different letters are significantly different, p<0.05

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Figure 5. At berry pea-size, the clusters of vines trained to SMPH (top) already appeared smaller and looser than the clusters of the SPC vines (bottom).

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Shoot fertility, yield components and cluster health.

Figure 6. The horizontal shaking unit during harvesting of the SMPH.

The normally high bud fruitfulness of Sangiovese, which was 1.22 clusters per shoot in the SPC control, dropped to 0.27 clusters per shoot in SMPH (Table 3, page 44). Once again a self-regulatory mechanism was involved in SMPH, as shown even by other MP trials in the same environment. The number of clusters per metre of hedge-wall was, thus, only two- to three-fold higher in SMPH than in SPC (Table 3). SMPH clusters weighed less than what is usual for Sangiovese clusters (141g against 265g for SPC), because its berries were both fewer in number, 73 per cluster against 113, and smaller, 1.94g against 2.38g for SPC, as already was visually apparent at pea-size berry stage (Figure 5, page 45). Thus, although SMPH had higher number of clusters as SPC, the

Figure 7. Clusterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s distribution on a portion of the SMPH before (left) and after harvesting (right). All berries were detached and shoots were not damaged by the shaker heads.

May 2012 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Issue 580

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pre-winter planning

Figure 10. An example of field operations to convert SPC vines to SMPH. The hand pruning of SPC is performed to remove about 50% of the preceding year canes (left). The retained canes are bent and tied to the trellis wires to form a vertical hedge-wall of about 80cm in height (right).

former’s average yield was only one-third higher than the latter’s (Table 3). SMPH clusters, which were smaller and less compact than SPC’s, also appeared less susceptible to botrytis infection (Table 3), as also reported in almost all previous MP trials, previously cited.

Ripening parameters With respect to the control, SMPH’s higher leaf area (Table 1) and higher leaf-to-fruit ratio (Table 3) explain why berry soluble solids and total acidity were practically the same in both regimes (Table 4, page 44), despite SMPH’s higher cropping (Table 3).

The higher canopy light interception of SMPH vines (Figure 4) is also consonant with their higher grape anthocyanins content (Table 4).

SMPH aptitude for mechanical harvest Vine rows adjacent to the trial vines were harvested in 2008 by an over-row horizontal shaker. The harvesting unit had no trouble working on the SMPH (Figure 6, page 47) and removing berries from the clusters arrayed along the hedge-wall (Figure 7, page 47). Though no specific harvest data were collected, direct observation indicated that the harvested product was of optimum quality, since there were few impurities and very little free must.

Conclusion Our overall data indicates that the reduced bud load linked to the SMPH regime can effectively address the drawbacks attached to MP with medium- to lateseason ripeners like cv. Sangiovese in colder and wetter areas. In our trial, while SMPH had a third greater yield than SPC, it appeared better balanced because of its higher leaf area and greater canopy light interception and overall assimilation capacity. Indeed, anthocyanin content of SMPH grapes was higher, while the main juice biochemical properties of must did not differ significantly from SPC at harvest. Notable, too, was the fact that

48 Grapegrower & Winemaker

SMPH bunches were smaller and looser than the control and, hence, proved to be less susceptible to botrytis-induced rot – a particular problem in Sangiovese conventionally trained to SPC when moist conditions occur near harvest and its compact bunches are most susceptible.

From the practical point of view, it was not difficult to complete the vine frame for the SMPH; summer pruning was not needed and winter pruning operations were rapid.

Shaker harvesting was also facilitated by the ease in detaching berries from the loose clusters, thereby reducing the amount of free must and boosting berry quality. It should finally be noted that SMPH can be easily obtained by converting any already existing SPC (Figure 10). SMPH, thus, appears to be worthy of further testing for vineyard application.

Intrieri C., Filippetti I.; 2000. Planting density and physiological balance: comparing approaches to european viticulture in the 21st century. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, vol. 51, 5, Proc.

Of the ASEV, 50th Anniversary Meeting, Seattle, Washington, June 19-23: 296-308.

Cesare Intrieri is Emeritus Professor of viticulture at the Dipartimento di Colture ArboreeInterdepartmental Research Center for Viticulture and Enology. Ilaria Filippetti is assistant professor at the Dipartimento di Colture Arboree – Sezione Viticola del Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerche Viticole ed Enologiche -Università di Bologna. Corresponding author is cesare.intrieri@unibo.it

Office International de la Vigne et du Vin; 1993. Code des caractères descriptifs des variétés et espèces de Vitis. O I V Editor, Paris.

References

Baldini E., Intrieri C.; 2004. Viticoltura meccanizzata Ed. Il Sole 24 Ore-Edagricole: 1-137.

Carbonneau A.; 1991. Bilan de résultats d’analyse sensorielle de la qualité des vins de divers systèmes de conduite. In: GESCO, Compte Rendu, Conegliano, Italy : 334-334.

Clingeleffer P.R.; 1983. Minimal pruning – its role in canopy management and implications of its use for the wine industry. Advances in Viticulture and Oenology for Economic Gain. Proc. 5th Austr. Wine Industry Tech. Conf., Perth: 133-145.

Clingeleffer P.R.; 1984. Production and growth of minimally pruned Sultana vines. Vitis 23: 42-54.

Clingeleffer P.R.; 1988. Minimal pruning of cordon trained vines (MPCT). Proc of the 2nd Int. Symp. on Mechanical Pruning of Vineyards. Villanova di Motta di Livenza, Terviso, Italy,February 19-20: 112-120.

Clingeleffer P.R., Possingham J.V.; 1987. The role of minimal pruning of cordon trained vines (MPCT) in canopy management and its adoption in Australian viticulture. Austr. Grape Grower and Wine Maker 280: 7-11.

Iacono F., Lillo B., Porro D.; 1998. Prime esperienze di potatura minima in clima caldo-arido sulla varietà Chardonnay: Sviluppo della chioma, attività di fotosintesi e risultati quanti-qualitativi. Italus Hortus 3: 3-10. www.winebiz.com.au

Intrieri C., Filippetti I., Allegro G., Valentini G., Pastore C., Colucci E.; 2011. The semi-minimal-pruned hedge: a novel mechanized grapevine training system. Am. J. Enol. Vitic. 62, 3: 312-318.

Intrieri C., Poni S., Lia G., Gomez del Campo M.; 2001: “Vine performance and leaf physiology of conventionally and minimally pruned Sangiovese grapevines”, Vitis n° 40: 123-130.

Lakso A. N., Dennis S. S., Dunst R. M. ,Fendinger A. G., Pool R. M.; 1996. Comparisons of growth and gas exchange of conventionally- and minimally-pruned “Concord” grapevines.Proc of the Fourth Int Symp on Cool Climate Viticulture and Enology, 16-20 July, Rochester, N.Y, USA: IV: 11-12.

Martinez de Toda F., Sancha J.C.; 1998. Long-term effects of zero pruning on Grenache vines under drought conditions. Vitis 37: 155-157.

Mattivi F., Guzzon R., Vrhovsek U., Stefanini M., Velasco R.; 2006. Metabolite profiling of grape: flavanols and anthocyanins. J.Agric.Food. Chem., 54 :7692-7702.

Ollat N., Sommer K.J., Pool R.M., Clingeleffer P.R.; 1993. Quelques résultats sur la taille minimale en Australie et France. In: GESCO, Compte Rendu, Reims, France : 181-183.

Poni S., Intrieri C., Magnanini E.; 2000. Seasonal growth and gas-exchange of conventionally and minimally pruned Chardonnay canopies. Vitis 39: 13-18.

Pool R.M., Dunst R.E., Crowe D.C., Hubbard H, Howard G.E., De Golier G.; 1993. Predicting and controlling crop of machine or minimal pruned grapevines. Proc. 2nd N. Shaulis Symp. – Pruning and mechanization of crop control, Fredonia, NY, NYSAES. Spec.Publ.: 31-45.

Possingam J. V.; 1994. New concepts in pruning grape vines. Hort. Rev. 16: 235-254.

Possingam J. V.; 1996. Factors affecting the quality of wine from minimally pruned grapevines. Acta Hortic.

427: 387-393.

Schultz H.R., Kraml S., Werwitzke U.; 1999.

Distribution of glycosides, including flavour precursors in berries from minimal pruned (MP) and vertical shoot positioned grapevines (VSP). In: GESCO, 11° Giornate, Marsala, 6-12 giugno 1999: 271-279.

Sommer K.J., Clingeleffer P.R..; 1993. Comparison of leaf area development, leaf physiology, berry maturation, juice quality, and fruit yield of minimal and cane pruned Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines. Proc.

2nd N. J. Shaulis Grape Symposium, R.M. Pool (ed.), Fredonia, NY, July 13-14: 14-19.

Winkler A.J., Cook j.A., Kliewer W.M., Lieder L.A.; 1974: General Viticulture. Berkeley, U.S.A.: University of California Press.

May 2012 – Issue 580

Frost threat puts Marlborough growers on alert P L U M M E T I N G T EM PER AT U R ES coinciding with the late grape harvest left a number of Marlborough Frost growers on high frost alert mid last month.

Helicopters were placed on standby and frost alarms were activated in March and April in a number of regions where temperatures dipped below zero.

Climate Consulting climatologist Stu Powell says Fairhall, located central of the Waipara Valley, recorded the lowest temperature at -0.6°C on 18 April, while Wairau Valley recorded -0.2 on 21 April.

While low temperatures aren’t unusual for the region at this time of year, the late harvest has made growers nervous about frost affecting late fruit development.

“People aren’t as worried as they would be in spring, but recently it has been cool enough to put people on alert,” Powell said.

“The weather wouldn’t be such an issue if the grapes had already been picked, but the late harvest makes all the difference.”

Frost hits a vineyard in the lower Awatere Valley. Photo: John Belsham.

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Chris Clifford manages FMR Group, which sells frost fans through New Zealand.

He says growers throughout the Awatere Valley, which has recorded temperatures as low as 3.3°C, have been operating their fans to protect their grapes.

He says FMR representatives were called out to about 12 vineyards in the week starting 15 April to check their fans were okay for use.

He says weather in the past week (starting 22 April) had improved and that the worst was over.

“In the past week we have had exceptionally good weather and the sugar levels are up, so a lot of wineries’ harvest is almost over,” he said.

“Growers are now trying to get their grapes off as soon as they can so the problem is over.”

In an article in The Marlborough Express, Delegat’s Wine Estate grower business development manager Dr Bala Rengasamy reported frost fans had been employedon vineyards in the Wairau Valley.

According to the news report, helicopters had been called out three times after slight frost events south of the valley, according to Marlborough Helicopters managing director Owen Dodson.

He says call-outs at this time of year were “unusual”, with the busiest time during from about mid-September.

Plant and food research senior scientist Mike Trought also told The Marlborough Express that frost protection had increased in vineyards over the past decade.

He said there are now 1500 frost fans in Marlborough vineyards compared with fewer than 100 about nine years ago.

Commenting on the impact of frost, he said an event during a later-than-average harvest, such as this year, could prevent the development of Brix-sugar levels and flavours of grape there were still ripening.

Other regions to experience low temperatures have included Waihopai, which recorded 0.4°C, Seddon, Rapaura, Coastal and Ward.

Forget about Frost with a Frostboss C49

A frost fan in place in a vineyard in New Zealand. Photo: FMR Group.

May 2012 – Issue 580

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Course offers insights into soil and sustainable agriculture A two-week course, offering the latest insights into soil interactions and sustainable agriculture will be held at University of Melbourne from 13-24 August.

It’s the third annual presentation of ‘Soil Food Web Interactions & Benefits to Plant Production’ to be hosted at the Dookie Campus of the University of Melbourne.

Organised by Agpath, the presenters include Dr Elaine Ingham, from Soil Food Web Institute/Rodale Institute, USA and Dr Mary Cole, Agpath P/L, Victoria.

During the two weeks of lectures, practical work and farm visits, students are involved in a mix of laboratory work involving learning to use a microscope for assessing bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes in fresh condition taken from healthy and chemical soil, aerobic compost and compost tea.

The will also study the role of soil biota in soil health; the important of soil health to sustainable agriculture in the future and get hands-on experience in building and developing aerobic compost from compost tea.

Students are shown equipment and instruments that are used in biological farming and get to visit farms where this methodology is the general operating practice.

The course has pre-reading and an exam at the end, and participants can stay on campus for the two weeks.

Registration forms and costs can be found on Agpath P/l website at www.agpath.com.au and www. soilfoodweb.com.au.

Spotting exotic fruit flies Spotting troublesome exotic fruit flies from among the many species that are already present in Australia will be easier and faster following the release of the Australian Fruit Fly Identification Handbook by Plant Health Australia, the national coordinator of plant biosecurity.

The handbook is a compilation of diagnostic techniques for 47 fruit fly species, most of which are exotic to Australia. It is intended to facilitate rapid diagnosis of fruit fly species and be a comprehensive guide for Australian diagnosticians and field officers.

The handbook is a PHA publication that was commissioned by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) as part of its contribution to the implementation of the National Fruit Fly Strategy.

DAFF’s chief plant protection officer Lois Ransom said the handbook brings together the experience of Australia’s network of fruit fly experts.

“It is a book written to enhance Australia’s plant biosecurity capacity.”

“In some parts of southern Australia fruit fly sampling numbers are smaller, but experts still have to be able to identify a single fly of economic importance amongst a large range of other flies that have no impact on commercial fruits and vegetables.

“This network of fruit fly traps, together with diagnostic expertise, functions well as an early detection network, providing protection for Australian producers.”

Plant Health Australia’s CEO Greg Fraser acknowledged the combined efforts of everyone involved in the development of the book.

“PHA is grateful to the researchers, academics, surveillance officers, diagnosticians and laboratory scientists who provided their expertise to make this book possible,” he said.

The Australian Handbook for the Identification of Fruit Flies (v1.0) is

available from the Plant Health Australia website at www.phau.com.au/go/phau/ biosecurity/fruit-fly

All your

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online 52 Grapegrower & Winemaker

DailyWineNews e-newsletter • WineJobs • Archived articles • Buyers’ Guide • Wine Industry Directory online • Vintage reports • Wine show calendar

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.com.au Australia’s wine industry portal by Winetitles

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May 2012 – Issue 580

The United Grower May 2012 The newsletter of Wine Grape Growers Australia

The United Grower

is produced by

for the winegrape industry Sponsored by WGGA proudly acknowledges its associate members – Retallack Viticulture, Vitibit Pty Ltd, AHA Viticulture, Advanced Viticulture, Challenger Wine Trust, Bayer CropScience, Woodshield Pty Ltd, SCE-Energy Solutions, Vine Sight, and Battery World Melrose Park.

Address: Level 1, Industry House, National Wine Centre Corner Botanic and Hackney Roads Adelaide, SA 5000 Postal: PO Box 950, Kent Town, SA 5071 Telephone: (08) 8133 4400 Facsimile: (08) 8133 4466 Email: info@wgga.com.au

Harvest 2012: An early assessment From reports received by WGGA, an earlyApril summary of the 2012 harvest, with the larger part of the national crop harvested, looks like the following: • In what was generally a mild season, the major weather influences were cool with wet conditions in November 2011, which reduced fruitset plus heavy rain (and even flooding) from monsoon-driven rains that swept down from the north-west of the nation to the south-east. These rains predominantly bucketed on the east coast winegrowing regions of Australia and central New South Wales, with less extreme effects felt on the western edge of the rain’s pathway, in a line from Mildura through to the Yarra Valley.

• Fortunes from the seasonal conditions tended to define three geographical zones with similar harvest outcomes; Western Australia, South Australia and the eastern states. WA had a hot, dry season with clean, disease-free conditions and exceptional quality. SA experienced generally mild conditions that were punctuated with occasional and manageable incidences of coolness and wet – leaving a season that was ideal for steady, full colour and flavour development. Similar conditions as in SA were experienced in the east, except for the wetness at the end of the red harvest – mildly in western Victoria and dramatically in central and eastern NSW. While devastating for the growers in these areas, the latter conditions only affected the final 15 per cent of the national harvest in rough terms.

• Tonnages per hectare were low in most areas, principally because of recovery from heavy crop loads last year and the coolness/wetness at fruitset in November

The price movement was likely to be more about seasonal influences, rather than the more desirable, fundamental shift in supply-demand balance.

2011. In selected regions, last year’s wetness also set back vine development this season, again lowering yields. These factors gave rise to the strong belief that the 2012 national tonnage would be low.

• Indicative pricing from early in the season suggested substantial rises in winegrape prices for the small share of higher-graded fruit while marginal-to-small rises were indicated for commodity to mid-grade fruit. Based on the low-yield expectations and losses in the eastern states at the end of the season, prices may have improved for some growers and available fruit.

• Combining the indicated 2012 winegrape price rises over the historical lows they had sunk to, with the expected lower 2012 yields, the average grower is again not expected to achieve costs of production per hectare in 2012 (see comments in the last United Grower). www.wgga.com.au May 2012 The United Grower 1

Committee and staff news

Your WGGA executive committee's views Victor Patrick (chair)

victorpatrick@bigpond.com Electoral zone: South Australia (voting member) “Best quality vintage for years follows worst quality vintage for years? Modest increase in prices for some varieties in some regions. Lowest yields for years in many regions. Net result continued financial hardship for many growers in many regions.”

Justin Jarrett (deputy chair)

jarrettswines@bigpond.com Electoral zone: New South Wales/Queensland (voting member) “The great thing about finishing harvest is it gives you the opportunity to improve the next year.”

Bob Bellato

Kerry Smart

On leave

“After nearly a decade of drought much of the eastern states have been hit by two years of floods. Climate change is here.”

rvb4@bigpond.com Electoral zone: New South Wales/Riverina (voting member)

ksmart@westnet.com.au Electoral zone: Greater Western Australia (voting member)

Simon Berry

simon@berry2wine.com.au Electoral zone: South Australia (voting member) “Logistically and disease-wise a very good vintage, winemakers pleased with fruit but in short supply in most SA districts. Still only seen as a short-term aberration in supply-demand balance and placed industry under further financial constraint through low yields and higher overheads in winemaking.”

mvw@murrayvalleywinegrapes.com.au Electoral zone: Murray Valley (voting member) “2012 was a better season than 2011 – crop levels mixed with variable yields, overall quality very good, modest price rises for major varieties – hopefully heading towards a more viable future.”

pointed out the difficulties of predicting the harvest size, that the methodology was ‘not ideal’ and that there was some ‘upside potential’ to the estimate.

By the time this report is published in The United Grower, the result may be clearer, but there are emerging signals that the result will be higher than 1.4 million tonnes, and possibly significantly higher.

If the 2012 harvest does shift upwards from a 1.4 million tonne estimate based on low yields (and let’s not forget how incredulous it

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2 The United Grower May 2012 www.wgga.com.au

ludvigsn@vic.chariot.net.au Electoral zone: Greater Victoria/Tasmania (voting member) “These are interesting times for the wine industry.

We need to ensure WGGA is prepared to meet any and all challenges in a positive and progressive manner.”

Lawrie Stanford

Dennis Mills

As discussed in the last newsletter, while indications of upward winegrape price movements in 2012 gave some hope to growers, the price movement was likely to be more about seasonal influences, rather than the more desirable, fundamental shift in supply-demand balance. In other words, oversupply may not be over.

Several weeks prior to preparing this article, WGGA posted a website report on an early March phone survey, which suggested a 1.4 million tonne harvest. Advisedly, this estimate

Kym Ludvigsen

(executive director)

lawrie.stanford@wgga.com.au (non-voting member) “It is good to see some general buoyancy in the industry – it will be interesting to see if the reasons are seasonal in nature or the turn in the cycle we hope for. Harvest done, we now move into the season of renewing strategic thinking.”

seemed to contemplate a 1.6 million tonne crop last year), then it may be that production levels of somewhere around 1.6 to 1.7 million tonnes may be as good as it gets for supply adjustment in the industry.

The implications of this are elaborated on further in the executive director’s opinion piece in this newsletter.

It is noted that the first ‘official’ estimate of the national harvest tonnage will come from the WFA Vintage Report which is being prepared for release in July.

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News

National organisation merger talks continue A steering committee with representatives of WGGA, the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA), the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation (GWDRC), the Wine Australia Corporation (WAC) and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) continues to plan for merging the two industry statutory service bodies, the GWRDC and WAC. The tasks in hand are the industry consultation process and on the basis of this, preparing a submission to the Minister on the wine sector’s wishes.

A document with details of the proposal is being finalised and will be circulated to all growers. The means for circulating it to growers will be through regional associations, so it may have arrived already

by the time this article reaches you. The circulated document will underpin visits by key WGGA and WFA personnel to as many regions as possible to discuss and receive feedback that can be presented to the Minister. There will also be a facility to provide direct feedback. The visits are planned for May and June 2012.

Based on concerns raised with WGGA so far, it is worth repeating some key points made in the last newsletter.

First, the primary benefit of the merger is that services provided to industry through one body will provide better coordination and alignment of the programs currently provided by the two separate bodies, greater responsiveness to emerging needs and a stronger strategic focus for the

industry as a whole.

The process is, nevertheless, not one of ‘blending’ the two sets of functions so they are indistinguishable but rather, a simple process of making two bodies into one that houses the two sets of functions. For example, in the one body, the current legislated definition of research and development will be enshrined in the new legislation, thereby quarantining R&D funds for R&D under the same terms as present.

In addition, the existing levies and levy rates will remain unchanged.

Your opinions will matter – look out for the opportunity to comment to ensure the Minister is in no doubt what the industry wants.

GWRDC 2012-2017 Five Year Plan is good news for growers After a comprehensive consultation process with relevant stakeholders, the GWRDC 2012-2017 Five Year Plan has been devised and it sits with the Minister for approval. In order to get the 2012-13 research effort under way, the GWRDC invited researchers and industry to a briefing on the plan in late March 2012.

Since, at the time of preparing this article in early April, it was still subject to Ministerial sign-off, full details were not available to relate here. It is, nevertheless, worth conveying some key messages that are positives for the growing community.

The GWRDC has identified four highpriority areas in which research is intended to commence in the first half of 2012-13 and an additional six priorities for which a selection process will get firmly under way as the high priority projects commence.

The high priority areas for research are: • adoption strategies • biosecurity • consumer insights, and • objective measures of quality.

Three of these high priorities respond directly to those expressed by growers through the consultations that WGGA was involved in. Their priority listing by the GWRDC is welcomed.

The GWRDC process for initiating research in these areas is to now invite researchers and industry to workshops in which discussion will be encouraged to identify opportunities and potential research projects that will then be the subject of expressions of interest for funding. By the time this article is published, two of these workshops will have already occurred.

A targeted GWRDC approach to calls for

research applications will then focus on the additional six priorities: • climate change adaptability • improving spray efficacy • market access • packaging and transport • pest and disease management • vine balance and yield variability.

This collection of topics also has the potential to substantially support growing but, of course, the final size of the harvest will determine how many dollars will be available for them.

A sobering aspect to the GWRDC presentation was that after meeting commitments to existing projects, and subject to the size of the 2012 harvest, there would be a modest amount of funds available for disbursement in 2012-13.

Admission $5 (Adults and children over 16 years of age) Tuesday 29 & Wednesday 30 May 2012

Mildura Field Days Exhibitors visit www.mildurafielddays.com.au to download an application form For further information contact John Hawtin at (03) 5023 5174 or info@mildurafielddays.com.au

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www.wgga.com.au May 2012 The United Grower 3

WGGA Opinion

Harvest 2012: Implications and questions In all of the time the author of this article has had anything to do with estimating the national winegrape crop size, one thing has been constant – the harvest is invariably bigger than forecast during harvest. It looks like this could happen again in 2012.

If so, it might be time to acknowledge that higher-than-desirable production levels may be here to stay. On these terms, supplydemand balance will not come about through supply-adjustment but, rather, through demand adjustment (growth) catching up to supply. The implication is that achieving balance will be on a longer timeline.

While recognising that an average crop used to be 1.85 million tonnes (or about 2.0 to 2.1 million tonnes in exceptional yielding years), there has been some supply adjustment. The official statistics record around 10,000 hectares of net removals between spring 2007 and 2009 and about 6% of the national vineyard at its peak.

Nevertheless, this is not generally believed to be enough in itself to achieve balance of

It might be time to acknowledge that higher-than-desirable production levels may be here to stay.

supply with current sustainable sales.

Previous commentary from WGGA has highlighted that production and sales at the higher levels that may be a prospect this year, relies on loss-making grape sales.

The driver for this is the need wine producers have to maintain processing throughput and, in turn, their unit costs and hence overall costs. Moreover, to maintain sales into generally lower-cost-of-production global market, especially with the punishing Australian dollar, sales rely on very cheap grapes.

If higher than desirable production levels are a reality, the pertinent question for growers is whether they can afford to continue selling into the price-driven grape market that this wine market relies on.

Very low grower costs are necessary to make it work for the grower. If the required low costs of winegrape production are not achievable, the only alternative is to boost returns on the fruit by producing fruit with qualities other than its low cost, selling to a wine producer that is interested in these qualities and willing to respect the grower as a partner who can consistently produce them.

If higher production levels are here to stay until demand catches up, growers will need to decide which model they are in – selling on the basis of being competitive as a low-cost winegrape producer or producing, and promoting, qualities for which wine producers are willing to pay higher prices.

Lawrie Stanford Executive Director

What a difference a year makes – or does it?

Optimism in 2010 to challenging and difficult in 2011 followed by “best quality fruit in a decade for 2012”.

While it is early days and probably too early to be completely objective, recent comments regarding the 2012 vintage are optimistic from a quality point of view.

Comments I’ve read include: “all regions reporting a high quality vintage”, “great vintage for SA”, “among the best in 40 years”, “grape prices rebounding”. There’s also been some confident headlines, such as ‘Corker of a year for hard hit grapegrowers’ and ‘Growers toasting a vintage season’.

This is all positive news and welcome after last season. A relatively small, high quality vintage will no doubt be a positive for the wine industry.

While indicative prices have increased in the major inland regions and for some varieties in some regions in the cooler temperate areas, many have remained at last year’s levels.Yields in most premium regions are 30-40% below average.

The reality for many grapegrowers is that the combination of ‘in field’ quality assessments similar to previous seasons, 4 The United Grower May 2012 www.wgga.com.au

similar indicative prices and low yields in most premium regions will still not be enough to return many growers to profitability.

Will the final classifications result in above average grades which, in turn, will be reflected in above average grape prices?

Some regions have also suffered significant losses due to inclement weather and floods.

Yield is often (almost always) seen as a quality factor, with lower yields associated with wines with more concentrated flavours.

The concept of ‘vine balance’ is sometimes lost.

Objective measurements of winegrape

quality to determine harvest time, to allocate grapes to winery process streams and to determine quality based payments to growers require significant time and effort during the busy vintage period. They can be a source of frustration and conflict unless they are well-conceived and communicated effectively. They also sometimes clash with the desire to match inventory with demand, time constraints, staff constraints and available fermentation space in what appear to be ever more congested vintages.

The Australian wine industry has long held a lofty ambition to develop measures of vine characteristics and grape composition that are predictive of wine quality. This ambition is theoretically possible but is it currently feasible?

Vintage 2012 could be a test. Initial comments suggest an outstanding year for quality. Will the final classifications result in above average grades which, in turn, will be reflected in above average grape prices?

I guess only time and the 2012 Winegrape Purchases: Price Dispersion Report will provide the answer.

Member Profile

Bruno Altin Destination of fruit: All our fruit goes to the McWilliams site at Hanwood.

process of watching a generation of first hand knowledge disappear. Some of the practical aspects of farming can’t be taught at university, and even if they could, farms and machinery are unaffordable for most people with no farming background.

Brief history of career in industry to date: I’ve been working on the family farm with my dad Sergio for as long as I can remember. We’ve slowly grown the family business from our original 33ha farm to about 133ha over the past twelve years.

I am married with a child on the way, hopefully we can keep growing the family farm into the future for the next generation.

I joined the Riverina Winegrapes Marketing Board in early 2011 at the age of 25, making me the youngest board member.

Occupation: Farmer/winegrape grower.

Vineyards: Nericon, in the Riverina. (North of Griffith) 133ha.

Varieties of Interest: We grow a large range of different varieties on our vineyard. My favourites are white Frontenac, Gewürztraminer, and Merlot.

Where to from here: Many people view farming as a lifestyle rather than a business. The farming lifestyle cannot be maintained without a successful business plan, and a successful business cannot exist without happy customers. The latter goes beyond just choosing our wines from the supermarket shelves to customers requesting our wines when they can’t find them. Growers and winemakers need to work together to promote our products, because neither of us can exist or be successful without the other.

How do you view the oversupply issue: I personally don’t see a grape glut as the biggest problem the industry has to battle.

Many young farmers have left the land in favour of the mines or the city where income is more reliable, and hours more predictable. Most have no intentions of returning to the farm. We are in the

New face on the team but we are hopeful the upcoming year’s finances will allow the arrangement to continue.

Nikki has worked in the wine sector before. In addition to her key experience in accounts, her experience and talent also encompass a wider range of office activity, including communications, personnel work and promotions.

We are sure you will find her helpful if you call and we look forward to your assistance in making the grower projects she will be working on a success.

A reminder that our contact information for Kelly and Nikki is 08 8133 4400 or email: info@wgga.com.au

If you call the WGGA office, you may catch Nikki Zorzi, who joined us in early March and will complement Kelly Bonser in running the office.

Nikki is assisting us bring our accounts inhouse and will back this up with improving our contact with growers, for sending and receiving information, through a contact database and the internet.

Nikki is a part-timer, as Kelly is, but their respective times in the office will allow us to provide a point of contact for every day of the week. We hope this will provide you better access to us.

Nikki’s time with WGGA has been approved until the end of the financial year

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Business planning and budgeting key in tough years was devised and it was committed to paper.

This allowed them to make more informed business decisions and brought their bank manager onside. The bank manager was pleased to see evidence-based decisionmaking. The planning gave the bank assurance that the business had a plan and direction that identified the potential to return to profitability on a defined timeline. The plan included contingencies and responses to the bad times. They also made time to set up a method for tracking expenses accurately, which helped when hard business decisions had to be made to find cost savings.

The 2010 season saw a return to profitability for the growers through their other crops, while their grape sales were in a ‘maintenance mode’. Making business decisions based on this planning gave them

In its UPDATE newsletter of April 2011 (Issue 4), the Rural Financial Counselling Service SA published a case study, recounting the situation faced by a grapegrowing family in the Lower Murray region of South Australia. WGGA believes that this case study illustrates some important ideas that might be helpful for other growers. Our interpretation of the article follows.

Like many growers, these growers experienced difficult times in the mid-2000s.

Their mixed cereal and vineyard property was struggling due to a combination of high debt repayments, water restrictions, poor water quality and falling grape prices.

Because of their precarious financial situation, the growers worked with a rural financial counsellor who encouraged them to apply a more calculated approach to their business. In particular, a long-term plan

optimism about the future and they now plan as a matter of course for the years ahead – seeing planning, budgeting and controlling expenses as vital to long-term success.

By making a commitment to improving the financial management of their business during lean years, the growers were able to carry on, as well as being better positioned to capitalise on the better years.

WGGA advocates the positives of this experience. A financial plan helps with critical decision-making, gains the confidence and support of your lender, and even if only because you are being proactive, gives some direction and hope to you personally. The assistance of a professional such as the Rural Financial counsellors can give you the skills to be independent in the future and resilient in bad times.

First official data on winegrape growers by type NSW, Victoria and WA while the opposite is true in Tasmania, Queensland and the ACT. • SA, NSW and Victoria account for the larger share of the number of independent growers, at 90%, with another 8% in WA. • In a comparison of the states, independent growers in SA represent the largest share of the total numbers of growers in a state, at 83%, with nearly two-thirds of these located in the coolertemperate regions.

• In contrast, the smallest share of independents out of the total number of

A special WGGA data request from the Australian Bureau of Statistics allows the categorisation of winegrape growers in 2009-10 by type (independent growers versus winemaker growers), location, area of vineyard holding and tonnages. Subject to the data still reflecting today’s situation, it shows that growers can be categorised by state and type as follows.

• Roughly 60 per cent of Australian winegrape growers are independent growers. Nearly 60% of these hail from cooler-temperate regions.

• Independent growers outweigh winemaker growers by number in SA,

Number of winegrape growing establishments, 2009-­‐10

500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000 South Australia

843

1 468

New South Wales

609

405 360

Victoria

564

471

Western Australia

479

546

364 310

Tasmania 60 85 Queensland 47 64 Australian Capital Territory 2 2 Independents -­‐ WI*

Independents -­‐ CT

Winemaker-­‐grapegrowers

Source: ABS, special data request commissioned by WGGA, 2012 *'WI' means Warm Inland -­‐ SA being Riverland, Lower Murray Other; NSW being Riverina, Murray Darling (NSW), Swan Hill (NSW), Perricoota, Big Rivers Other; Victoria being Murray Darling (Vic), Swan Hill (Vic), NW Victoria Other. 'CT' means Cooler-­‐Temperate (rest of Australia outside of the warm inland regions)

6 The United Grower May 2012 www.wgga.com.au

growers in a state, is found in Tasmania – at a 41% share.

• While NSW and Victoria have similar numbers of independent growers (1014 and 1035 respectively), a larger share of total growers in NSW are independents, at 74% (compared with Victoria’s 65%) with 60% of NSW’s independents located in NSW warm inland districts.

• Of Victoria’s nearly two-thirds independent growers, roughly half are located in the warm inland regions and half in cooler-temperate regions.

• Western Australian winegrape growers slightly favour independents in number, at 54%.

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SA Grapegrowers vote to continue industry fund Peter Hackworth, executive officer of the Wine Grape Council of South Australia has previoulsly reported for The United Grower, on the consultations for the renewal of the SA Grape Growers Industry Fund (SAGGIF).

The consultations and a ballot to renew the fund was conducted earlier this year and Peter has provided the following update: A ballot conducted of SA’s vineyard owners has shown strong support for the continuation of the SAGGIF. The fund is a $1 per tonne levy collected on income from grapes grown in South Australia.

WGCSA took the unique step of undertaking a postal ballot of all its members on the future of the fund. This was supported by 11 regional briefings to give

growers the opportunity to ask questions of, and make suggestions directly to, council members.

WGCSA chairman and Adelaide Hills grapegrower Simon Berry said he was particularly pleased that two-thirds of the ballot respondents voted for the fund to continue.

“This is a very positive result at a time of significant and ongoing downturn,” Berry said with the future of the fund clear for the next five years, the challenge now was to continue to develop and deliver services that addressed the needs of SA grapegrowers,” Simon said. “The WGCSA is run by grapegrowers for grapegrowers, we know how tough times are and while

the Australian dollar remains at record levels, every grower faces the challenge of survival until things improve.”

WGCSA will shortly commence a review of the organisation. The review will look at council membership and project priorities.

One key issue to be examined is how the levy is collected. Some Riverland growers are concerned that the current system sees them paying significantly more than those in lower-yielding regions. Options such as a percentage of farmgate value or a per hectare levy will be considered in the review.

Currently, half the funds collected are provided to WGGA to address national viticultural issues.

Keeping in touch with growers Regional associations provide WGGA with a vital link to Australia’s winegrape growers, enabling us to stay in touch with grower issues and opinions, as well as being able to pass on important information. It is, therefore, important that our records on regional associations are up-to-date.

We are currently updating our records.

Each regional association in Australia will be receiving an email to confirm that the details we have are still correct.

As well as contact details, we are interested in knowing the grower/winemaker profile of each association’s membership. This helps us understand how many growers we are reaching, and it is important information for policy development and strategic resourcing.

If you are the contact person for a regional association, we will be grateful for your assistance in looking out for an email,asking you to review the information contained and

advising us of any changes that need to be made.

There are but a few bits of information for review. If you have already done this – many thanks. Alternatively, if you are not aware of having received the email, please let us know.

Any questions can be referred to Nikki in our office on 8133 4402 or on email: info@wgga.com.au.

Viticulture training – more options for independent grapegrowers Improvements are being made to TAFE-level qualifications available to independent grapegrowers in Production Horticulture and Certificate in Food Processing (Viticulture) qualifications and new, higher-level qualifications for vineyard supervisors and managers.

This is being done through a project funded

by AgriFood Skills Australia to modify existing Certificates II and III in Production Horticulture and to develop new nationally

endorsed qualifications in viticulture at Certificate IV and Diploma level.

One major benefit from this project will be that the delivery of viticulture qualifications may attract government funding – making them more accessible to independent grapegrowers.

Winegrape growers are represented by WGGA on a Reference Group established to provide industry advice.

If growers have any comments or

suggestions regarding training in viticulture or the proposed changes, you can contact Sandy Hathaway (WGGA representative via info@wgga.com.au) or directly to the project consultant, Tony Dodson tonydodson@adam.com.au.

The proposed draft qualifications are currently available to be viewed or downloaded on the AgriFood Skills Australia website: www.agrifoodskills.site-ym.com.

New numbers: The Wine Grape Growers Australia has new contact details. Its new phone numbers are: Ph: (08) 8133 4400 and Fax: (08) 8133 4466. The new office location is Level 1, Industry House, National Wine Centre, Corner Botantic and Hackney Roads, Adelaide. The postal address is Po Box 950, Kent Town, SA 5071.

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winemaking – best of the boutique Passion, patience and a little ingenuity helps small players achieve big Jen Barwick and Kellie Arbuckle

Last month, Grapegrower & Winemaker published its annual Top 20 Wine Company Review. It profiled the top of both New Zealand and Australia’s multi-million dollar wine companies, and asked the chief executives what the future had in store for their respective companies and the national wine industry.

This month, we profile and emphasise the importance of the small players – who make up the vast majority of

Australia and New Zealand’s wine industry: the boutique producers.

Well over three-quarters of Australia’s and New Zealand’s wine industry is made up of producers who crush less than 200 tonnes. Without massive budgets, large numbers of staff and marketing plans, these producers still manage to educate, engage and entertain a growing number of wine consumers all over the world. So, we asked several high profile and respected wine judges, critics and

writers to name their ‘favourite five’ producers and tell us why. There was no real criteria, except they must crush less than 250 tonnes of winegrapes per year.

The result, not surprisingly, was varied. Only two of the named boutique producers were selected more than once.

The following feature has a special emphasis on sharing a small insight into what makes them Grapegrower & Winemakers’ Best of the Boutique.

FAvourite five ATA RANGI

New beginning leads to big rewards When a newly-wed couple, one a winemaker and the other an ex-dairy farmer, decided to make a business growing winegrapes on a scrubby patch of land, all of Martinborough thought they were mad.

That’s the way Phyll Paton recalls the start of what is now one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed small wine producers of Pinot Noir.

Ata Rangi, meaning ‘new beginning’, is the name of the winery which was brought to life by Phyll’s husband Clive.

He first planted vines in 1980 is one of the pioneers of winegrowing in the area.

The winery has built a big name for itself, having earned numerous conservation awards and acclaim by industry stalwarts, including Matthew Jukes and Tyson Stelzer, who recently included Ata Rangi in their fifth Great NZ Pinot Noir Classification.

Co-owner Phyll says the successes did not come overnight.

“Locals thought we were mad. There were no vineyards in the area at that time, but both of us decided we’d give it all we’ve got and if it’s not happening after 10 years, we’ll start again,” Phyll said.

It’s this mantra that Phyll believes has allowed Ata Rangi to gain the reputation it has today.

With so many variables out of the winery’s hands, she admits it can be hard going but says endurance and passion pays off.

“It’s definitely all-consuming and sometimes feels relentless, so you have to love what you’re doing,” she said.

“You need to put the money towards really important things, which are running vineyards really well and having solid processing equipment. Put all that first before your fancy cellar door. If you lose your crop to bad weather or get frosted, you need to budget considerably so you are prepared.” n

Bob Campbell MW is New Zealand’s leading wine educator, international wine judge and New Zealand wine editor for several consumer publications. In 1990, Campbell founded The Wine Gallery, the Auckland-based wine school, which has helped educate more than 21,000 eager wine consumers. He is also a member of Grapegrower & Winemaker’s editorial advisory panel.

Campbell’s Favourite Five responses were the first to be submitted and are succinct in their praise and pleasure.

Felton Road, Central Otago Producers of the region’s best Pinot Noir and Riesling, plus one of the country’s best Chardonnays.

Neudorf, Nelson Makers of NZ’s best Chardonnay plus outstanding Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Riesling and a very smart Sauvignon Blanc.

Dog Point, Marlborough A small specialist winery that excels with Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Ata Rangi, Martinborough One of NZ’s top two (with Felton Road) Pinot Noir producers.

Dry River, Martinborough

Family co-owners Alison, Phyll and Clive Paton with vineyard manager Gerry Rotman and winemaker Helen Masters.

May 2012 – Issue 580

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Founded by Dr Neill McCallum (recently retired) making thoughtfully unconventional wines of outstanding quality. Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris are NZ’s best. Also great (but controversial) Pinot Noir plus terrific Chardonnay, Riesling, Viognier and Syrah.

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best of the boutique Thomas Wines

Hunter champion of Shiraz and Semillon Andrew Thomas admits he could have picked easier wine regions to fall in love with than the Hunter.

Born and raised in McLaren Vale, Thomas accepted an assistant winemaker position with Tyrrell’s Wine to launch a career that’s now synonymous with outstanding wine from one of the more difficult wine regions in Australia.

“There’s definitely easier places to make wine than in the Hunter, but I learnt if you can do it here and do it well... then it becomes pretty special wine,” he said.

“I never intended to stay... but the Tyrrell’s family are incredibly passionate about this region and I guess some of that must have rubbed off.”

Thomas spent 13 years at Tyrrell’s and,then, in 2000 he launched his own brand, Thomas Wines – with a unique mandate in mind. He wanted to specialise in the two varieties the Hunter makes best: Shiraz and Semillon.

His focus hasn’t waivered and, in the past 11 years, he has developed a range of eight to 10 wines from the two main varieties, each with their own style influenced by their vineyard. origins.

“I knew this wasn’t a decision that would offer short-term rewards... it’s taken a lot of work and focus for 10 years, with rewards only now coming in,” he said.

“In the beginning, I was doing an 80/20 ratio of consulting for others and

Andrew Thomas.

working on my own brand... now after 10-plus years it’s the other way around.”

Wine writers Jeni Port and Andrew Graham both selected Thomas as one of their Favourite Five, admiring his passion and success in creating not only unique wines but wines that reflect the region he is part of.

Though he enjoys not having a boardroom of accountants to passify, Thomas admits market penetration as a boutique producer can be hard to achieve, at times.

in Wine technology and Viticulture at Melbourne University. His top five:

• • • •

Thomas Wines, Hunter Valley Mount Majura, Canberra Spinifex, Barossa Valley Castle Rock Estate, Great Southern • Hoddles Creek, Yarra Valley

FAvourite five Andrew Graham is the content producer and online marketing manager for Cracka Wines by day and wine writer/blogger and student by night. He writes for publications such as Gourmet Traveller WINE, Breathe Hunter Valley as well as fitting in a Masters

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Picking just five boutique wineries for this list was a challenging task. I started with a list of 20 and knocked it down from there and, even then, I kept thinking of entirely valid and worthy inclusions.

What I eventually decided, however, was that I wanted to highlight regionality, to choose wineries who push not only their own distinctly regional wines but that of the region, too. It’s no surprise then that most of these makers produce wine and/or grow grapes for not only themselves but for others in the region too (either as contract winemakers/growers or consultants) and do it notably well. www.winebiz.com.au

He has a distributor, who is small and reflects the same values as his own, which he says has been an important part of their good working relationship.

“I don’t expect them to be breaking sales records for me. Instead, it’s important for me that they understand my wines and my story and where they’ll work well,” Thomas said.

With no cellar door, Thomas also sells online via his website and through a third-party cellar door, as part of a wholesale arrangement. n

Further, I decided to focus on wineries run by strong personalities, strong (though not necessarily outspoken) personalities that again can (and do) promote not only their own wines but that of the region.

Personalities like Andrew Thomas at Thomas Wines, who is a very active ambassador for Hunter Valley Shiraz and Semillon. Or less vocal, more intuitive personalities like Frank Van de Loo, at Mount Majura, who has really pushed the growth of alternatives (like Tempranillo) in the capital, or Pete Schell, at Spinifex, whom is helping to show the world just how joyful old vine Barossan blends can be.

Speaking of the wines, all of these producers also share one thing in common – they all make wines that I will buy.

Important distinction that because there is a big difference between ‘drink’ and ‘buy’. Buy indicates that you’ll actually shell money out for said wines (rather than just drink a glass handed to you).

May 2012 – Issue 580

Rowe Scientific

HODDLES CREEK

PTY LTD

Learning the bad to produce the good They’ve been named Australia’s best value wines and are at the top of many wine critics’ lists but, for Hoddles Creek, there are no shortcuts.

With single-vineyard wines that are made from grapes that have been hand-picked and harvested, winemaker and viticulturist Franco D’Anna says the focus of the winery has always been quality – a focus that has earned the winery a fivestar rating in James Halliday’s 2012 Wine Companion.

Based in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, Hoddles Creek was established in 1997 and produces Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Gris, Merlot and Pinot Blanc.

The best thing about being a boutique producer, he says, is having the ability to do everything – something D’Anna believes makes a big impact on what ends up in the bottle.

“You get to spend time with the wine, which makes a big difference in the end,” he said.

“It’s the 1 per cent things that all add up to making a great wine. Unless you have your finger on the pulse and really understand the details, both in the vineyard and in the winery, then it’s hard to make really great wine.”

It’s the sales and marketing stuff that’s the bore.

“I’d rather be out in the paddock than on the road visiting restaurants and bottle shops,” D’Anna jokes.

While staying up-to-date with research is important, D’Anna says the best learning curves are those on the ground.

Every couple of years, D’Anna travels to experience vintage overseas.

“I read journals but I find going overseas, seeing the bad instead of the good, is the best,” he said.

“I’ll read all the technical articles and try and understand it from that sense but, in saying that, we’re not a very technical winery – we do things the old fashioned way.

“It’s a choice: all barrels are fed through gravity... it’s cheaper and it’s more gentle. When you start mucking around with the wines, they’re never the same.” n

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Hoddles Creek winemaker and viticulturist Franco D’Anna says it’s the small things that count when making a great wine.

May 2012 – Issue 580

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best of the boutique DRY RIVER

Attention to detail delivers quality beyond the bottle Operated and nurtured by a team of eight, Dry River winery is passionate about producing individual wines that reflect the terroir and are suitable for cellaring.

Minimal intervention and environmental consideration are at the heart of the winery, located south of Wairarapa, on New Zealand’s north island, and has been testament to the industry acclaim of its wines on the global stage.

This was evident when a partnership between Dry River and Gimblett Gravels winery Te Awa, in Hawke’s Bay, Kidnapper Cliffs Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 ($55) beat esteemed wines from South Africa, Argentina, Australia and Chile to take out the Five Nations Challenge red wine of the show trophy.

Founded by Neil and Dawn McCallum

in 1979, the business today is run by a team of eight, including Katy Hammond as winemaker, Robert Wills as viticulturist and Heather Gibbs in administration.

Other loyal members are Rob Smith, machinery manager, Wilco Lam, assistant winemaker, along with Kirsty Hawkins, Nick James and Michelle Mills.

According to Gibbs, there is no “worst part” to being a boutique producer.

“As far as Dry River is concerned, there are no ‘worst parts’ except maybe the high tax compliance (excise, WET) in both countries and in small years, demand for our wines exceeds supply,” Gibbs said.

She says the best thing about being a boutique producer is the ability to focus on detail. n

Being a small producer allows the team at Dry River to focus on quality and building relationships with their customers.

“We are able to focus on detail, without having to compromise on quality – small is beautiful,” she said. “Because we are small, we are able to build up strong and enduring relationships with our client base.”

RAVENSWORTH

MISTLETOE

Connecting consumers to food and wine

Awards attract growing attention

Ravensworth co-owner Bryan Martin has a passion for wine that is on par with his passion for food.

On a farm located in the cool climate of NSW’s high country, Murrumbateman, Martin’s property is not only home to winegrapes for the Ravensworth brand.

Geese, sheep, wild dear and chickens roam the property, along with hare and rabbit. A truffle farm is the latest installation.

A self-taught chef whose first food gig was with the Hyatt in Tasmania, Martin’s aim today is to combine his passion for paddock-to-plate food with his Italian food-friendly wines.

“To be able to produce good food and wine that match – to me, that’s the whole food and wine experience,” Martin said.

“We want to make people aware that our brand is connected with food. Like

a wine has a place where it comes from and the brand speaks of the region, I think food should be looked at the same way.

“It’s great to be able to show food that you’ve produced yourself.”

It was while working as a chef that Martin first became intrigued with Italian wine varieties and what was inspiration to make plantings.

Marsanne, Viognier and Sangiovese are among the wines that are grown

by Ravensworth, with many having performed well at wine shows.

The 2009 Shiraz Viognier was a standout at the Canberra Regional Wine Show, earning four trophies for best Shiraz, best Canberra District Shiraz, best red wine and wine of show. The same wine won top gold at the 2011 Winewise Small Vignerons award. n

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CE STAB 64 Grapegrower & Winemaker

With 41 medals, four championships and nine trophies awarded in the space of five months, it’s fair to say 2011 was a big year for Mistletoe. The Reserve Chardonnay 2009 has had a particularly good run, being awarded NSW wine of the year at the NSW Wine Awards and best white wine of show for medium body whites at the 2012 Sydney International Wine Competition.

Year 2012 is another exciting year for the small Hunter Valley winery, which celebrates its 20th year making wine under the Mistletoe label. Mistletoe owner Ken Sloan says the awards have borne a positive impact on the brand, with visitor numbers soaring and sales up 25 per cent over the past year.

“It’s been a building thing but over the

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May 2012 – Issue 580

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It’s particularly significant for Mistletoe, whose wines are sold predominately through its cellar door.

There is no distributor and wholesales are done direct from the winery.

“We’ve seen a demographic of consumers that we haven’t seen as many of in the past – people who are very wine savvy and who are willing to spend money on wine, so that’s worked very well,” Sloan said.

“We’ve been cellar-door-only for a while and now we’re getting contact from high profile restaurants, we’re finding our wines lists we never thought we’d be on.” n

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Mount Majura Vineyard crafts its wines from just 9.5 hectares, a space its owners describe as an “outcrop of red soil on the northeastern slopes of Mount Majura”.

The vineyard was originally established in 1988, after it was identified as having ideal winegrowing qualities by one of Canberra’s original wine pioneers, Edgar Riek.

Mount Majura Vineyard winemaker Frank van de Loo joined 10 years later and has taken the tiny winery forward on a wholly unique, and very focussed path to success.

Van de Loo says Mount Majura Vineyard’s underlying philosophy is much more than making ‘single vineyard’ wines.

“It’s about selecting, growing and making wines from varieties that best reflect the 9.5ha environment (terroir) they grow in,” he said.

As a result, Mount Majura Vineyard was one of the first to grow and market Tempranillo, and is a founding member of the unique marketing group TempraNeo. Together, the six Tempranillo producers fund and host events and tastings to lift the industry and consumer knowledge of the relatively new variety.

“As well as helping to share the costs, a group like this helps us deliver a unique focus for consumers and trade, and it’s usually bloody good fun,” van de Loo said.

“It’s also helped considerably to be one of the first in this variety... to help lead its take-up in Australia. As a small producer, it’s important to have your point of difference, and to be able to market it well.”

As well as Tempranillo, Mount Majura Vineyard have also planted another Spanish variety, Graciano, and the Portuguese

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May 2012 – Issue 580

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Mistletoe winemaker Nick Paterson with owners Ken and Gwen Sloan.

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best of the boutique variety Touriga, alongside staples Shiraz, Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris.

“We took the view that we wanted to match the varieties we grow to the terroir... and we could see that our climate and environment was very similar to Ribera del Duero, one of the premium Tempranillo wine regions in Spain’s north.

“I call it thinking outside the hexagon (which is French) ... and Spain has such a similar climate, we came to realise we could get the most out of these varieties.

“Taking from that one site allows us to get that synergy of not just single vineyard quality but more importantly for us real character of place as well.” n

Bell Hill Vineyards

Lessons in limestone eventually blossom at Bell Hill For some, it may seem a lot of sweat and tears for just two hectares of vines but, after 15 years, Bell Hill owners Marcel Giesen and Sherwyn Veldhuizen are seeing the fruits of their labour and passion finally pay off.

In 1997, Giesen and Veldhuizen began a very specific search for a particular plot of land to begin their own winemaking ventures – both having established careers in the industry. They were searching for land with limestonederived soils, with a goal to produce Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with a structure, acidity and minerality commonly linked to this soil type and wine-producing regions of Burgundy, in France.

They found it located in an old lime quarry in the North Canterbury region of Wecka Pass, planting their first vines in 1997.

Using existing rootstock available to them in New Zealand, the vines didn’t produce the results they were seeking.

So, three years later they started again, this time importing from France specific rootstock suitable to the high pH and calcium soils they had chosen. It took a further seven years before another vine was planted.

“We did question at one stage whether we’d done all we could do... but having come so far and invested so much of ourselves, time and money

I think there’s a point of no return,” Veldhuizen said.

“It was always meant to be a long-term venture, we went in knowing the risks and worked hard to reduce the ones we could by modelling our methods and giving ourselves parameters to focus on.

“We sought elevation, with our vines planted at about 275-290m, we looked at similar places such as Chablis and Champagne and recognised the techniques we needed to employ... such as planting vines close together to force the roots straight down through the soil layers, tracing natural water paths for minimal irrigation...”

They now have 22,000 vines planted

FAVOURITE FIVE Jane Skilton moved to Auckland in 2000 and is the wine columnist for the Sunday Star Times, wine editor for the Food Magazine and contributes to a number of wine publications in New Zealand and Australia. She is a senior wine judge, both of national and international wine shows. She is a director of the NZ School of Wines and Spirits. Her own website is www.mottledoyster.co.nz. These are her Favourite Five boutique wineries, from New Zealand, in no particular order:

Escarpment, Martinborough Although originally from Australia, no-one could be more passionate about NZ Pinot Noir than Larry McKenna. Escarpment represents his personal journey to find vineyards capable of producing superlative expressions of Pinot Noir and his three single vineyard wines and the flagship Kupe label grow in stature and definition with each vintage.

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Grasshopper Rock, Central Otago

Bilancia, Hawke’s Bay

This Alexandra winery has been producing a single vineyard Pinot Noir since 2006.

Abundantly Central Otago in style, it retains a sappy, toothsome edge that makes it delicious and extremely drinkable.

It is also keenly priced ($25 from the winery), proving you can make small batch, high quality wine and not have to charge the earth.

A self-confessed Nebbiolo lover, Warren Gibson chose instead to plant Syrah and Viognier on his own Gimblett Gravels vineyard. Together with partner Lorraine Leheny, Gibson crafts arguably NZ’s finest Syrah from the tiny La Collina hillside vineyard. A masterpiece of elegance and restraint.

Bell Hill, North Canterbury

Nick Mills has narrowed the varietal focus of his family’s vineyards, which are now dominated by Pinot Noir and Riesling.

There can be no doubt the combination of experience and increasing specialisation has paid dividends for the Wanaka producer; the wines show ever more complexity, character, poise and sense of place.

Marcel Giesen and Sherwyn Veldhuizen have carved out a huge reputation for outstanding Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, crafted from their tiny two hectare vineyard in North Canterbury. Situated in an old limestone quarry, the densely planted vines imitate the climats of Burgundy yet the wines are unmistakeably NZ in character showing startling purity and definition

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Rippon Vineyards, Central Otago

May 2012 – Issue 580

on the 2ha and will, this year, harvest their first vintage from the last lot of vines to be planted on site in 2009.

Bell Hills was the only vineyard that New Zealand wine critics Bob Campbell MW and Jane Skilton MW shared in their Favourite Five lists, both noting the dedication and unique focus behind some outstanding wines.

“The benefits of being small allows you to focus on the small details, and gives you a connectivity to the product that is truly unique... we work hard but that connection is a luxury not offered to those really big companies,” Veldhuizen said.

A friend once told Veldhuizen “when the going gets tough machine up”... and

Cabernet, drawing on some of the best fruit grown in the region, including from the Lehmann family vineyards. Now, he is breaking new ground with tiny but very impressive batches of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Adelaide Hills fruit.

Bloodwood

FAvourite five Denis Gastin is managing director of Instate Pty Ltd. He has extensive winerelated interests, including writing for wine and liquor publications in Japan, Korea and The Oxford Companion to Wine, The World Atlas of Wine and Wine Report.

“I’m impressed by wineries that are going beyond the norm, like those committed to reinvigorating their history, the ones setting new benchmarks in styles and varieties, or pioneering new regional identities,” he said.

David Franz Dave Lehmann is nothing if not creative. He has bound the strenuous skills of viticulture and winemaking with entertainment and fun: the colourful and amusing packaging says it all! The initial step was to make the most of Barossa’s traditional varietal strengths (Riesling, Semillon, Shiraz) and

Stephen and Rhonda Doyle were the first to grow grapes and make wine commercially in Orange, 30 years ago.

They paved the way for the 40-plus wineries that have followed them, making Orange one of Australia’s most exciting new wine frontiers. They use birds rather than sprays to control pests and move with the rhythms of nature – on some of the earth’s oldest soils. The feature varieties are Riesling, Chardonnay, Malbec (for rosé), Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cobaw Ridge Macedon is one of the first regional names you think of when it comes to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay - both still and sparkling.

Alan and Nellie Cooper, at Cobaw Ridge, on their isolated vineyard on the northern slopes of the Ranges, have harnessed nature (certified organic) to help define these styles, and have moved impressively beyond this with a luscious Lagrein that stuns even seasoned international palates and a stand-out Syrah/Viognier. They have just been accredited by the France-based Renaissance des Appellations as meeting the exacting viticulture standards they see as necessary to appropriately reflect terroir – or sense of place.

it’s proved a useful philosophy at Bell Hill Vineyards.

“We couldn’t afford the latest whizbang gadgets when we first started, but as we’ve gone forward the decision to buy the new model small-size tractor and the latest air-assisted sprayer has allowed us to leap forward in terms of labour costs, quality and disease management.” n

Sittella The Berns family has done a great deal in a short time frame to freshen up the fading image of the Swan Valley staple varieties: Chenin Blanc, Verdelho and Shiraz. In addition to an impressive dry wine line-up from these varieties, Verdelho is forefront again in both a fortified and a (cane cut) dessert wine format; Shiraz is featured in a Tawny. They chose Chenin Blanc to launch their impressive sparkling range, now partnered with a straight Chardonnay version, a traditional Pinot Noir/Chardonnay version, and there is a Shiraz version in the pipeline. New frontiers are being pioneered for the region with varieties such as Petit Verdot and Tempranillo.

Taminick Cellars The Booth family has contributed an important chapter to Australia’s wine history during its 100 years at Taminick and has been adding new dimensions as it progresses from the third to the fourth generation at the helm. The Shiraz, Trebbiano and some Cabernet Sauvignon vines planted in 1919 still provide the core of the current range. Progressively Muscat, Chardonnay, Merlot and Durif have been added to provide new dimensions. Taminick has always been known for its fortified wines and its big, long-living reds and this remains so. But contemporary practices have added subtle edges to aromas and structure, while still delivering all of the unique local terroir.

Easy on. Easy off.

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best of the boutique

FAvourite five

Australia’s Best Young Winemaker Award (Gourmet Traveller WINE magazine) and the Jimmy Watson Trophy for best one and two-year-old red in the country (2010 MON PeRE). The accolades reflected a real star on the rise. His wines don’t disappoint.

Pure expression of fruit with little artefact, every wine in his small portfolio is made with attention to detail and with some creative input from working vintages abroad: the aromatic, herbal uBERBLANC Riesling; the lifted MON PeRE Shiraz, the youthful, fruit-led AVANCe and the most assured ReVEUR Pinot Noir.

ALSO: Apsley Gorge, Holm Oak, Grey Sands.

VIC: Castagna Jeni Port is a Melbourne-based wine writer, with The Age, author and wine judge, as well as Grapegrower & Winemaker’s monthly columnist. Port aimed to pick one favourite boutique wine producer from each state, and also asked for feedback from the Twitter-verse. The feedback was instant and varied and many more were suggested than we can fit on this page but there’s a few extras who get an honourable mention.

ACT: Ravensworth Bryan Martin, like many small winemakers, has a day job. He is assistant winemaker with Tim Kirk, at Clonakilla. You might suspect that working with Tim would influence his winemaking but under Ravensworth, Bryan literally cuts loose, exploring an eclectic bunch of grapes such as Marsanne (including a dessert style), Roussanne, Riesling, Sangiovese and Shiraz Viognier. A believer in Marsanne, Martin strives to keep its integrity, raising it above the usual ‘country’ wine label. Ravensworth Shiraz Viognier and Sangiovese, ridiculously affordable, show extraordinary potential for the future.

ALSO: Brindabella Hills Winery, Helm Wines, Mount Majura Vineyard.

TAS: Glaetzer-Dixon Family Winemakers Last year was a mega year for the very serious and talented young emigre from the Barossa Valley, Nick Glaetzer. He won

Julian Castagna knows what he wants out of wine. Always has. This is a man without doubts, with a firm wine philosophy in place. He leads and there are many happy followers. A devotee of biodynamic grapegrowing and winemaking, Castagna chose Beechworth in 1997 for its high altitude, cool climate and amazing mineral-rich soils. His Genesis Syrah - if a wine can be intellectually challenging and possibly intimidating, this is it - was the first to gain attention, followed by a savoury Sangiovese of almost equal intensity (La Chiave). Then came a rash of wine releases that continues to this day: Un Segreto (Sangiovese/Syrah), the pretty, tasty Allegro (Syrah rose) and a rare white wine for the red-led house, Ingenue Viognier. Julian, with assistant winemaking son Adam, now have Chardonnay in their sights. Exciting times. No wine was made in 2011. “We lost a year of learning,” says Julian.

ALSO: Dalwhinnie, Jamsheed, Savaterre.

NSW: Thomas Wines Andrew Thomas might be described as a chip off the ol’ block – his dad was wellknown McLaren Vale winemaker Wayne Thomas – but Thommo Jnr. arrived in the Hunter in 1986 and has been fully inculcated in its ways. In a short time, young Thommo has moved from student to master, making some of the Hunter’s most elegant, thoughtful wines. His

Braemore Semillon rates amongst the Valley’s best and his Kiss Shiraz is often talked about as the new face of Hunter ‘shy-raz’, a wine with real poise and polish. He has even ventured into an off-dry Semillon, a taste maybe of the future?

ALSO: Nick O’Leary Wines, Tintilla Estate

SA: Radford Wines Radford Wines is as small as you get: 3.7 hectares of vines high in some of the highest parts capable of sustaining vineyards in the High Eden – 460 metres in altitude – with Ben and Gill Radford doing all the viticultural and winemaking roles. Originally organic, the couple have now fully embraced biodynamic methods. Low maintenance suits their style, which is to allow the land – including ridges of mineral quartz – to be fully revealed through their winemaking. The role of old vines, including some of the oldest Riesling vines in the Barossa, brings complexity and weight to their quest.

Riesling is powerfully concentrated with a mineral-rich intensity. The Shiraz displays a natural fine-boned minerality.

ALSO: KT Wines, Spinifex, Vinteloper.

WA: Bellarmine Wines Pemberton is considered Pinot Noir and Chardonnay country and while it is all of that, it is also incredibly well suited to Riesling. It took a young woman, a former veterinarian no less, to fully appreciate and capitalise on the grape’s potential with not one but three terrific Rieslings from dry through to the sweetest. But Di Miller did not work alone, instead working in tandem with Bellarmine owner, Will Schumacher, a German, who also happens to be mad about Riesling.

Pemberton Riesling offers a different regional expression: flavoursome, less austere, highly approachable when young.

The Bellarmine Rieslings are also among the first in the world to show a Riesling scale on the front labels!

ALSO: Picardy, Salitage, Whicher Ridge.

Can’t find someone…………

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May 2012 – Issue 580

Wineries embrace sensory analysis New techniques in the winery are helping wineries understand their consumer better Kellie Arbuckle

MORE AUSTRALIAN WINERIES are warming to sensory analysis and testing in an attempt to ensure their wine reflects consumer preferences.

Traditionally, winemakers band together in small groups to test wines for quality through scores or grades. The high price of formal sensory analysis – which can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars – together with the seasonal nature of wine production, often meant winemakers would opt to assess quality in-house, without technical replication methods or science-based controls.

The tendency for winemakers to shy away from such testing has been exacerbated by what sensory scientist Leigh Francis says can be a sense of “distrust of methods that don’t involve experienced winemakers”.

As shelf competition increases along with consumers’ wine knowledge, more wineries are turning to more sciencebased testing.

They’re paying for services that will help them see if consumers believe their wine is fit for the purpose it is intended and reflects the taste of the target market.

Francis, who is in charge of running consumer testing and sensory analysis at the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), says changing attitudes of consumers is encouraging wineries to embrace formal testing procedures.

“Generally, winemakers provide most of the sensory evaluation for companies with unreplicated tastings and no statistical analysis applied, however, this is changing slowly, with some companies starting to run consumer testing and formal sensory analysis methods,” he said.

“When we started running consumer tests at the AWRI, there was some negative comment from some members of the industry, along the lines of ‘consumers can’t say what they want and we need to tell them’, but nowadays it is rare for people to raise these types of concerns.

“We’ve shown that wine consumers are not stupid, they dislike wines with less pleasant flavours – even low levels of flavours such as ‘brett’ or oxidation May 2012 – Issue 580

will deter consumers strongly. We have also shown in our sensory studies what specific positive flavours are really well liked by consumers.”

One wine company that has been proactive in this field is Orlando Wines.

In 2007, the company established a comprehensive internal sensory program, which uses about 60 trained panellists to assess wines made as part of research and development projects.

The projects span the entire supply chain, from the vineyard to the consumer, and include different oak treatments, yeast trials, fermentation temperatures, bottling line trials and market segmentation studies.

Pernod Ricard global research and development manager Kate Lattey says the information and knowledge generated through the sensory program is used by its winemakers to ensure its wines reflect consumer tastes.

“Sensory analysis is at the heart of our product development process as it provides a critical link between winemaking and our consumers using language they understand,” Lattey said.

“We want to ensure that we continue to deliver wines that meet or exceed consumer expectations in terms of taste profile, and sensory analysis is an important tool in helping us achieve this.”

At the same time, however, Orlando is conscious of the risk of going ‘too commercial’.

In an attempt to ensure wines reflect consumer tastes without losing the uniqueness often exhibited by new and often untried varieties, Orlando tries to engage both winemakers and consumers equally.

“It’s not one or the other leading the way, it’s working together which takes both the creativity of the winemaker but also the objectivity of the consumers to help come to a point that hopefully delivers what the consumers want,” Lattey said.

“We do the same with both consumers and our winemakers – we sit down with the winemakers, show them the data, www.winebiz.com.au

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69

winemaking offer the tastings and try and work out how we can create something.”

The wine style dictates who Orlando consults with first.

“If it’s a new wine in a growing category, we’ll go to the consumer first and, then, the winemaker. If it’s a new variety, we’ll go to the winemaker first because they know what varietal characters to look out for and how they should be expressed,” Lattey said.

Francis says the benefits of sensory analysis cannot be underestimated.

“Sensory analysis is an extremely important part of product development, with multiple roles, from assessing consumer needs and gaps in the market; working with production and marketing to develop prototype products; aligning packaging and wine taste; making sure that a product is well-liked compared with competitors before release, and determining sensory specifications that relate to winemaking options,” he said.

“Use of sensory methods will greatly reduce the risk of launching unsuccessful products that can damage a brand and waste a large amount of scarce company resources.”

The AWRI offers Australian wineries contract sensory and consumer testing, ranging from simple difference test studies for a few hundred dollars to more complex and costly rating studies, descriptive analysis and consumer preference testing.

The Orlando Wines sensory hub uses about 60 trained panellists to assess wines.

Sensory symposium highlights opportunities Leigh Francis was among almost 70 sensory specialists to attend the New Zealand and Australian Sensory and Consumer Science Symposium, in February.

‘The World of Flavour’ was the key theme at this year’s event, which took place at the Jacob’s Creek Visit Centre, in the Barossa, and aimed to give participants a better understanding of how flavour supports product development.

Now in its sixth year, the symposium attracted a mix of researchers and people from the food and wine industry, including representatives from Orlando Wines and Lion.

Francis said having Orlando Wines host the symposium was significant as it highlighted the growing importance of sensory analysis in the wine sector.

“With challenging times in the industry, more companies are aware they need to more directly consider the consumer in their winemaking process, which has helped to change the culture in the industry somewhat,” he said.

One of the participating companies at the symposium was dairy company,

70 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Greg Organ, Lion; Simon Hanley, Lion; Shane Hanna, Orlando; Belinda Bramley, Orlando, at the Sensory Symposium, in February.

Fonterra. Francis said there were a number of similarities to the dairy industry that the wine industry could learn from in relation to its sensory testing.

Like the wine industry, the dairy industry revolves around a product of a seasonal nature, he said.

“Many larger cheese or dairy products companies have formal sensory panels which play a large role in sensory quality control of the batches of their products, and closely assess consumer preference and sensory profiles from a trained panel in new product development,” Francis said.

“Expert cheesemakers, of course, also play a very important role, but sensory panels and consumer preference data mean that batches of products with offwww.winebiz.com.au

flavours or defects can be eliminated from production, and specialty products that appeal strongly to a section of the market can be developed.”

Another industry the wine industry could learn from is the beer industry, Francis said.

“Having a panel of sensory assessors in the beer industry means that each lot of beer brewed can be checked to make sure it matches specifications and results compared across brewing facilities,” he said.

“The beer industry makes extensive use of sensory data to make decisions about raw materials, processes and packaging to make sure their business is focussed on producing high quality products from the consumer’s perspective, while reducing costs where possible.”

May 2012 – Issue 580

The addition of bentonite at different stages of white winemaking and its effect on protein stability Matteo Marangon, Ken F. Pocock, Elizabeth J. Waters

Protein haze is one of the key instabilities in white wine production.

Grape proteins in wine can slowly denature and aggregate together into insoluble protein aggregates that make the wine appear hazy and, eventually, form unattractive sediments. Such wines are not saleable and, therefore, this protein ‘instability’ needs to be prevented.

The common practice in all winemaking countries is to remove the proteins before bottling through adsorption onto bentonite. Bentonite is an effective treatment, but its application has some drawbacks, such as wine volume loss and disposal costs, as well as perceived effects on wine flavour and quality (AWRI publication #858). Hence, winemakers aim to use

the minimum amount of bentonite for wine quality, cost and environmental reasons.

The amount of bentonite required for stability depends on the amount of protein that needs to be removed: more protein usually means more bentonite is required, although the relationship between bentonite requirements and total protein concentration is not strictly linear (Mesquita et al. 2001). It is known that protein levels generally decrease during fermentation (Murphey et al. 1989) and that ethanol either has no impact or slightly enhances protein adsorption onto bentonite (Achaerandio et al. 2001). From this it would seem that fining wine rather than juice would be a good idea, because less bentonite

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should be required. However, bentonite is not just added to wines: juice fining and additions during fermentation are commercial practices, too. This suggests there are advantages to juice fining that are not just related to protein removal, although the literature is scarce and rather contradictory.

What we do know is that the effect of bentonite during fermentation is debated: some say it helps the fermentation rate because bentonite particles act as a support for yeast and provide nuclei for carbon dioxide bubble formation (Milisavljevic 1963), while others say it does not always enhance fermentation rate (Asvany 1970; Weiss and Bisson 2002). The addition of bentonite during fermentation may be preferable from

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71

winemaking a processing point of view because it might reduce the number of overall operations required during winemaking and may help to compact fermentation lees (Colby et al. 2006).

Clearly, there is insufficient robust information available to allow winemakers to make an informed decision on the optimum way to use bentonite. A recent study at the AWRI (AWRI publication #1294) was designed to provide better information as to when, during winemaking, is the best time to add bentonite to produce a heat stable white wine. We summarise the outcomes here.

Extra needed First addition

Timing of addition: to juice, during ferment or to wine?

For this experiment, two juices (a Sauvignon Blanc and a Semillon) were used and the amount of bentonite required for heat stability for both juices (nominated as ‘X’ g/L) was determined as 1.7g/L and 1.5g/L, respectively before the experiment began. Each juice was fermented on a small-scale in two different experiments, with bentonite addition to the fermentations either early, when the percentage of soluble solids had fallen by approximately 4% (i.e., to 18% and 15%, respectively) or later in the fermentation when soluble solids were approximately 10%. Controls (no addition of bentonite) were also fermented, and the juice fined with bentonite (i.e., fined with X g/L, then bentonite removed) was also fermented.

After fermentation was complete, the protein stability of the wines was determined and this showed that more bentonite was required in both cases when added to juice, compared with wine or during fermentation (Table 1). It was interesting that less bentonite was required if added during fermentation compared with addition to juice.

The difficult part of this experiment was working out how much bentonite to add during fermentation. In this trial, the amount of bentonite added during fermentation was the rate required to stabilise the juice (i.e., Xg/L) and two 0.1g/L increments less than this rate (i.e., X - 0.1g/L and X - 0.2g/L). For Sauvignon Blanc, the rates added were 1.7, 1.6 and 1.5g/L; and for Semillon, the rates were 1.5, 1.4 and 1.3g/L. This range was small and resulted in no wines that were unstable in this experiment. In other words, adding bentonite during fermentation was more efficient than adding it to juice and a stable wine could be produced with 0.2g/L less bentonite.

The reduction in rate might have even been better than this, but the trial didn’t extend far enough for confirmation.

72 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Figure 1: The effect of timing of a second stage of bentonite addition on the rate required for heat stability of the resultant wines, as estimated by the change in turbidity following a heat test. The first stage additions to juice, during fermentation or to wine were constant (0.3g/L for Riesling and 0.8g/L for Sauvignon Blanc: ‘first addition’). The second stage addition (‘extra needed’) was made to wine. The combined bentonite addition for both stages is shown in the figure.

Taking advantage of bentonite additions during fermentation

of bentonite required, additions during fermentation or to wine directly were generally preferable compared with fining juice.

As discussed, addition of bentonite during fermentation appears to help in its efficacy. It is difficult, however, to determine how much bentonite to add during fermentation to achieve protein stability in wine. If the amount needed to stabilise juice is added, it will be more than is needed, but until the juice has fermented to wine, the amount required by that wine for stability is unknown. In the second experiment using a Sauvignon Blanc and a Riesling juice, the AWRI made an educated guess of 60% of the juice requirement, expecting that a final second fining of some wines might be required to fine-tune stability.

The total amount of bentonite needed to achieve stability in the subsequent wines in shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 shows that less bentonite overall was required when the first addition was made during fermentation.

The effect was more pronounced with the Sauvignon Blanc that contained more protein than the Riesling.

Again, this second trial showed that, in terms of minimising the amounts

Summary Fermenting with bentonite was more efficient than addition of bentonite to juice. Fermenting with the presence of bentonite also has the added advantage of increasing the fermentation rate and, in general, additions to juice or must are considered to have less impact on wine sensory properties than additions to wine.

In wineries, a two-stage addition of bentonite is probably the optimum method, with an addition to juice which then remains in the juice during fermentation, or during fermentation, followed by a second addition to wine if required. A heuristic of approximately 50–70% of the juice requirement can be used as an estimate of the dosage required to stabilise wine. This way, the bulk of the bentonite added can be removed along with the yeast less at the end of fermentation, with the added advantage of increased fermentation rates.

Table 1. The effect of timing of addition on the amount of bentonite required for stability.

Timing of bentonite addition

Amount of bentonite required for stability (g/L) Sauvignon Blanc

Semillon

To juice

1.7

1.5

Early during ferment

1.5*

1.3*

Late during ferment

1.5*

1.3*

To wine

1.1

1.3

* For the additions during ferment, the lowest rate tested that resulted in stability is reported. The turbidity data suggest that a lower rate may have also achieved protein stability www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

Acknowledgments This work was supported financially by Australia’s grapegrowers and winemakers through their investment body, the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation (GWRDC), with matching funds from the Australian Government. The AWRI is a member of the Wine Innovation Cluster, located in Adelaide.

Matteo Marangon is based at the The Australian Wine Research Institute, Ken Pocock and Elizabeth Waters were formerly based at The Australian Wine Research Institute. Waters is now at GWRDC.

References

Achaerandio, I., Pachova, V., Guell, C. and Lopez, F. (2001). Protein adsorption by Bentonite in a white wine model solution: effect of protein molecular weight and ethanol concentration. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture 52(2), 122-126.

Asvany, A. (1970). Conditions necessaries à l’obtention des vins de qualité.

Influence de différents facteurs naturels et techniques. Rapport Hongrois. Bulletin de L’.O.I.V. 43, 744-754.

MY ADVICE Probably the best way to reduce the amount of bentonite needed for wine stabilisation is a two stage addition: a first addition made either to juice or early during ferment (about 2/3 of the total amount of bentonite predicted to stabilise the juice based on a heat test) followed by a second addition to wine as required. This procedure has several advantages: the bulk of bentonite can be removed after fermentation, the fermentation rate in presence of bentonite is increased, addition of bentonite to juice generally has less impact on wine sensory properties than additions to wine, and the total amount of bentonite to be used is reduced. Matteo Marangon, AWRI

AWRI publication #858. Waters, E.J., Alexander, G., Muhlack, R., Pocock, K.F., Colby, C.B., O’Neill, B.K., Høj, P.B. and Jones, P.R. (2005). Preventing protein haze in bottled wine. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 11, 215-225.

AWRI publication #1294. Pocock, K.F., Salazar, F.N. and Waters, E.J. (2011).

The effect of bentonite fining at different stages of white winemaking on protein instability. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 17, 280-284.

Colby, C.B., Nordestgaard, S., Waters, E.J. and O’Neill, B.K. (2006). Bentonite fining: can we improve performance and efficiency and decrease value losses?

Australian & New Zealand Grapegrower & Winemaker 509a: 82-88.

Dukes, B. C. and Butzke, C.E. (1998). Rapid determination of primary amino acids in grape juice using an o-phthalaldehyde/N-acetyl-L-cysteine spectrophotometric assay. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture 49, 125-134.

Iland, P. G., Ewart, A.J.W., Sitters, J.H., Markides, A.J. and Bruer, N.G. C. (2000).

Techniques for chemical analysis and quality monitoring during winemaking.

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Mesquita, P.R., Piçarra-Pereira, M.A., Monteiro, S., Loureiro, V.B., Teixeira, A.R. and Ferreira, R.B. (2001). Effect of wine composition on protein stability. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 4(4), 324-330.

Milisavljevic, D. (1963). Prévention des troubles protéiques du vin par l’emploi de bentonite dans le moût. Annales de Technologie Agricole 12, 315-327.

Murphey, J.M., Spayd, S.E., & Powers, J.R. (1989). Effect of grape maturation on soluble protein characteristics of Gewurztraminer and white Riesling juice and wine.

American Journal of Enology and Viticulture 40(3), 199-207.

Weiss, K.C. and Bisson, L.F. (2002). Effect of bentonite treatment of grape juice on yeast fermentation. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture 53, 28-36.

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73

essential oenology

Is there too much residual copper in your wine?

Greg Howell

The use of copper sulfate for fining in wine is well established and widely used.

The level of residual copper is highly regulated and, yet, does not appear to be regularly checked by many winemakers.

Based upon the results of our testing for residual copper this year, we outline why some caution is needed with this additive.

Sulfide removal Copper fining of wine has been employed for many years as a way to remove sulfides from wine. An aqueous copper sulfate solution is typically used as a source of copper ions – these copper ions react with the sulfide ions in the wine to form insoluble copper sulfide, which is then removed by settling or filtration.

This is a very effective way of removing the stench caused by sulfide ions from the wine. The use of soluble copper can cause one problem though – residual copper ions in the wine after the copper fining treatment.

not followed in other wine-producing countries, such as the US or France.

The widespread use of screwcaps, while virtually eliminating cork taint, did create one minor issue: it was found that many wines had a much more ‘reduced’ character and a greater level of sulfide taint was noticed in the early days of screwcap adoption.

While copper fining had been widely practised in Australia for many years, it was suddenly found that a more rigorous application of copper was required.

From anecdotal evidence, it seems most winemakers started to use a larger dose of copper to ensure the ‘reduced’ or sulfide character in wine under screwcap did not persist in the bottle.

Toxicity of copper sulfate Copper sulfate is a poison. If you have a bottle on your lab shelf or in your winery store check the label. It will (or should) say ‘Poison’ in large letters on the label.

This chemical is widely used in the wine industry, albeit in small quantities, and as such it appears that it is sometimes assumed to be an innocuous material. It is not.

Prevention of hydrogen sulfide by good nutritional management The main source of hydrogen sulfide in wine is known to be from yeast fermentation when yeast-assimilable nitrogen (YAN) is a limiting nutrient during primary fermentation (Jiranek et al. 1995; Jiranek et al. 1991).

It is possible to limit the amount of sulfides formed in the wine; this is a preferable path to follow than to add excess copper to the wine to remove the sulfides. Therefore, a greater awareness of adding nitrogen nutrients, such as diammonium phosphate (DAP) or blended complex commercial nutrients is needed. Awareness and improvements in yeast nutrition, including the wider use YAN measurements, have occurred over the past several years.

74 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Copper content of copper sulfate The common form of copper sulfate has the formula CuSO4.5H2O and has a molecular weight of 249.68. The copper ion itself has an atomic weight of 63.55; therefore the proportion of the commercially available pure salt that is copper is 25.5%.

This ratio is used in a practical sense by many winemakers by using a 400ppm solution of CuSO4.5H2O and assuming it gives a 100ppm solution of copper ions (if accurately done it would actually be 102ppm).

This 100ppm copper ion solution (400ppm copper sulfate) is then used in bench trials using 1mL of copper stock solution in 100mL of wine to give a 1ppm copper treatment (Rankine 1989).

Smaller or larger rates are made by using different addition rates, e.g., 0.5mL of stock gives a 0.5ppm addition rate. A number of trials can then be done easily to find that minimum level of copper that removes all trace of sulfides in the wine.

Performing these trials is a better process to follow than adding a standard addition to all wines and having the risk that excess copper is added when it is not necessary.

These fining trials are typically done by winemakers after primary fermentation and, then, at the pre-bottling stage as well. Usually there are two instances where copper is added to wine.

Residual copper content of wine

Screwcaps and the increase in copper doses Over the past decade, screwcaps have taken over from traditional cork closures in Australia, primarily because cork was causing an unacceptable amount of cork-tainted wine. This large and rapid changeover in Australia was interestingly

0.03g is needed to kill a 1kg size rat, So, please be aware copper sulfate is a material that deserves respect and that should be used very carefully and always the minimum dose should be employed.

Warning: Do not pipette copper solutions by mouth; always use a safety bulb pipette for additions.

Figure 1. A bottle of copper sulfate.

The LD50 (the median lethal dose) of copper sulfate is 300mg/kg in rats (MSDS). That is, an average dose of only www.winebiz.com.au

Some of the copper added to wine does remain in the wine solution after the sulfides have been precipitated. The amount of copper in the wine prior to fining can also add to the total amount left in solution. For example, if copperbased sprays have been used in the vineyard then some residual copper can be in the juice prior to ferment.

As copper is a toxic heavy metal there are legal limits for the amount of copper that can be present in various foods and drinks. The copper limit in wine varies from one country to another and the limits vary widely. There is no longer a specific limit in Australia for the amount of copper in wine (Food Standard 4.5.1).

May 2012 – Issue 580

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winemaking There is however a limit in the US of 0.5mg/L and in the EU of 1mg/L (see Wine Australia website).

Of the wines that we have tested in our labs so far this year, 11% of wines were above the 0.5mg/L limit and 7% were above the 1.0mg/L limit. Obviously some of these wines are at risk if exported to the US and EU, and are also at risk of copper casse.

Copper casse As well as being undesirable due to its toxicity, copper in wine is also unwanted due to its propensity to cause a fault known as copper casse (from the French noun ‘casse’ meaning flaw). The casse, or haziness, is only noticed in white wines and is caused by high copper levels and related to protein and sulfide levels. The amount of copper required to cause copper casse is quite small – the minimum amount suggested is 0.5mg/L (ppm) (Rankine 1989).

This problem in wine is not very common but if it does occur it can be very difficult to remove. Blue fining using cyanide compounds must be used to remove excess copper. Needless to say, this treatment is not particularly nice to use. A low copper level in the first instance is a much better way to go.

Conclusion The use of copper sulfate in removing sulfides from wine is done regularly by most winemakers. Copper sulfate is a toxic material and should be treated with

to New titles Wine 2 1 in 20

Figure 2. A typical set-up for performing copper fining trials.

caution. The residual amount of copper in wine is tightly regulated and should be checked on a regular basis to ensure that regulatory requirements of importing countries are met. Of the wines tested in our laboratories this year, 11% were above the US regulatory limit of 0.5mg/L. Greg Howell is product specialist and managing director of Vintessential Laboratories, who operates ISO 17025 acccredited consulting wine laboratories in Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland.

Oenology Essentials is published bi-monthly in Grapegrower & Winemaker. Contact Greg via email on: greg@vintessential.com.au and Vintessential Laboratories website: www.vintessential.com.au publishes a number of articles on related topics.

References

Jiranek, V; Langridge, P; Henschke, P.A. Applied Environmental Microbiology, Feb 1995, 461-467 Jiranek, V; Henschke, P.A. Assimilable nitrogen: regulator of hydrogen sulfide production during fermentation. Australian Grapegrower and Winemaker, April 1991, 27-30 MSDS, Ajax Finechem, Taren Point, NSW Rankine, B; Making Good Wine, 1989, Pan Macmillan Food Standard 4.5.1, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, www.fsanz.gov.au

Principles of Wine Marketing

By Steve Goodman

Steve Goodman captures over a decade of experience as a wine marketer (consulting and research) to discuss the principles of marketing for the wine business. Designed to generate the reader’s ability to use marketing thinking to apply to their wine business.

Covers a wide range of marketing principles specific for the wine industry, from marketing strategy, research, segmentation and targeting, consumer behavior, building brands, price, distribution and promotion.

An extremely useful handbook for anyone involved in the sale of wine, including students, business owners, retailers and marketers.

Visit our bookstore at www.winebiz.com.au for further details or to order your copy today.

Email: orders@winetitles.com.au Ph: +61 8 8369 9500 76 Grapegrower & Winemaker

www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

ask the How and why identify matter other than grapes HARVEST IS USUALLY the time when The Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) is asked a range of questions about different kinds of matter other than grapes (MOG) and its potential implications for wine quality. Here are some of those questions from this harvest.

What is considered MOG? MOG includes foreign objects contained in the harvested grapes upon delivery at the winery. MOG includes grapevine leaves, petioles and canes, stones, trellis or irrigation parts, harvest tools, buckets or any other object that may end up in the load (Allen 2003). Even that bicycle that was leant up against a harvest bin or that mobile phone dropped into the bin. MOG also includes excessive levels of vineyard pests, such as snails and caterpillars.

In comparison to MOG, ‘contaminants’ refer to loads that may be contaminated with soil, fuel, oil or other lubricants, diesel taint picked up during transport, non food-grade materials, dilution with water, unwanted additives or animal matter including insect pests, although the latter may also be a component of a MOG assessment.

MOG levels The level of MOG in a load is commonly gauged using a visual assessment against a standard such as the Australian Winegrape Load Assessment Manual and

Questions regarding MOG type and effect are front of mind during vintage.

posters. Bins are inspected on arrival at the weighbridge and compared with a series of photographs ranked MOG 0-5 according to the level of contamination.

MOG 0 carries no risk or loss to quality and MOG 5 includes damaging objects of an unacceptable level and the load may be rejected. The ‘MOG score’ can also be used to assign price penalties if required.

How does MOG get there?

The transfer of MOG into a load of grapes is usually associated with machine harvest operations. Poor harvester set-up and inadequate monitoring of harvest performance may result in high levels of leaves and petioles in grapes. A variety of pests can also accumulate in the bins if they are not controlled during the

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www.winebiz.com.au

Grapegrower & Winemaker

77

ask the season. Pieces of cordon may contribute to MOG if broken off during harvest and equipment/rubbish left in the canopy may end up in the load.

MOG impact Foreign objects Objects commonly found include: rocks, stones, irrigation and trellis parts, buckets, wire and posts. Less commonly found are: mobile phones, walkie talkies and bicycles. These all can result in physical damage to winery equipment, particularly the auger of a winery receival hopper. Some batteries of phones and radios can contain trace amounts of toxic metals but, generally, will only leak these compounds if crushed or damaged. The AWRI can help you test for these metals if necessary.

Leaves and foliage Grape leaves, stems and shoots can result in greater green and vegetative characters in the resultant wine.

Interestingly, Capone and colleagues (2012) recently reported increased amounts of rotundone or pepper character can be extracted into the wine from excessive amounts of leaves and stems in a fermentation.

Excessive amounts of foliage also increase the risk of greater agrochemical residues to be extracted into the juice and end up in the resultant wine.

Leaves and branches from other trees such as Eucalyptus trees, that have fallen amongst vineyards and then are harvested with fruit, have been recently reported by Capone et al. (2012) to cause increased amount of eucalyptus character to be extracted into wine, in addition to just airborne transfer of eucalyptol from nearby trees.

Rogue varieties This includes both mixed harvest of perhaps red and white fruit. Sometimes, a lesser grade fruit or different varietal could be substituted for a more premium quality or grape. These factors can result in significant penalties for the grape supplier. Protein profiling can identify the grape variety of the load.

Grape substitution is more difficult to determine unless samples of grapes or juice are held back.

Spoilage contamination Paint – Each year some fruit ends up being transferred to a winery in a freshly painted grape bin, or a grape bin that has been painted with the wrong type of paint (Cowey et al. 2009). This results in the grapes and juice being tainted with a hydrocarbon or petrol-like aroma and the wine has to be destroyed. The AWRI

78 Grapegrower & Winemaker

has a ‘taint screen’ which can detect such contaminants.

Non-allowed materials such as hydraulic oil (Australian Food Standards), from broken hydraulic lines on a mechanical harvester or on a winery crusher, can spray unwanted oils onto fruit which result in an oily film on the surface of the must. Note, there are no current methods sensitive enough to measure this contamination and visual observation and photographic evidence is normally required to recover loss of the fruit through insurance.

Microbial spoilage In hot years, excessive sunburn and berry splitting can result in an increased microbial load in the vineyard and greater amounts of fermentation of grapes by natural yeasts and increased amounts of acetic acid from bacteria in the must, which can impede the inoculated fermentation at the winery.

Pests and disease Millipedes, caterpillars, ladybirds, cicadas and earwigs can be problem pests during harvest, particularly in wetter years burrowing into foliage and bunches. Excessive amounts of millipedes can impart herbal characters to wine; ladybirds give a ‘green, capsicum, asparagus, herbaceous’ character from 2-methoxy 3-isopropylpyrazine (IPMP); and cicadas give a savoury/cheesy smell.

In wetter years, powdery and downy mildews, and botrytis can proliferate amongst foliage and fruit. Considered more a fruit defect, fruit can be downgraded or rejected based on limits set by wineries. Excessive levels of powdery mildew can provide a wine fault. Botrytis has greater implications by producing laccase, an oxidative enzyme which can rapidly oxidise the juice.

Ask the AWRI is a monthly column that focusses on viticulture and oenology issues in alternate months. AWRI winemaking and viticulture specialists are available to help Australian wine and grape producers. Call on 08 8313 6600 or email at winemakingservices@awri.com.au

Curtin student researches fermentation by naturalised yeast genotypes A research student at Curtin University is embarking on research that aims to positively influence the sensory profile of wine and expand market opportunities.

Based at the Margaret River campus, Elizabeth Nugent is researching the spontaneous fermentation of wine by naturalised yeast genotypes (i.e., those from the grape berry itself and winery equipment) for her Master’s thesis.

The aim of the research is to develop a greater understanding of the ecology and fermentative behaviour of the naturalised yeast genotypes present in the Margaret River region.

She says this field of research is extensive and that there is an opportunity to improve the scientific understanding of the nature of naturalised genotypes and their ecology.

“Currently, the encouragement of spontaneous fermentation is unpredictable and can possess significant risks, such as undesirable sensory characters and incomplete fermentation,” Nugent said.

“We believe that by evaluating the naturalised genotypes individually, the likelihood of unwanted volatile production and the fermentation end point can be predicted for each species.

“These findings could then be directly applied for the sensory improvements of isolated ferments and extrapolated to mixed and naturalised ferments for further research and confirmation.”

References

Allen, W. (2003) Australian winegrape assessment in the vineyard and at the winery. Prepared for and endorsed by the Winegrape Growers’ Council of Australia (WGCA) and the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA) Liaison Committee. Winetitles.

The Australia and New Zealand Food Standards Code, Standard 4.5.1 [http://www.foodstandards. gov.au/foodstandardscode/].

Capone, D.L., Jeffery, D.W., Sefton, M.A. (2012) Vineyard and fermentation studies to elucidate the origin of 1,8-cineole in Australian red wine. Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.

Cowey, G., Coulter, A., Holdstock, M. (2009) Brines, paints, oils and the occasional mobile phone - common vintage contaminants. Aust. N.Z. Grapegrower Winemaker. 541: 60-65. www.winebiz.com.au

Curtin University research student Elizabeth Nugent.

May 2012 – Issue 580

Winery Engineers Conference

WineEng 2012: ‘Building customer value’ David Clarke

This year’s WEA Conference and Exhibition, WineEng 2012, will be held at the Vine Inn – Barossa, located in the centre of Nuriootpa, in the Barossa Valley, on 20 and 21 June. The conference concentrates on many aspects of wine production and is aimed at production operations personnel, including engineering and maintenance staff, winemakers, bottling and packaging management, general management and winery suppliers whose goal is to ensure the Australian wine industry remains competitive in the domestic and global markets.

The conference is important to the wine industry in the way it keeps key operational staff up-to-date with the latest global technological advancements.

Registration for the conference and associated exhibition starts at 10am on Wednesday 20 June. The conference will commence at 11.15am and, following a welcome from the WEA president Geoff

May 2012 – Issue 580

Leighton, a keynote address will be given by Dr Vince O’Brien, who holds the position of business development manager at The Australian Wine Research Institute. At the conclusion of the keynote address the presentation of technical papers will follow.

The 2012 National Conference theme, titled ‘Building customer value’ will focus on new innovations and improvements in winery production techniques that have been developed in recent times and are either currently available, or are about to be released.

In particular, a significant portion of the conference will be devoted to technical papers associated with building customer value, with an emphasis on ways in which the level of service to internal customers can be improved. The result will mean more efficient production operations thereby reducing production costs. This, in turn, will enable wine companies to adopt such change to build more value into

www.winebiz.com.au

the products they are making available to their customers in the marketplace.

Some of the key areas that will be addressed include:• more efficient use of utilities/resources • improving the level of engineering services provided to production by understanding the appropriate maintenance strategy required.

• understanding and implementing overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) programs and tools.

• implementing quality systems including a number of case studies.

• more effective use of refrigeration.

• development in wine and lees filtration.

• government funding for clean technology investment programs • development in gas application technology • implications of the new model National Work, Health & Safety Act. Key speakers will address these issues over two days of presentations,

Grapegrower & Winemaker

79

Winery Engineers Conference which will provide opportunities to share and improve knowledge for the entire winery team.

The variety of presentations will also provide many choices for the conference delegates’ interests.

Although the 2011 conference held in the Barossa Valley was slightly smaller in scale to other WEA exhibition and conferences held in recent years, it was extremely well attended. Feedback from the conference delegates and visitors to the associated exhibition was very positive, with many of them commenting that they considered the event to be beneficial to their business in the way that it allowed them to keep abreast of leading edge technological advancements and practices. The standard of this year’s event is expected to be even higher than those previously held and of significant benefit to all of those in attendance.

An integral part of this annual event is the great display of products and services available from Australian and international providers. With the conference and associated exhibition being one of the few that is run on an annual basis, it also provides an excellent opportunity for yearly face-to-

Greg Schultz, Rockwell Automation; Simon Henry from NHP Electrical Engineering and Trent Reimers, NHP

face networking amongst key operational staff coming from wine producers ranging from small boutique operations to those representing large multi-national wine companies. The number and quality of trade exhibitors gathered in one place at the same time also provides a similar opportunity to have face to face discussions with people who are experts in their field and willing to help.

The finale to the event will be the conference dinner. The WEA conference dinner is always well accepted and enjoyed by all in attendance and, once again, gives the opportunity for important networking in a relatively informal environment.

As always there will be a fundraising section to support the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

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80 Grapegrower & Winemaker

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May 2012 – Issue 580

Proven filtration and stabilisation technology

Della Toffola has over 40 years of experience in winemaking and stainless steel processing. With an emphasis on innovation and technology, the extensive Della Toffola product range includes crushers/destemmers, pumps, presses, flotation systems, filters, storage, stabilisation, refrigeration and fermentation equipment.

With pricing to match various budgets, Ceramic Cross Flow filtration features automated continuous filtration and long life ceramic membranes, and is producing excellent results for many wineries including the Australian Vintage Wine Group.

Recently trialled in New Zealand with outstanding results, the Polar System is an inline on-demand continuous tartaric stabilisation technology providing significant operational savings through reduced energy use, cleaning costs, water usage and waste management stream.

All Della Toffola equipment is backed up with expert local technical and engineering support, in addition to a wide range of spare parts. Contact us today and find out how Della Toffola can help you produce higher quality wines, make the winemaking process more efficient and environmentally friendly.

Please Contact Paul Baggio on Phone: +61 3 9924 4040 • Fax: +61 3 9924 4041 Mob: 0412 251 975 • Email: info@dtpacific.com • Website: www.dtpacific.com 24-26 National Boulevard CAMPBELLFIELD VIC 3061

Winery Engineers Conference

Presentation List Presenters

Company / Organisation Represented

Presentation Title / Topic Keynote Presentation

Dr Vince O’Brien – Business Development Manager

AWRI

Keynote Presentation - Building Customer Value Technical Program

Ms Abbie Arbon – Regional Manager – Northern SA

AusIndustry

Clean Technology Investment Program

Dr Leigh Francis – Research Manager – Sensory

AWRI

What do consumers like?

Dr Simon Nordestgaard - Senior Engineer

AWRI

Opportunities to eliminate wasteful resource use

Mr Karl Forsyth - Senior Engineer

AWRI

Managing your environmental credentials to benefit your business

Mr Frederic Guillet – Head of Negociants & Bottlers Market

Bucher Vaslin

“Will diatomaceous earth disappear and will crossflow take advantage?”

Mr Ashley Wass - Asset Reliability Engineer

CBC

Monitoring Plus

Mr Brad Semmler - Director

Cold Logic

Efficiency & Capacity Improvements to Existing Refrigeration Systems

Mr Nick Sterenberg - Operations Manager

Coopers Brewery

Continuous Improvement at Coopers Brewery

Mr Paul Baggio - Managing Director

Della Toffola - Pacific Flash Détente Bio Thermal Vinification Technology

Mr Don Allen - Gas & Systems Specialist

Gas with Panache

Adapting to Change - Adding quality & value with gas technology

Mr Scott Clydesdale - Senior Refrigeration Engineer

Gordon Brothers Refrigeration

Refrigeration Plant & Condenser Efficiency

Mr Blair Hanel - Director

Hanel Consulting

Wine Filtration: Past, Present & Future - our customers needs!

Mr Ivan Winter - Director

Ingenia

The importance of utilising the correct maintenance strategy to improve OEE

Mr Andrew Raine - Director

Matrix Process Solutions

In tank mixing & fermentation control

TBA

Matthews

Implementing OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) measures in the packaging hall

Mr Michael Bellstedt - Director

Minus 40

Typical energy efficiency opportunities on winery refrigeration systems - which ones work and how much you can save

Mr Michael Bellstedt - Director

Minus 40

The Practitioners Perspective: Key steps in the process towards obtaining CTIP funding for your energy saving projects

Mr Eric Bosch – National Sales Manager : F&B Systems

Pall Australia

Bentonite dosing directly upstream of the crossflow to further reduce wine movements

Mr Harvey Gough - Managing Director

Novasys Group

Solar Cooling for Winery Applications

Mrs Jo Stagg - General Manager SA/NT

Programmed Property Services

Engaging Diversity - Influencing for Positive Outcomes

Mr Gordon Bartlett – Architecture & Software Business Manager

Rockwell Automation

Convergence: Integrating operations & production in your Winery

Mrs Maggie Thomas - Snr Inspector OH&S

SafeWork SA

Work Health & Safety - Building Capability

Mr Damian Jolly - MES Solution Manager

SAGE Automation

Implementing a Paperless Quality System

Mr Chris Travers - Director

Travhotec

Energy Sustainability with Co & Tri generation

Mr David Carey – Operations Training & Process Controller

Vinpac

Computer based quality assurance in the wine packaging process

Mr Peter Critchley - Senior Sales Engineer

Visy Automation

Building Customer Value through Recycling

Mr David Zerbo - Manager

Ridgelea

Padovan ‘Dynamos’ Rotary Crossflow Lees Filter

Mr Samuel Plumjeau - Regional Sales Manager - Australia & NZ

Bucher Vaslin

New Destemmer & Sorting Technology

Mr Glen Jacob - Food & Beverage Industry Manager

Rockwell Automation

Automation & Information Solutions for Building Customer Value

Mr Andrew Raine - Director

Matrix Process Solutions

Pigging Benefits (Product Loss & Trade Waste Reduction)

TBA

Matthews

Industry Tools for OEE

Commercial Presentations

82 Grapegrower & Winemaker

www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

Turn sustainability challenges into business advantages Through Rockwell Automation process and information solutions, food and beverage manufacturers are able to address •

Energy conservation and efficiency

•

Environmental responsibility and resource management

•

Safety for workers, machinery, processes and products

and gain greater returns to your business from the investment in these solutions.

While at the WEA Conference visit Rockwell Automation and our Distributor Partner, NHP Electrical Engineering Products, at stands 19, 20, 31 & 32. www.RockwellAutomation.com.au

Winery Engineers Conference Exhibitor / Organisation

Booth(s)

Exhibitor / Organisation

Booth(s)

Abeve 17

CAPS Australia Pty Ltd

Mr Scott Kalms Sales Manager 10 Harborne St, Macleod VIC 3085 Mobile: 0425 774 988 Fax: 03 9386 0466

Mr Kevin Jones Sales Manager 1 Streiff Rd, Wingfield SA 5013 Phone: 08 8162 7905 Mobile: 0437 513 721 kjones@capsaust.com.au

11

scott@abeve.com.au ABEVE is distributor of high quality equipment into the wine, beer and food industries. We have experienced and knowledgeable sales staff, supported by local technicians. Some of the products that we distribute include REDA concentrators and extractors, SIPREM presses and destemmers, ITALMEC filters, ALFATEK bottling units and VOGELSANG rubber lobe pumps.

CAPS Australia specialise in compressed air and power solutions. At the 2012 WEA Conference, CAPS will be showcasing its range of rotary screw compressors and nitrogen generators, as well as energysaving solutions for the wine industry.

With nine branches located nation-wide, CAPS can support your winery with many products and after-market services to ensure 100% efficiency.

Aggreko Pty Ltd

CBC Australia

26

CBC is Australia’s largest supplier of bearings and power transmission products, and is supported by the world’s leading manufacturers. CBC is a privately-owned family business, founded in 1954. Our mission statement is: To be the leading supplier of overall value, delivered to customers in engineered products and services. We offer our customers innovative and comprehensive solutions via technical support services, training and a competitive network of outlets throughout Australia.

4, 5

Mr Bill Bailey Manager PO Box 55, Moama Business Park Moama NSW 2731 bbailey@byfordequipment.com.au Phone: 03 5482 0666 Mobile: 0427 682 043 Fax: 03 5482 0667

Cold Logic P/L

1

Ms Danielle Hooper Administrator 24 Francis St, Port Adelaide SA 5015 Phone: 08 8240 3333 Fax: 08 8240 1455 danielle.hooper@coldlogic.com.au

From design and installation of an entire winery refrigeration system, to a 24-hour breakdown service, plus hire units, spare parts, consumables and preventative maintenance programs, Cold Logic can develop and deliver refrigeration solutions engineered to your winery. Cold Logic’s experience means you can rely on us to provide the most cost-effective and operationally efficient refrigeration solutions possible for your winery.

84 Grapegrower & Winemaker

www.winebiz.com.au

29

Mr Paul Baggio Managing Director 47 Yale Drive, Epping VIC 3076 Phone: 038405 9000 Mobile: 0412 251 975 Fax: 03 9486 8300 paulb@dtpacific.com

15

12, 13

Bucher Vaslin

Byford Fluid Solutions

Booth(s)

Mr Paul Walter Branch Manager - SA 106 110 Bedford St, Gillman SA 5013 Phone: 08 8249 3100 Mobile: 0407 553 912 Fax: 08 8249 3199 paul.walter@energypower.com.au

Mr Ashley Wass Asset Reliability Engineer PO Box 2406, Regency Park SA 5942 Phone: 08 8348 2161 Mobile: 0457 728 759 Fax: 08 8348 2185 ashley.wass@conbear.com

Mr Samuel Plumejeau Managing Director PO 1051, Glen Waverley VIC 3150 samuel.plumejeau@buchervaslin.com Mobile: 0427 655 800 Fax: 03 9885 7004

Della Toffla - Pacific

Energy Power Systems

Mr Neil Robison Area Sales Manager - South 101 Woodlands Drive, Braeside VIC Phone: 9586 5020 Fax: 9586 5001 Neil.Robison@aggreko.com.au

23

Exhibitor / Organisation

Energy Power Systems Australia is Australia’s specialised Caterpillar® engine dealer for any application, from marine to industrial engines, power generation and compressors. EPSA is also a solutions provider, offering design, engineering, procurement and construction for large turn-key projects. EPSA’s network of offices across Australia and PNG delivers you technically superior Caterpillar® engines with unmatched engineering support, technical advice and after-sales support.

Caterpillar® is your guarantee of ongoing dependability, reliability and efficiency.

Supplying Australia with the world’s best power systems.

JMA Engineering P/L

27, 28

Mr Mark Johnson National Sales Manager PO Box 452, Berri SA 5343 Phone: 08 8582 9500 Mobile: 0408 822 434 Fax: 08 8582 3132 mark@jmaeng.com.au

JMA Engineering is a manufacturing company based in Berri, South Australia, who for 28 years has specialised in the manufacture and supply of Velo wine and brewery equipment, stainless steel wine and liquid storage vessels, stainless steel fabrication, structural steel and precast construction, transport and crane hire. JMA Engineering has the resources to assist you with your project from design through to completion.

May 2012 – Issue 580

Exhibitor / Organisation

Krones Pacific

Booth(s)

7

Exhibitor / Organisation

Matrix Process Solutions

Booth(s)

14

Mr Ged Mack 2-4 Martin St, St Kilda VIC 3182 Phone: 03 8598 6326 Mobile: 087 777 759 Fax: 03 9534 3377 gmack@kronespacific.com.au

Mr Andrew Raine Director 3/26 Christensen St, Cheltenham VIC 3192 Phone: 03 9555 0577 Fax: 03 9555 9506 Mobile: 0433124293 araine@matrixps.com

Krones & Kosme supply state of the art equipment for the process, brewing, filling, packaging and Intralogistic requirements of the wine, spirits, beer and soft drinks industries on a global basis. Our product portfolio ranges from single machines to complete turnkey production facilities over a large range of production speed requirements.

Matrix Process Solutions are providers of innovative fluid process solutions using the world’s best equipment brands. Our range includes cutting-edge Iso-Mix in-tank mixing technology and fermentation optimisation, LIAG pigging and product recovery systems, Keofitt sanitary sampling systems, and the entire range of Alfa Laval sanitary equipment.

x 185w.indd MayADV265 2012 –- 130 Issue 580 1

www.winebiz.com.au

Exhibitor / Organisation

Mono Pumps Australia

Booth(s)

2, 3

Mr Jonathan Watson State Manager Unit 1, 280 Grand Junction Rd Athol Park SA 5012 Phone: 08 8447 8333 Fax: 08 8447 8373 Mobile: 0417 327 966 jonathan.watson@nov.com

NOV Mono® is a leading Australian wine industry supplier of innovative and efficient pumping solutions. With more than 40 years of providing support to the industry, our pumps are found from the first crush of the grapes to the bottle filling. Our experience, product quality, after-market support and service are all part of our ongoing commitment to the Australian wine industry.

16/04/2012 2:52:44 PM85 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Winery Engineers Conference Exhibitor / Organisation

Booth(s)

Exhibitor / Organisation

Booth(s)

NHP Electrical Engineering 20, 31

Programmed Property Services 8

Ms Gemma Davidson Events Coordinator PO Box 199, Richmond VIC 3121 Phone: 9420 4751 Mobile: 0407 211 619 Fax: 9429 8587 Gdavidson@nhp.com.au

Mr Jason Kane 604 Port Rd, Allenby Gardens SA 5009 Phone: 08 8346 9944 Mobile: 0409 183 034 Fax: 08 8346 7455 jkane@programmed.com.au

NHP recognise that the food and beverage industry is a key driver for growth across Australasia. Teaming with our authorised distribution partner Rockwell Automation - the leading supplier of automation and information solutions to the sector, NHP can provide a complete range of products and services tailored to wine producers.

Visit our website or search ‘NHP Electrical’ on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube for more information.

Programmed Property Services provides a broad range of property maintenance services through a directly employed workforce model based at more than 60 branches throughout Australia and New Zealand. We create value for our customers through innovative long-term relationships that help drive our customers’ success. Programmed Property Services offers a range of distinct services designed to add value individually, or integrated into a packaged approach for your property maintenance needs. This includes painting and maintenance programs, building repairs, grounds and horticultural management, and corporate imaging and signage.

Pall Australia

10

Mr Eric Bosch National Systems Sales Manager 20 King William St, Kent Town SA 5067 Phone: 08 8132 3888 Mobile: 0419 139 910 Fax: 08 8363 9850 eric_bosch@ap.pall.com Pall Food and Beverage offers a full range of filtration and separation solutions for all wine applications. Our services include world-leading crossflow technology – OenoFlow™ for wine and lees – to unique lenticular modules – SUPRAdisc™ II – and, now, SUPRApak™ and dependable membranes for all cellar and bottling applications. Pall Food and Beverage staff are based in all mainland states in Australia to offer the best possible service.

Pellenc Australia

16

Ms Louise Fraser Managing Director 14 Opala St, Regency Park SA 5010 Phone: 08 8244 7700 Mobile: 0418 834 741 Fax: 08 8244 7788 lfraser@pellenc.com.au

Pellenc has designed a range of smart and innovative de-stemming and sorting solutions for the winery stemming from their years of experience and research and development in viticulture. The Selectiv’ Process Winery range uses a revolutionary high frequency linear de-stemmer and roller sorting table to gently and effectively remove MOG, petioles and other waste.

86 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Ridgelea Pty Ltd

Spraying Systems Co P/L

9

Mr David Zerbo Manager - SA PO Box 305, Lonsdale SA 5160 Phone: 08 8326 8521 Mobile: 0410 554 836 Fax: 08 8326 8531 david@ridgelea.com.au

Ridgelea Pty Ltd has a complete portfolio of high quality machinery, and a reputation for honesty and service. Supplying small and large wineries, we are agents for well-known companies, such as Padovan, CME, and CSF, just to name a few. Visit us at the WEA Conference, and ask about the new Padovan Dynamos rotary crossflow filter for lees.

Rockwell Automation

19, 32

Mr Greg Schultz Sales Manager SA/NT Wellington Centre, 2 Portrush Rd Payneham SA 5070 Phone: 08 8365 1002 Mobile: 0408 084 516 Fax: 08 8365 0322 grschultz@ra.rockwell.com

Rockwell Automation is a leading global provider of industrial power, automation control and information solutions that help manufacturers achieve a competitive advantage in their businesses. The company brings together leading brands in industrial automation, including Allenwww.winebiz.com.au

Bradley® controls and services and Rockwell Software® factory management software. Our broad product mix includes programmable controllers, operator interfaces, AC drives and control.

19, 24

Mr Rob West Marketing Manager 7 Sara Grove, Tottenham VIC Phone: 9318 0511 Mobile: 0400507635 Fax: 9315 3223 robert@spray.com.au

Travhotec Pty Ltd

18

Mr Chris Travers Director PO Box 2162, Port Adelaide BC SA 5015 Phone: 08 8240 3029 Mobile: 0407 976 033 Fax: 08 8240 3046 trav@travhotec.com.au

W.E. Ware & Co

6

Ms Marjorie Ware Proprietor 19 Papagni Ave, Newton SA 5074 Phone: 08 8365 3200 Mobile: 0414 375 611 Fax: 08 8365 3247 marjorie@weware.com.au

W.E. WARE & Co is well-reputed for its innovative design and manufacture of high quality products. Our range includes hygienic stainless steel flow equipment, industrial products and custom-made fabrications for the wine, food and beverage, and many other industries. Our services include CAD, CNC and general machining, fabrication and welding. We have a commitment to ongoing product development and improvement.

Winequip Pty Ltd

25

Mr Andrew Watt Director 59 Banbury Rd, Reservoir VIC 3073 Phone: 03 9462 4777 Fax: 03 9462 1666 Mobile: 0400598766 andrew@winequip.com.au

Winequip is a leading provider of winery equipment and consumables in Australia.

We represent market-leading brands, including Juclas, Puleo, Vason, Kreyer, Mori, and Zambelli. With offices in Melbourne and Adelaide, we are well placed to service all your winemaking needs. Visit our stand at the WEA Conference to discuss all your equipment requirements with our local representatives, and view the latest in floatation and de-alcoholisation technology.

May 2012 – Issue 580

WineEng 2012

NATIONAL CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION For further information visit www.wea.org.au or contact Trevor Leighton 0417 597 956 tleighto@bigpond.net.au

BAROSSA VALLEY | JUNE 20 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 21, 2012

sales & marketing

Author reveals first steps to marketing magic Jen Barwick

IF THERE’S NO right or wrong answer and it’s really easy to screw up, then it’s no wonder marketing can often appear to many like a labyrinth of riddles and magic tricks.

University of Adelaide senior marketing lecturer and new author of Principles of Wine Marketing, Steve Goodman believes it’s a subject many mistakenly assume they know little about.

In the introduction of his 138-page book – aimed at marketing students, sales staff and wine brand owners – Goodman writes if you have ever shopped around for a product, experienced really good or really bad customer service or looked for ways to do something quicker, better and cheaper, then you are experienced in marketing.

“I believe there are two approaches to developing a smart marketing plan for your business. You can get someone to draw up a standard marketing template with common concepts and action points... fill in the blanks, tick the boxes, file it in a folder and put it on the shelf to gather dust for much of the year,” Goodman said.

“Or, the approach I took in the book was to provide a framework to think in a marketing way.

“I wanted to present the concepts, and provide the opportunity for people to look at their business, customers, distributors

88 Grapegrower & Winemaker

and other brands through a marketing lens... understand the theory as to why some things work better than others and apply it to their own circumstance.”

The book breaks down the topic of marketing in the wine industry to three key chapters: what is marketing, understanding the customer and the marketing mix.

Topics such as consumer behaviour, buyer behaviour, building brands, price, distribution channels, communications and promotions are all discussed.

As well as teaching the wine industry’s next generation of marketers, Goodman has used his experience as a marketing consultant for wine brands, as well as industry research he has conducted over the past 10 years, as the foundations of the book.

Goodman says the wine industry is unique in the marketing world, as few other industries experience such a level of interest and engagement from the consumer.

“Even the lowest engaged consumer – and that is the vast majority of them, a fact this industry often forgets – cares enough to consider whether it’s red or white, or a certain variety... as well as price,” he said. “Even low levels of engagement drift into some form of conversation about the wine they are consuming.

“It’s a very different level of involvement, say, for buying toilet paper, or even a lot of the food products we consume.”

However, Goodman warns the wine industry’s unique consumer brings with it another marketing conundrum.

“This type of industry and engagement makes it easier to stuff up but when it works, it is much easier to capitalise on the success,” he said.

“Little has changed in the theory or principles of marketing... but what has changed significantly is the environment the wine industry is marketing in and to.

“The tools and ways to implement a marketing plan have expanded and become more user-friendly, but so has the pressure to get it right straight away.

Consumers and businesses are much more savvy, time-pressured and unforgiving.”

Goodman cites a number of Australian wine brands and companies in his book. www.winebiz.com.au

“I think there are a great number of people in this industry doing amazing work in terms of marketing their product... in fact, I used only Australian examples in the book because a lot of overseas experts and academics in this field do look to this country for examples of marketing prowess,” he said.

“It’s a real pleasure when you see people who have worked for companies and kicked real goals in terms of marketing their brands, now capitalising on what they’ve achieved by setting up their own businesses and brands.

“Brad Ray is one of those people I really admire. He did great things when working for Wirra Wirra and Coriole and now his efforts in setting up Zonte’s Footstep and Dandelion Vineyard are really clever and unique.”

In his book, Goodman describes Zonte’s Footstep as a good example of positioning the brand, with the right label design and the right story to the right market.

He has less to praise regarding the current Australian marketing plan, particularly its efforts to concentrate on lifting price-points for Australian wine.

“I can understand why it seems attractive to aim for higher price-points but at the same time it seems to have skimmed over some simple economics 101,” he said.

“If Australia seeks to sell more wine at higher price-points then basic economics will tell you that as a result less wine in volume terms will be sold... and I’m not convinced that’s an outcome that will benefit Australia’s current wine climate.

“I also think positioning an entire industry at higher price-points is a proposition that takes 30-40 years to successfully achieve... instant lift of price-points through quality is not easy and will always come at the sacrifice of quantity for the sake of quality.

“Australia still needs to sell everything it makes and not all of it will be worthy of higher price-points. In fact, a great majority of it won’t be but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve some sound marketing investment.”

Goodman says higher price-points are really the domain of the artisan producer, “i.e., someone who can craft a May 2012 – Issue 580

My advice “I think the best and most simple piece of advice I can give is that it is essential to see the world and your wine in the way your customers see your wine and other wines. Make the effort to understand who it is you’re talking to. This is critical, not just for consumers, but also for your business relationships, i.e., distributors,” Steve Goodman, University of Adelaide.

unique product but afford to not sell a lot of it”.

“I was listening to a radio interview with a French winemaker when I first started my wine marketing consultancy, where he said that people forget that it’s barely 1 per cent of the total French production that is deemed world-best... the rest of the French wine is really not that good,” he said.

Goodman said the French winemaker went on to say that Australia was really unique as it may not be considered worldbest but most would agree that the vast majority of wine made in Australia was above average.

“My question is, do we really want to be world-best for a small few or is it okay to accept the space and market ourselves as above average for many?” Goodman said.

He suggests Wines of Chile has set itself up very successfully in the arena of average wine and poses a substantial threat to Australia.

“Chile seems to be doing an amazing job of getting their big wineries onside and fully focussed on producing good average wine at good, average price-points... lower than Australia’s,” he said.

“It’s smart economic sense, as they will be able to turn-over a much larger volume of wine for the right price. If Australia chooses to move away from this market, Chile will have free reign to grow a lucrative market share and I fear it could be very hard for Australia to come back to.”

Goodman thinks New Zealand is also an interesting space.

“NZ offers a case study that is almost the complete opposite of Australia’s right now,” he said.

“They entered the market at extremely high price-points that have dropped significantly of late – and now need to find a way to adapt and survive in the current market space. It may be opposite to what Australia is experiencing but there’s plenty we could learn from their experience.

“It’s a strange reality, as their once $20 wines are now selling for $8-9, yet, they still pretty much taste like the $20 wines I paid for a few years ago.”

Ultimately, Goodman hopes the book will remind all wine producers, big and small, that getting smart about marketing is achievable – no matter the budget, staff numbers or expertise.

“The bigger companies have the advantage of dollars and staff to throw at marketing but they lose out to the small guys, in most cases, on authenticity and story,” he said.

“The small guys can also move much faster, make quick decisions that they don’t have to run by a team of accountants and a boardroom full of suits. However, the bigger companies can more easily establish new brands to suit new tastes and trends.

“For both, it still quite simply comes down to presence in the market and in the consumer’s mind.

“Ultimately, I hope the industry will use the information in the book as a viewfinder to consider their place, brand and story from a marketing perspective but, more importantly, consider it from the view of the consumers.”

Principles of Wine Marketing can be purchased from the Winetitles bookstore. Visit www.winebiz.com.au/bookstore.

May 2012 – Issue 580

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sales & marketing

Foreign love affair Jeni Port columnist

“Are you proud to be Australian?”

The question just popped out.

Considering the nature of the Clarendon Hills (CH) tasting, it wasn’t completely out of place.

Alex Bratasiuk, son of founder Roman Bratasiuk, had just explained the company’s new classification system for its wines. The categories were a direct lend from the French: 1st Grand Cru, Grand Cru, 1st Cru and Cru! Clarendon Hills offered its Astralis Syrah as its 1st or Premier Grand Cru, ‘the ultimate expression of iconic terroir’.

Grand Cru (seven CH wines) represented ‘majestic expressions of exceptional terroir’.

Premier Cru (seven CH wines) represented ‘refined expressions of rare terroir’.

Cru (four CH wines) represented ‘approachable expressions of fine terroir’.

The use of a French classification in Australia seemed absurd.

Why borrow something so intrinsically associated with Burgundy and France’s highly prescriptive Appellation d’Origine Controlee (DOC) system based on a couple of thousand years of grapegrowing experience going back to the 6th Century BC? By comparison, Clarendon Hills was founded in 1990.

By employing well-known French wine terms, is Clarendon Hills hoping to be brushed with some of France’s magical DOC pixie dust?

Then, Clarendon Hills unveiled its newest release, Domaine Clarendon Syrah.

The front label could have been directly imported from France with use of the words ‘domaine’ and ‘Syrah’. Nowhere on the front label was there any indication that the wine was ‘Made in Australia’ or even made in downtown McLaren Vale.

Hence, the question.

“We export close to 95 per cent of our production. We wanted to seek out reference terms that people overseas use and understand,” said Alex Bratasiuk, a most professional and confident young man who didn’t even blink at the directness – if not downright rudeness – of the question.

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“We are very proud to be Australian.”

Clarendon Hills produces an extraordinary number of Shiraz or Syrah as it chooses to call it – eight wines in all – and it was felt it was important to have a way of defining them, putting them into some kind of quality context. The fact that its borrowed wine classification system harks back to the Old World, says Alex Bratasiuk, is deliberate. “Roman was inspired by Old World wines.”

But is using grape names like Syrah instead of Shiraz and instigating a classification system borrowed directly from Burgundy going to connect the average wine drinker in London or Frankfurt or Copenhagen to Australia and the Australian viticultural landscape?

The connection seems a little tenuous.

What it does is connect those wine drinkers to Clarendon Hills and its high ambitions, which is essentially a clever marketing move.

Clarendon Hills has so much to offer yet, in my opinion, is constraining itself by adopting a French model.

By employing well-known French wine terms, is Clarendon Hills hoping to be brushed with some of France’s magical DOC pixie dust?

It has rare pre-phylloxera vines. It has ancient soils over 750 million years old.

In a viticultural sense Australia has more right to be called the ‘Old World’ than Europe.

Roman Bratasiuk is a passionate winemaker and he is exploring Shiraz, Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Mourvedre (Mataro) from Kangarilla to Blewitt Springs to Clarendon. The altitudes change, the soils are different from place to place and they show through in the wines.

There are strong, masculine wines and also pretty, feminine wines (such as the new Domaine Clarendon 2009 Syrah).

Roman’s direction is good for McLaren Vale, good for Australia.

But, still, there is that hark back to another place, far, far away.

One Clarendon Hills tasting note, www.winebiz.com.au

for the Hickinbotham 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, is described as an “Old World style that will live for 50 years”.

At least Clarendon Hills did not label their wines using French phrases.

There is that blessing.

There’s been a rash of Australian wines released in recent years bearing French names. If you did not learn French at school, or on wine tours to France, you might be intimidated but I suspect if you didn’t learn French, then maybe it’s not a wine for you.

The insider jokes and Francophile references are for those in the know.

Or, that’s the way it sometimes seems – if you don’t get it ,you’re not meant to.

Quite a few of the wines are destined for an export market. Maybe a touch of French or Italian will smooth out our Australian-ness, soften our ‘you beaut’ brashness with some sophistication.

Maybe some Australian producers believe the way around the recent Aussie bashing, particularly in the UK and the US, is to do a European makeover.

Critters are out, French or Italian chic is in. This could be a dangerous marketing ploy.

For wine companies to seek out and appeal to an overseas market is one thing, but what about the rest of us? What about the Australian wine drinker right here at home?

This year, the Australian Wine List Awards, sponsored by Fine Wine Partners and Gourmet Traveller WINE magazine, will run its annual search for the best wine lists in the land.

Recent winners have celebrated the growing globalisation of Australian restaurants and wine bars, with winners such Pilu at Freshwater, Ormeggio and Grossi Florentino showcasing fabulous lists of wines from Italy and France.

Ot her restau ra nts followed transforming lists that might have been predominantly Australian over to Europe and the world.

The move has drawn the ire of Australian wine producers who have complained loudly and often about no longer being able to get a look in on Australian wine lists.

Organisers of this year’s Wine List Awards felt compelled to respond to the complaints and this year announced an award for the wine list that best represents Australian wine.

This would have been unheard of 10 years ago.

“Are you proud to be an Australian?”

Interesting question.

May 2012 – Issue 580

Wine trade gets serious with online forums Internet forums have gone a bit off the boil since the phenomena of Facebook and Twitter, but the often ignored message board is making a comeback Kellie Arbuckle

THE WINE TRADE is embracing online forums to create a virtual community where like-minded people can communicate regularly on issues that affect them.

Winemakers, grapegrowers, marketers and sommeliers are among the trade who are expanding the online conversation beyond popular forms of social media.

In an attempt to drive a more serious and specific conversation, the trade is using internet forums to network, recruit, support, promote and discuss topics of a particular nature.

Dr Roberta Veale is a senior lecturer at The University of Adelaide, with expertise in wine marketing and consumer values.

She says online forums are an

May 2012 – Issue 580

excellent way for the industry to make contact with each other where distance and time do not matter.

“The value of back-to-business online forums is that they allow you to stay up-to-date cheaply and easily with current ideas and trends,” Dr Veale said.

“There’s an opportunity for people can go in, pose a question, answer a question or start a conversation stream, and it’s a low-risk way of seeing if an issue is wideranging.”

While these uses are not limited to online forums, Veale says it is the opportunity to communicate regularly with an interested group of people under a moderator that is what sets them apart.

“I wouldn’t classify Twitter as a

www.winebiz.com.au

Barossa’s Next Crop revive forums for viti talk The Barossa’s Next Crop has created its own forum for grapegrowers in the Barossa Valley to discuss issues relating to viticulture.

Barossavignerons.freeforums.org is an online information-sharing forum that aims to benefit Barossa growers in decision-making and to create grower unity.

Grapegrowing, machinery, alternative varieties, water and irrigation, disease management, organic and biodynamic production, and mid-row management are among the topics on offer for discussion.

Growers who join the forum have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content, and many other special features.

Barossa’s Next Crop is a succession program that aims to up-skill the younger generation to ensure the future success of the region.

For more information about the forum, visit: www.barossavignerons.freeforums.org.

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sales & marketing forum, simply because you’re limited to 140 characters and it’s a crowded space that anyone can get into. And while Facebook can be used as a forum, it is a social platform and that’s what it does best,” said Veale, adding the difference with blogs.

“It’s a blog if you put your opinion out there and people absorb it; it’s a forum if people come back and respond or express their opinion independent of you.”

There are several examples of online forums, many of which are not limited to the wine industry, but can still be embraced by it.

LinkedIn is one such example. The professional networking site is the largest in the world, boasting more than 150 million members from around the world as of February this year.

Via LinkedIn, members can join or create groups which effectively act as online forums in that people can post a topic or question for other group members to respond to. There are more than 1 million groups on LinkedIn with many devoted to wine-related topics (a ‘wine’ search on LinkedIn on 18 April came back with 1812 results for the number of groups). Existing associations are also creating groups using LinkedIn. Wine Communicators of Australia, the national organisation for wine communicators, is one such example, with nearly 800 members.

Veale is a member of a LinkedIn group called Wine Business Network.

“I use it to find someone who might be doing a particular consumer research project, or to help someone recruit for a person in the wine industry,” she said.

“I use it to search for people in various occupations and to get a panel of opinions. It is also good to let people know about upcoming events and to find experts outside your own industry.”

Other platforms for creating online forums exist on websites – whether they are for wineries, organisations or suppliers.

The Auswine Forum refers to itself as ‘Australia’s first, and best, wine discussion board... and group’, and has nearly 2000 members (as of April this year).

Topics posted relate to a variety of areas, from winemaking, viticulture, marketing, boutique wineries, food and wine, buying wine and more, and comments are moderated by the creator.

Like any form of social media, online forums need to be “nurtured” so as to maintain a level of interest and participation, Veale warns.

“Online forums are a good idea, but you can’t assume they will be selffulfilling,” said Veale, who also has a research interest in consumer forums.

“It’s like owning a pub – no one goes into a pub that’s boring and there’s nothing going on. The success has everything to do with the owners and how they promote it, support it and keep the information current.”

Veale has investigated forums as part of her research, which looks at ways of fostering attachment between wine brands and consumers. She says forums satisfy emotional, cognitive and social needs, and that people wanting to create a forum need to consider ways in which they can cater all these needs.

“You might do a short survey about what people would be interested in knowing about but, at the same time, you should remember that people are going to be guarded about their problems,” she said.

“Nobody wants to go into a forum and say ‘hey, my wine isn’t selling’... people in business are always going to be recalcitrant about sharing their problems and successes.”

There are ways around it.

Posing frequently asked questions, going anonymous or inviting experts into the forum to provide a live stream that incorporates video are a couple of ways to keep forums interesting without participants having to reveal their fears or problems. Veale says the power of

My Advice “The future of online communications for wineries lies in utilising appropriate social networks to extend connection and engagement with current/potential customers, trade and media. These social networks are becoming an important complement to existing methods already engaging customers, trade and media. Social networks give wineries the ability to tell their unique and exciting story using image, video and personality in a costeffective manner. Social networks will increasingly allow wineries to target a specific audience more effectively and efficiently,” Ben Moroney, Wine Australia

online forums in the wine industry is vast if the moderator commits the time to keeping it relevant, up-to-date and interesting.

“There is an opportunity, but they do require some nurturing.”

Wine Australia online communications advisor Ben Moroney agrees there is a place for online forums, but believes the power and future lies in Twitter.

“Previously, people went to an online forum to talk about vintage, raise grievances and successes, and use it as a support network, but people are finding Twitter easier,” Moroney said.

“There’s only a certain amount of characters, which makes you think – there’s no tone or no context – just language which, if used properly, can give you a competitive advantage.

“People also have less time and aren’t willing to provide as much information as is done through online forums.”

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May 2012 – Issue 580

Preparation is paramount for mobile bottling runs A growing number of wineries are outsourcing their bottling requirements to save space, time and an investment in capital. While the demand for mobile bottling services has fluctuated over the past few years, it seems the trend is swinging back as wineries struggle to justify the cost of an automatic bottling machine in-house.

Danielle Costley

GIVEN so many facets are involved in the bottling process – different types of bottling & packaging materials, a labelling range of finished wine products, as well as the operation and maintenance of multiple equipment stations – it is susceptible to a host of problems occurring.

Typically, once a bottling date has been agreed upon, it cannot be moved unless by negotiation with the bottling company.

A stoppage caused by the non-arrival of wine or dry goods will be charged to the customer at about $1000 per hour if no other job can be substituted by the delayed one. This is why it is so important for wineries to plan ahead for bottling.

Preparing for bottling A winery is expected to be thoroughly prepared for bottling. This means having all bottles, closures, capsules and packaging onsite when the mobile trailer arrives.

You have the bottles ready, but are they clean and free of contamination?

Open pallets of bottles that are not sealed properly have a higher risk of contamination, which is why many bottlers are requesting wineries sterilise all bottles beforehand.

So, you think you’re all set to start bottling, but what happens if the wines aren’t filtered correctly?

“Wines that aren’t properly filtered will block the cartridge filters and result in the bottling system being shut down for at least 30 minutes. Filters cost about $200 each, so apart from incurring costs for increased downtime, the winery will also be charged for replacement filters,” Mobile Wine Processing (MWP) owner Ian Angel said.

If wine is not at the correct temperature, this will inevitably delay the bottling process. Wine temperature should be between 12°C-18°C, otherwise it can affect the ability for labels to adhere to the bottle. Lower dew points

can also result in condensation forming on the bottles.

Miscalculating the number of bottles and boxes required for packaging is also a common occurrence, according to MWP co-owner, Stephen Chapple.

“Wineries must have enough bottles and cartons on-hand for packaging.

Often, we encounter wineries that have underestimated the amount of bottles required per litreage of wine available from the barrels,” Chapple said.

Providing the bottling company with sufficient staff to load and unload bottles, to keep up the supply of empty bottles and to remove completed bins, is also important to ensure the process runs smoothly.

According to Portavin Margaret River’s business development manager, Peter Walker, incompatible dry goods are a common occurrence when bottling.

“Wineries need to ensure the package fits together as a unit. This means that all labels are suited to the bottles, that

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sales & marketing be quite solid and durable. If it is flimsy, it will tear easily and stop the machine from working.

The capsule

A mobile bottling unit from Portavin arrives at a winery in Western Australia. Photo supplied by Portavin Margaret River.

the height of the label suits the label panel on the bottle, and that the bottles fit into the carton,” Walker said. Location is a critical factor when bottling. Angel stresses the importance of ensuring the area is clear so the mobile unit can drive in.

“This means choosing a suitable area that is not on mud, is hygienic for forklifts, and has an adequate power supply,” he said.

Walker agrees, adding that wineries must also provide a level and preferably concrete, sheltered location for the machine. “The unit needs to be in an area where the ground has good drainage and provides weather protection for packaging and for staff,” he includes.

“The machine must be on level ground, as we are relying on fill heights and the machine needs to be level to accurately measure fill heights,” adds Winemaking Tasmania’s labelling and packaging manager Antony Langdon.

The bottle A good bottling run is ultimately dependent on the bottle. Is it the correct size and dimension for the machine and is it made from good quality glass?

Recent years have seen the industry plagued by an influx of cheap glass bottles, which ultimately results in greater downtimes for breakage and poor cork, foil and label application.

“Imported glass can present some quality issues that you need to be aware of. We predominantly use a wide range of Australian-produced Amcor and O-I bottles to service our customers,” Walker said.

“Bottle quality has been a huge problem for us. We encounter a lot of glass bottles that are out of shape; mostly the neck of the bottle is the wrong shape or there is bulge on the face of the bottle so we can’t apply the labels,” Langdon said.

By purchasing bottles that are ISOcompliant, this will alleviate the problem of sub-standard glass quality.

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The label Many bottlers do not have optical orientation for arranging and spacing complex label packages. If wineries consult with bottling companies before the label design is finalised, this will eliminate the threat of potential delays, such as bubbling, and result in a successful application of labels.

Wineries must invest in good quality closures, as substandard closures will stop bottling and result in downtime.

Antony Langdon Winemaking Tasmania

At Portavin, labelling decisions are ultimately left to the winery. “We offer advice as to what shaped label will best suit a bottle. The risk of problems occurring can be minimised by using smaller rather than larger labels, and investing in the right paper stock, as some papers are more susceptible to bubbling than others,” explains Walker.

Backing paper on the labels must also www.winebiz.com.au

If a capsule does not correctly fit a bottle or it is mishandled, this will require manual application of the caps.

Not only will this incur extra costs for the winery, but it will also slow down production.

Today, there is a range of capping options, which includes heat shrink PVC capsules, thermoseal hoods, spin on tin, aluminium and polylaminate capsules.

The heat shrink hoods are a popular choice for the wine industry, as it moves away from using lead capsules.

Wineries can select from a standard colour range or choose a printed product to match the label.

Closures Screwcaps are continuing to dominate the Australian market for bottle closures.

About 95 per cent of closures used by Portavin are screwcaps, however, Walker says the figure has decreased slightly in recent years.

“A lot more wine is being exported to China, which has led to a slight resurgence in cork usage. As China and Europe require corks on their wines, screwcap usage has reduced to approximately 85%,” he said.

The range of screwcaps has also increased to include the Italian designed WAK closure. It replicates the traditional appearance of a wine bottle closed with a cork and foil cover.

Victorian-based MWP, which is currently bottling with 90% screwcaps, says it is marketed as being more durable than screwcaps, such as the Stelvin LUX. “The WAK is slightly more expensive than the Stelvin, but its aluminium cover is combined with a plastic insert, so if the end of the bottle head is bumped, it will dent the lid but keep the closure intact,” Angel said.

In contrast, Winemaking Tasmania has not worked with cork since 2007.

“Most of our customers produce wines for the restaurant trade and cellar door and it is rare to have any requests for cork closures,” Langdon includes.

“Wineries must invest in good quality closures, as sub-standard closures will stop bottling and result in downtime.

Customers need to ensure the closures aren’t damaged or out of shape.

“We often work in remote locations, so if there is a problem with a closure, we cannot just pop down the road to source replacements.”

May 2012 – Issue 580

Trends The competitive wine climate has forced wineries to make changes, which have in turn, flowed onto mobile bottlers.

In Victoria, MWP has reported a significant drop in bottling volume, which Angel attributes to recent poor vintages.

Over the last few years, Portavin has also noticed the average run size reduce. “People are more cautious about bottling their wine and are bottling to market demand, rather than to store in a warehouse. Any bulk or excess wine is being kept as a bulk product, rather than a packaged product, which is less of a financial drain on the business,” Walker said.

Wineries are also investing more in the packaging of their premium labels.

“More money is being spent on premium packaging. The market is dictating that the high-end of wines they produce are premium and need to be packaged and marketed accordingly,” Walker said.

“In the past year, all of my customers have started using printed caps, printed hoods and better quality labelling to capture the premium market,” says Langdon. “The overall improvement in packaging quality is significantly higher

Winemaking Tasmania’s mobile bottling unit in action. Photo supplied by Winemaking Tasmania.

than in previous years.”

This is primarily a result of the advent of digital printing, which is allowing wineries to produce higher quality labels

with more innovative designs, to help give their wines a first-class finish – and, hopefully, that slight edge over their competitors.

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www.portavin.com.au portavin@portavin.com.au May 2012 – Issue 580

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sales & marketing label design

&

Floral design set to sparkle on shelf Design Energy has extensive experience in the design and production of corporate material for many industries, particularly the wine industry. Design Energy aim to create innovative, exciting and effective design solutions that meet with the goals and objectives of its clients, are costeffective, practical and evoke enthusiastic responses from those who interact with them. This month’s Q&A refers to a sparkling wine by boutique producer, Dinny Goonan, in Victoria. Answers have been supplied by Design Energy director Trish Dunstone, and designer Angela Miller.

What inspired you to work in design and what aspect of label design do you enjoy the most, or derive the most satisfaction from?

Dunstone: I have always observed colour and texture in all shapes and forms.

Whether it is in art form, design, fabrics, landscapes or buildings – I’m a magazine addict! There are always new ideas to be explored for wine label design, coming from various inspirations. I get huge satisfaction from seeing a brand grow after we have done a remake on a client’s label. To see the ‘before’ and ‘after’ is sometimes startling!

Miller: I have always noticed signs and logos, and can remember thinking from a young age, “why would that have been done so badly?” I love paper, type, illustration and colours. It wasn’t really a decision that I made – the passion was just there. I enjoy thinking about who you need to appeal to and finding interesting ways to do it. If this means finding a new printing technique or specialty paper, all the better!

96 Grapegrower & Winemaker

What was the inspiration or key branding message behind this particular wine label?

Dunstone: The label needed to reflect the style of a sparkling wine. A floral design was used to appeal to a predominantly female market, while also conveying a summer feel, which is reflective of the wine style.

What are the technical specs used in the production of the label, i.e., printing technique, processes and colours?

Dunstone: Four colour digital (ideal for small-run labels), finished with a high build clear varnish over the vine to tie in with the other labels in the Dinny Goonan range.

In your opinion, what are the most important labelling concepts to impact on wine sales and marketing success?

Dunstone: Having a shelf presence that sets the wine apart from those around it. Make your brand stand out, so people are more likely to notice it. It should also evoke an emotional reaction that makes the consumer pick it up and explore.

Have you seen many changes in label designs over the past decade and what labelling trends do you see emerging into the future?

Dunstone: There seems to be a break from everyone wanting traditional-style labels.

Though this style is suited for certain wines and markets, winemakers are becoming more savvy to the fact they need to have shelf presence in an over-crowded market.

You can’t survive if your label looks the same as everyone else’s. As Gen X and Y become the major consumers of wine, wine labels are set to express a greater design, www.winebiz.com.au

with a definite sense of style. Expect to see edgier labels that are more in keeping with current fashion and design trends, and more relevant to this growing market.

To what extent do countries respond differently to labels and wine marketing images?

Dunstone: Different countries respond differently to wine label design. Midrange wines exported to Germany and China are most effective with a serious, simple, typographic look that is typical of high-end wines in Australia.

In Australia, the super-saturated $1520 price bracket is all about new, cool, beautiful, experimental and arty. Spain is also producing some great labels that are all about reflecting the Spanish lifestyle.

How can label designers overcome the challenge of helping a wine bottle stand out as the market becomes increasingly congested?

Dunstone: Designers can help by really pushing the client to get to the bottom of who their target market is for their brand. Often this section of the brief is extremely broad and, in such a saturated market, this won’t work. Sixty-yearold men and 25-year-old women buy different products for different reasons and there’s no point talking to both on one label. If no one hates it, no one will love it, and it will disappear on the shelves. Don’t become complacent.

Refresh your label every three to five years. Your current customers will still buy your wine if they like the product, but you have more of a chance of targeting new customers if you refresh your brand every so often.

May 2012 – Issue 580

business & technology SA wineries trail online for global traffic A new site is helping small-to-medium South Australian wineries boost their online presence overseas Kellie Arbuckle

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN WINERIES wanting to increase their exposure in key international markets could stand to benefit from a unique new website that seeks to do the same.

Wine Trails Online is an independent tourism website that offers small and medium-sized wineries in South Australia promotional opportunities on its website in an effort to direct more traffic to their own business website.

Using optimised web pages, Google analytics and social networking sites, Wine Trails Online aims to direct internet traffic – from the Americas, Asia and Europe – to SA wineries’ websites, which might otherwise have been difficult to find from overseas.

“Today’s environment is about how well the search engines can look at your content,” Paul Williams, Wine Trails co-founder said. “If someone, especially from Europe or China, types in ‘winery Clare Valley’ in their Google search, they would see ‘WineTrails Online/Clare Valley/Vineyards/Clare Valley first.”

“You have your website – all we’re doing is creating a different cup for you to put your coffee in.

“Take your content, copy and paste it into our website, upload images and your contact details, and connect it to Facebook and Twitter, and we’ll give you more traffic.”

About 200 SA wineries have come onboard Wine Trails Online since it started, last year.

The majority of the wineries are small to medium in size and, while the site currently only caters for SA wineries, Williams says there is potential for the

jobs .com.au

Incorporating mywinejob.com.au

site to go national in the future.

“There’s the potential to franchise it [Wine Trails Online], but not today.

Right now, we’re focussed on getting the translation right,” said Williams, noting that the site can be translated into 26 languages.

The main route to advertise via Wine Trails Online is the $24.99 a month subscription, which gives individual wineries a dedicated page under their respective wine region.

This includes an overview of the winery – such as the address, website, map and contact details – a description of the winery and a gallery of images. If wineries want to emblazon themselves across the Wine Trails website a bit more, there are opportunities, at a much higher cost between $200 and $500 a month, to either sponsor a region or the website.

According to Williams, the most significant feature that comes with all Wine Trails Online advertising is the analytics package, which allows wineries to see where traffic is coming from.

“We incorporate an analytics package so if you’re asking where traffic is coming from to your page in the last month, we can give you that information. You can literally see how the changes you make to your content affect your traffic,” Williams said.

And, depending on the type of analytics package, wineries can see where people are viewing their page from – from the city down to the suburb – and well as the age of the user to the type of computer they use.

Williams says wineries can have a significant leg up on their competitors,

simply by knowing this information.

“By understanding your audience a bit more and changing the way you do business on your website, you can make an incredible difference to the outcome,” he said. “The outcome is going to be one of two things: after visiting your website, they’ll either bugger off or they’ll make a call, express interest and make arrangements to visit your cellar door.”

While Wine Trails can provide more exposure to wineries’ websites, the onus is on the winery to ensure their content is interesting and up-to-date.

“Content is king. If you can get your content out there to multiple streams of people, then Google will reward you for that,” Williams said. “You have to be disciplined and take the time out to write and market your site. If you don’t do that, you can be sure as eggs are eggs that your competitors will be.

“If you’re not blogging and updating content, your next door neighbour will be. And when people overseas do a search, you know who they’ll be seeing first.”

more jobs more winery positions more viticulture positions more industry positions MORE OFTEN… and listed with DailyWineNews

For further information contact Andrew Dawson at jobs@winebiz.com.au or by phoning +618 8369 9500 or post your ad online at winejobs.com.au

Post your classified listings on the wine industry’s most trusted website, www.winebiz.com.au created and managed by PROVIDING SOLUTIONS TO THE WINE INDUSTRY

May 2012 – Issue 580

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

97

education & training

Wine business philosophy A leading wine marketing guru is calling for a greater share of post-graduate investment in the wine business sector Chris Herden

A PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) has as many global interpretations as there are educational systems. Commonly, it is a demonstration of research competence and mastery of a particular subject; an acknowledgement of a student’s ability to interpret and communicate the results of their own work and that of others, and then disclose and document these findings.

The PhD is challenging work in any field but, ultimately, it defines the transformation of the dependent student into an independent scientist.

According to Mark Gibberd, head of the Department of Environment and Agriculture at Curtin University, in Western Australia, the PhD is one of the most important elements of the Australian wine industry’s investment portfolio.

“We wouldn’t be able to do what we do if we weren’t underpinned by effective research outcomes in Australia,” Gibberd said.

“The PhD is characterised by students taking on a problem related to industry, identifying it with testable hypothesis and developing suitable experimentation. It generates research

The

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98 Grapegrower & Winemaker

outcomes, which are a good thing for an industry driven by innovation and technology.”

Two Curtin students are nearing completion of their PhDs investigating smoke taint and the damage caused by different forest fire fuels, such as eucalypt and pine.

“These were very good quality assessive PhDs,” Gibberd said. “The research was inexpensive compared with other PhDs, and with industry support we’ve been able to generate new knowledge and develop a model that helps predict the effects of smoke taint.”

Other Curtin PhDs are examining the role of indigenous yeasts in the development of terroir in western Australian wine regions while another post-graduate under Gibberd’s tuition has collected down-scaled empirical data to assess the impacts of climate change on various wine regions in WA. The student devised mathematical models of climate variables from Geraldton to Albany to determine the impact of climate change on grape quality.

“The students are strongly encouraged to get out and talk to industry and deliver their seminars. I think industry gets a bit of a buzz having these young folk turn up to their conferences. These people are going to become our research leaders,” Gibberd said.

The focus of a PhD is on making a theoretical contribution to the relevant literature and, often, a thesis will offer practical long-term applications.

Rumintha Wickramasekera, senior lecturer at Queensland University of Technology Business School and co-author of the book Global Business Today: An Asia-Pacific Perspective, is currently involved in a major project examining the internationalisation of the wine industry in Chile. His line of research stems from his PhD started in 1996, which similarly examined the internationalisation of the Australian wine industry.

“While the focus of the study was on exporting, it became clear that for smaller wineries the domestic market was important. Some of them did not have the critical mass to sustain exports,” Wickramasekera said. www.winebiz.com.au

Longevity and profitability has been achieved by investing in people and freely sharing innovations and knowledge within the industry.

Rumintha Wickramasekera, Queensland University of Technology

His study aimed to broaden the understanding of a successful regional industry. Was there a tendency for Australian wineries to be ‘born global’ and what were the factors that boosted or hindered the industry’s presence on the global stage?

“It was the managerial factors that made the difference,” Wickramasekera said.

“Like making good wine, success was achieved by taking a long-term view and not for short-term profits.

“Many of our long-lived firms are wineries. Longevity and profitability has been achieved by investing in people and freely sharing innovations and knowledge within the industry.”

Dr Steve Goodman is the program director of the Higher Degrees by Research at The University of Adelaide.

His University of Adelaide PhD in 2003 examined the use and impact of the internet on the marketing activities within the value chain of South Australia’s wine industry.

Goodman sought a better understanding of consumer choices and the supply chain decisions made by the winemaker. He is clearly proud of a team of four postgraduates now under his mentorship at the university’s Business School. Each is May 2012 – Issue 580

Melanie Reddaway, Teagan Altschwager, Rebecca Dolan and Chris Matthews are all doing PhDs in wine business at University of Adelaide.

undertaking PhD research focussed on the winemaking business sector.

“These PhD students are doing highlevel, rigorous academic work and are driven by getting something that will benefit the industry,” he said.

“Chris Matthews is looking at the role of bundling wine with other products and its influence on the consumer’s perception of quality and price. Teagan Altschwager is looking at the effects of brand events and cellar door functions, and for Rebecca Dolan, who has made the move from winemaking to wine marketing, its the different uses of social media and how each connects with customers.

“We are looking at extending Rebecca’s PhD (via an application to the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation) to see what we can do in

terms of getting these findings out into industry. The GWRDC is strongly behind this.”

Melanie Reddaway is a University of Adelaide associate lecturer whose PhD is exploring the use of manager accounting information in small-to-medium enterprise wineries.

In her previous role as an accountant, Reddaway observed the unique challenges facing wine business managers. She believes the book-keeper’s advice sometimes misses the mark because it’s too ‘accountant-minded’, and is hoping to help Australian wineries access, share and easily understand high quality accounting information.

Reddaway collected data from a controlled cluster of wineries and gauged how and why product-costing information was used. She is now at the

stage of rolling out a survey in order to map which practices are most prevalent in the industry.

“When I started out on my PhD, I was keen to learn how non-accountants think about accountant-type questions, and to see what does and doesn’t work well for them,” she said. “I observed businesses doing things very differently from the way accountants would like to see them done.”

“There is a dearth of PhD research in commerce and marketing, a real shortage of funding for people doing PhDs in the area of wine business, whereas there is a lot of stuff being done at the science end,” Goodman said.

“We struggle within the business sector, for so often when we talk about viticulture and oenlology, the business of wine often gets overlooked as a nonsexy area.”

University, TAFE and other courses Looking for more detail and application information Visit www.winebiz.com.au/widonline/courses to view

May 2012 – Issue 580

www.winebiz.com.au

Grapegrower & Winemaker

99

information technology

Going mobile to reduce errors in the winery Miscommunication from messy handwriting could be a thing of the past, thanks to a new mobile product that allows winemakers to scan accurate information on the spot A MOBILE APPLCATION that uses barcode technology to quickly scan information, from grape receival to wine dispatch, could help wineries eliminate the risk of misidentification.

Wine File Mobile is the latest element to the Wine File Winery Manager, a software suite that provides accurate information on the status of particular barrels and tanks.

This includes the location, status and origin of the wine, as well as additive usage – critical information which, if misidentified, can result in significant loss in value of the wine affected or considerable additional processing costs.

Designed by TallShips Solutions, a company that implements software for warehouses and wineries, the idea is to simplify record-keeping and make easy regulatory compliancy, such as Wine Australia’s Label Integrity Program.

Wine File Mobile takes the suite to a new dimension, by allowing winemakers to display the information from the software on a hand-held scanning device.

Rather than relying on hand-scribbled notes, this process allows winemakers and cellarhands to quickly scan barcodes from barrels and tanks to access specific information about a wine, on the spot.

The information can then be updated directly to the Wine File Winery Manager suite.

Winemakers, record keeping need not be a chore With Wine File...

• Winery records are easy to create and maintain • Winery records are completely auditable • Additives can be tracked to the material batch level • Augments HACCP/Standard Operating Procedures • Your NZ WSMP record keeping needs are met • You will be using software that is widely used in Australia, New Zealand and the USA These are just some of the reasons why Wine File is the winemaker’s choice for winery record keeping.

NOW MOBILE

www.winefile.com.au sales@winefile.com.au Tel: +61 02 9807 6077 100 Grapegrower & Winemaker

TallShips Solutions wine industry solutions manager Peter Huish says Wine File Mobile could offer a valuable contribution to the winery management process by improving operational accuracy.

“Wineries have particular operations they need to do to particular batches of wine and, in all of those instances, there are opportunities for error,” Huish said.

“It’s not uncommon for barrels to be missed or to make the wrong oak selection and, by getting the vessels wrong, you may end up creating some inadvertent blend that may result in the down quality of wine.

“By putting barcodes on the vessels, you’re able to read the information immediately via the scanner. Wine File Mobile takes the accurate information from the software and makes it available and verifiable in the cellar, thereby reducing the chance for error.”

There are several instances when Wine File Mobile can be used.

When a barrel is initially filled with a wine, the barrel identity can be scanned and the used to update the winery management software. When barrels are topped, they can be scanned to ensure that the correct barrels are being used.

Similarly for transfers, barrel identities can be scanned before and after operations. Barrel attribute information (cooper, toast level, origin) can also be checked to ensure that the winemaker’s wishes are met regarding the oak type being used for a particular wine.

Wine File Mobile was released on the Australian and New Zealand markets in March and has since had some interest from existing users of the Wine File Winery Manager suite.

Andrew Seppelt, of Murray Street Vineyards, in the Barossa Valley is among about 150 wineries already using the suite and is enthusiastic about the potential of the mobile application.

“Cellarhands’ record-keeping is difficult. Often they’ll write down wrong codes and, every time they do that, it takes me 10 minutes to find out the right code. So, the idea of having a mobile device where we scan a barcode is a very positive idea,” said Seppelt, who has used the suite for the past five years.

Another benefit of the device is that it is designed predominantly for small- to medium-sized wineries. The costs include barcodes for about $1 each, Wine File Mobile is about $3000, the suite about $5000 and the scanner is between $10004000.

“The challenge for us [small wineries] is to find a product that bridges that gap between a $10-15,000 product and a product that costs a couple of thousand,” Seppelt said.

He says the price of the TallShips solution is close to the mark when it comes to price.

A key feature of the Wine File Mobile is its touch-screen interface, designed to make the job easy.

“One of the things that we’re trying to make a point of difference is that the user interface is very much like what you’d encounter on a smartphone – it’s touch-centric and gesturebased, which is something really new to this space,” Huish said.

“The goal is to be able to present something to the cellarhand that they’re familiar with, so they’re not intimidated by the technology.”

Huish says TallShips will work to develop additional capabilities in Wine File Mobile, based on consumer feedback.

www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

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Australian Wine Export Market Snapshot The Australian Wine Export Market Snapshot is prepared by Wine Australia and provides the latest key statistics on exports of Australian wine.

Updated monthly, the snapshot looks at the movement in total volume and value

for the past 12 months and then drills down into more detail such as the top five destinations by value growth, movements in container type, colour, winestyle, and price point, and the top five varietal and regional label claims on bottles.

The main purpose of the report is to provide some high-level trends for the Australian wine category.

For more information please visit www. wineaustralia.com/winefacts, email to info@ wineaustralia.com or ring 08 8228 2010.

Highlights â&#x20AC;&#x201C; year ended March 2012 Key statistics Total

2012

Change

Volume ML

705

-7%

Value A$M (fob)

1866

-8%

Destinations (by value growth)

$Am

Growth ($Am)

China, Pr

211

40

Singapore

48

6

Hong Kong

54

6

Germany, Federal Republic

55

5

Malaysia

29

4

Share

% point change

Glass bottle

Container type (by volume)

49%

-3.9

Bulk

50%

4.1

Soft-pack

1%

-0.1

Alternative packaging1

0%

-0.1

Share

% point change

Still wine by colour (by volume) Red

62%

1.3

White

38%

-1.3

Share

% point change

Wine style (by volume) Red still wine

61%

0.5

White still wine

36%

-0.4

Sparkling

2%

-0.1

Fortified

0.1%

0.0

Other

0.2%

0.0

Price points (by volume)

Share

% point change

A$2.49/L and under 2

55%

3.3

A$2.50/L to A$4.99/L

35%

-3.7

A$5.00/L to A$7.49/L

6%

0.4

A$7.50/L to A$9.99/L

2%

-0.1

A$10.00/L and over

2%

0.1

Top five varietal label claims on bottles (by volume)

ML

Share

Shiraz and Shiraz blends

121

37%

Chardonnay and Chardonnay blends

68

21%

NOTES & DEFINITIONS

Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Sauvignon blends

58

18%

Merlot and Merlot blends

30

9%

Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc blends

10

3%

Top five regional label claims on bottles (by volume)

ML

Share

South Eastern Australia

212

71%

South Australia

38

13%

Prepared: April 2012, updated monthly 1 Alternative packaging includes flagon, tetra, PET and other packaging types 2 The growth in this segment is due to growth bulk shipments as more Australian wine is being packaged overseas for a combination of reasons, including economic, environmental and scale rationale together with meeting the requirements of some customers.

The change in share represents percentage point change in share between the current twelve month period compared to the preceding 12 month period.

Based on data compiled from the AWBC Wine Export Approval System.

Average Value ($AUD) calculated on FOB value. Free on Board (FOB) value includes production and other costs up until placement on international carrier but excludes international insurance and transport costs.

Data is based on wine shipped from Australia to the country of destination - in some instances, wine is then transshipped to other countries for consumption.

Barossa

7

2.3%

McLaren Vale

6

2.2%

Barossa Valley

4

1.3%

102 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Disclaimer: While Wine Australia makes every effort to ensure the accuracy and currency of information within this report, we accept no responsibility for information, which may later prove to be misrepresented or inaccurate, or reliance placed on that information by readers.

Provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 apply to the contents of this publication, all other right reserved.

For further copyright authorisation please see the www.wineaustralia.com website

www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Issue 580

looking forward 2012

looking back

Australia & New Zealand May

June

16-17 WTC Irrigation Expo 2012 Shepparton, VIC. www.wtcexpo.com.au

1-3 The Good Food & Wine Show Melbourne, VIC. www.goodfoodshow.com.au

17 New Generation Hunter Valley Caravan of Courage Pop Up Wine Bar, Brisbane, QLD. www.newgenerationhuntervalley.com.au

1-30 Hunter Valley Wine & Food Month Hunter Valley, NSW. www.huntervalleyuncorked.com.au

17-20 Noosa International Food & Wine Festival. Noosa Heads, QLD. www.noosafoodandwine.com.au

2 Hawke’s Bay Charity Wine Auction Hawke’s Bay, NZ. www.winehawkesbay.co.nz

19-20 Clare Valley Gourmet Weekend Clare Valley, SA. www.clarevalleywinemakers.com.au/Gourmet 19-27 The High Country Harvest.

Beechworth, VIC. www.harvestcelebration.com.au 19-20 Lovedale Long Lunch. Lovedale, NSW. www.lovedalelonglunch.com.au 22 AWRI Packaging Workshop (Mildura) Mildura, VIC. www.awri.com.au/events/calendar WCA Annual Lecture Series 2012 - Andrew Jefford. www.winecommunicators.com.au 22 Sydney, NSW. 24 Melbourne, VIC. 29 Adelaide, SA. 30 Perth, WA. 23 AWRI Seminar. Mildura, VIC. www.awri. com.au/events/calendar

2-3 (JD) Royal Agricultural Society of Queensland. 2012 International Wine Show & Mediterranean Challenge Toowoomba, QLD. www.rasq.com.au 5-8 AWRI AWAC – Advanced Wine Assessment Course Adelaide Show Grounds, Goodwood, SA. www.awri.com.au/industry_support/awac 6-8 (JD) Boutique Wine Awards 2012 Olympic Park, Sydney, NSW. www.boutiquewines.com.au 9-10 The 25th Australian Winter School Conference. Surfer’s Paradise, QLD. www.winterschool.info

International May 18 (JD) Malbec International Competition Bordeaux, France. www.malbecompetition.com

23 AWRI Packaging Workshop (Renmark) Renmark, SA. www.awri.com.au/events/calendar

19-21 (JD) The Citadelles du Vin Bordeaux, France. www.citadellesduvin.com

24 AWRI Seminar. Renmark, SA. www.awri.com.au/events/calendar

20-22 Real Wine Fair 2012 London, UK. www.therealwinefair.com

26 Krinklewood 6th Annual Biodynamic Workshop. Broke, NSW. www.krinklewood.com

21-22 barzone 2012 - Gastro Trend & Trade Show. Köln, Germany. www.barzone.de

29-30 (JD) International Cool Climate Wine Show 2012. Mornington, VIC. www.coolclimatewineshow.org.au 29-30 Mildura Field Days Mildura, VIC. www.mddfa.asn.au

22-24 London International Wine Fair London, UK. www.londonwinefair.com 22-26 New Orleans Wine & Food Experience. New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. www.nowfe.com CD = closing date JD = judging date PD = presentation date

May 2012 – Issue 580

www.winebiz.com.au

We step back in time to see what was happening through the pages of Grapegrower and Winemaker this month 10, 20 and 30 years ago.

May 1982 The Southern Vales Cooperative Winery has been bought by a Hong Kong businessman and appears destined to produce wines for export.

The new owner, Mr G M Lau, has signed an agreement to buy the winery for $650,000 and put off the threat of the winery’s closure that has hung over the McLaren Vale district for the past 12 months. The winery struck severe financial problems and was placed in receivership more than a year ago.

May 1992 The scene was familiar – the glasses of wine set out, the students ready to make assessments and a leading winemaker discussing the merits of a particular drop. But this was no ordinary wine tasting. The students and staff were in the videoconference room at Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga, and the leader, chief winemaker with Yalumba, Brian Walsh, was almost a thousand kilometres away at Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley. It was a first for Australian wine science education as the bouquet of four Yalumba wines wafted across state borders.

May 2002 The unchecked growth of the Australian wine industry has resulted in as much as 30,000 tonnes of surplus red winegrapes in the three largest wine regions this vintage. The Victorian and Murray Valley Winegrape Growers’ Council in Mildura believed that the ‘90s boom in plantings had placed so much strain on the capacity of wineries that significant quantities of uncontracted cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Shiraz would remain unsold. Council chief executive Mike Stone said his organisation had estimated that about 15,000t would be wasted in the Murray Valley.

Grapegrower & Winemaker

103

Marketplace Call Chas Barter on (08) 8369 9513 to book your classified advert. All adverts also displayed at www.winebiz.com.au/classifieds

VINE GRAFTING MIA Vine Improvement Society Griffith, NSW Providers of certified, quality vine and prune material. Available in 2012 are rootstocks, vinifera and rootlings.

For your copy of our 2012 Order Form please contact us!

P 02 6968 1202 F 02 6968 1479 M 0412 699 476 E miavis@exemail.com.au

Bruce Gilbert 0428 233 544 Brian Phillips 0417 131 764 fax 03 5025 2321

brucethegrafter@gmail.com www.brucethegrafter.com

ADRO

GRAFTED VINES

Specialising in Grafted Vines and Rootlings Orders taken for 2012 planting now.

Mobile 0428 447 246

Winery Refrigeration

Be ready for the new vintage

24/7 Service

Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Branches in the Barossa (Nuriootpa) and the South East (Penola).

Serving Barossa, Adelaide, South East, Riverland, Clare Valley and Mid North.

For enquiries please contact Rosanna on

Ph/Fax 02 6964 4288 E-mail: adrografted@bigpond.com

PH: 08 8562 4885 FAX: 08 8562 1446 Penola (08) 8737 3596

Adelaide Hills Vine Improvement Inc ABN:

79175

200

593

• Supplying the highest quality vinifera cuttings.

• Specialising in, but not limited to, cool climate varieties.

Contact: David Coleman Adelaide Hills Vine Improvement Inc. Fax: (08) 8383 7532 Mobile: 0422 644 825 E: davidc@adelaidehillsvineimprovement.org W: www.adelaidehillsvineimprovement.org

GrapeVine GraftlinGs & rootlinGs • Serving Australian Viticulture for over 50 years.

• VINA Accredited Nursery.

• Vine Improvement sourced material.

• Graftlings & Rootlings supplied as dormant 12 mth old field grown or 4 mth/12 mth old container grown in bio-degradable Plant Bands.

• Hot Water Treated.

• Trichoderma protected.

• Taking orders now for 2012, 2013 & 2014 supply.

• We also propagate to order Avocado, Citrus, Olive, Pistachio & Pomegranate trees.

sunraysia nurseries

Marketplace

P.O. Box 45, Sturt Highway, Gol Gol, NSW 2738 ph (03) 5024 8502 • Fax (03) 5024 8551 E-mail: sales@sunraysianurseries.com.au Website: www.sunraysianurseries.com.au

Growing for You Since 1952

104 Grapegrower & Winemaker

www.winebiz.com.au

May 2012 – Issue 580

Marketplace FOR SALE

Mondo & Scaglione carton erector – Mod 376 –up to approx. 750 ctns/hour SASIB OXE Qasar Fix Labeller – 4 stations plus extra station – 2 x wet glue (front/back) + 2 x PS (front & back) plus station for PS neck labels – up to approx. 6,000 bottles/hour Equipment currently in service and can be viewed operating daily until May/June.

Phone John Lanza 03 9487 2599 Email: john.lanza@alepat.com.au Address: Preston Victoria

• BevTech is an established business with 20 years of experience in the bottling and packaging industry.

• Specialising in overhauling, repair and tuning of Filling and Labelling machines.

• Supply of German made spare parts for your Krones machine.

• We import and install top quality new and second hand German made bottling equipment.

• 24/7 after sales service.

A FREE, no obligation site visit for a machine assessment or any other support you might require can be arranged.

Tech

Service and consultancy for Bottling & Packaging

Davidson Viticulture Specialist Advisors to the Australian Wine Industry

Does your bottling line need servicing or upgrading?

Bev

Vineyard Management And Contracting

P: 03 5427 4874 F: 03 5427 4924 M: 0400 136 529 E: b_tech10@bigpond.com

We are agents for:

Project Planning & Implementation • Vineyard & Winery Design • Construction & Management Independent Expert Opinions Working in all wine regions of Australia and internationally

PROFESSIONAL

INDEPENDENT

EXPERIENCED

Davidson Viticulture Tel: +61 8 8537 0511 E-mail: admin@dvcs.com.au Fax: +61 8 8537 0518 Website: www.dvcs.com.au Mail: PO Box 433 Hahndorf SA 5255

FARNESE VINI

VITICULTURAL MANAGER

WINEMAKER REQUIRED

Pizzini Wines is a leading vigneron in the King Valley region of North East Victoria. We are family owned and operated vineyard & winery leading the industry in Italian varietals. This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced viticultural manager to join this great company.

ITALY 2012

The viticultural manager will be responsible for the coordination of day to day operations of the vineyard; leading and managing the vineyard team; and implementing vineyard maintenance & development.

The ideal candidate will have a demonstrated ability in co-ordinating and supervising the various aspects of vineyard operation. Experience in all facets of vineyard management including staff training, deployment and supervision is essential. The successful applicant must also possess strong communication skills and be able to communicate with, train and supervise staff. The ideal candidate will also have a good knowledge of machinery, basic mechanics, pest and disease, soil management, irrigation scheduling and harvesting.

Temporary accommodation can be provided and a salary package will be commensurate with experience and negotiated with the successful candidate.

Farnese Vini, one of the best awarded wine companies of Southern/Central Italy, requires senior wine makers for the 2012 vintage.

There are opportunities in Central and South Italy, mostly starting mid August and lasting 8 to 12 weeks.

Flights, cars, mobile phone, accommodation and an attractive salary provided.

Experienced winemakers and with a minimum knowledge of Italian should apply with a CV and covering letter together with dates available by e-mail to: segreteria@farnesevini.com, farnese@farnesevini.com or by fax +39 (0) 85 906 7389

Please forward a detailed CV & cover letter to Joel Pizzini, joel@pizzini.com.au before 10 June 2012

www.winebiz.com.au

Marco Flacco Winemaker TEL: +39 085 906 7388 Grapegrower & Winemaker

105

Marketplace

The successful applicant will work closely with the company’s head winemaker and CEO. A qualification in Viticulture or other related area desirable and corporate experience is also an advantage.

May 2012 – Issue 580

Strategic Wine Business Advice • Feasibility studies • Financial modelling • Independent expert opinions for litigation and loss

Marketplace BIRD NETTING

Quality Grapevines

OBLOMOV TRADING CO. PO Box 207, Rozelle, NSW 2039 Phone (02) 9660 6845 Fax (02) 9518 8372 e-mail: sales@otcobirdnet.com.au

Paul Wright PO Box 180 Mt Pleasant South Australia 5235 Ph 08 8568 2385 www.vinewright.com.au

Vine Industry Nursery Assoc.

www.vina.net.au

Visit our website at: www.otcobirdnet.com.au

Vine / Tree Guards Cane Support Tabs

95 x 95 x 300 2 Lt Milk carton size 75 x 75 x 400

• Permanent canopy or throw over net • Fully UV stabilised • Cable, wire and all canopy supplies in stock

65 x 65 x 480 Most popular vine size

• Low cost protection against spray, rabbits, wind etc.

• Long eld life of18 months plus • Available in white poly coated cartonboard • Suit vines, trees, olives, citrus etc • Supplied at in boxes

Staple around for • Just square up and ready to go bushier • Comes with indent cane holder trees 75 diameter x 420

Streamline Cartons Ph 1800-227866 Fax (08) 8260 2387

sales@streamlinecartons.com.au Supplying vine growers for the past 8 years

VITICULTURIST Full-time position Taylors Wines, a family owned and operated wine company is home to some of Australia’s most consistently awarded wine brands. With their head office located in Sydney and sales offices located around the country, Taylors Wines offer a friendly & progressive environment within which your career can flourish. The vineyards & winery is situated in the picturesque Clare Valley, South Australia & has been in operation since 1969.

Due to an internal promotion we have a wonderful opportunity for a Viticulturist to join our vineyard team. You will partner with the Vineyard Manager to undertake a range of duties including the coordination of the company vineyards technical program and liaison with contract growers across South Australia.

The person we are seeking will be a qualified Viticulturist with exposure to a variety of grape growing environments. You will be able to demonstrate your knowledge and experience in consistently producing premium quality wine grapes to strict quality standards. With a positive attitude and a passion for innovative viticulture you will become a valued member of the Taylors vineyard team.

If you believe you have the essential qualities listed above, please post or email your application in the strictest confidence to: Taylors Wines Att: Human Resources Manager PO Box 90, Auburn SA 5451 Or via email to: admin@taylorswines.com.au

GRAPEVINES • Grafted Vines • Vinifera Cuttings • Rootstock Cuttings • Wine Sales CERTIFIED PROPAGATION MATERIAL SUPPLIED FROM REGISTERED SOURCE BLOCKS.

ENQUIRIES TO PO BOX 292, Monash SA 5342 PHONE (08)8583 5366 FAX (08)8583 5504 EMAIL rvic@hotkey.net.au www.rvic.org.au

K ingston EstatE WinEs is onE of australia’s largEst and most progrEssivE family oWnEd WinE producErs having achiEvEd intErnational rEcognition and succEss.

Winery Operations Manager Kingston Estate Wines is seeking an experienced and highly motivated Winery operations manager to join the leadership team at one of australia’s largest wineries located at Kingston on murray in south australia. this position reports directly to the managing director and is responsible for effectively managing and further developing a highly efficient 90,000 tonne winery as well as leading a team of 160 full time and casual employees. this position is responsible for achieving the company’s winemaking and production targets by effectively leading the winemaking, cellar, maintenance and transport divisions, as well as planning and executing capacity and operational improvements.

Marketplace

the successful incumbent will have formal qualifications and extensive winery management experience. they will also have strong commercial acumen, developed communication and negotiation skills and naturally lead from the front. With a strong commitment to achieving outcomes, innovation and continuous improvement, they will possess proven leadership skills and the ability to foster a positive high performance culture.

For further information please contact the HR Manager on 08 8583 0551.

Applications can be emailed to applications@kewines.com.au by Wednesday 16 May 2012.

106 Grapegrower & Winemaker

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May 2012 – Issue 580

Quality First, No Compromises www.kcvines.com.au Field Grown - supplied dormant

2 year old High Vines

Bench Grafted, field grown

LATE PLANTING DECISION?

Using biological farming methods.

Soils inoculated with compost teas.

Certified planting material used.

No Problem, Greenhouse container grown production for same year Spring

Container Grown Using peat pots for excellent take, minimal transplant shock, easier to plant.

Great start when transplanted – minimal establishment delay, earlier crop.

Soil biology bonus - Vines are inoculated with compost teas to provide essential soil microbes which come with the vines and improve vineyard fertility.

Peat pots in easy handling trays

New CSIRO Root Stocks available.

ORDER NOW FOR 2012

AVAILABLE FOR SAME YEAR SPRING PLANTING “The future belongs to those who plant for it”

(03) 5024 8812

Email: info@kcvines.com.au Mobile: Andy 0407 309 961 Justin 0427 808 998 Fax: (03) 5024 8834

Melbourne

Adelaide

New Zealand

Great Range of Quality

Bottling Equipment

Borelli monoblocs Automatic monobloc ďŹ llers with Filling, rinsing, corking and screwcapping options available.

Fillers available from 6 to 40 heads with capacity of 1000 to 16000 bottles per hour

Enos Euro Labellers Automatic labelling systems for up to 2500 bottles per hour, suitable for adhesive labels for front and back label and year sticker, both on round and square bottles.

Bottle Rinsers Tardito 20 head automatic â&#x20AC;&#x201C; up to 1500 bottles per hour Smaller 2 head units also available

Screw Cappers

S/Steel Bottle Fillers

Bench Units Electric or Electric/Pneumatic

4 & 6 head Bench or Freestanding Units Available as Gravity Fed or with Electronic Float for Pump Control

For further details, contact us on: Melbourne 59 Banbury Rd, Reservoir Ph. 1300 882 850 Adelaide 12 Hamilton Tce, Newton Ph. 08 8365 0044 New Zealand 4C Titoki Place, Albany, Auckland Ph. 0800 699 599 E. sales@winequip.com.au www.winequip.com.au www.winequip.co.nz