Grapegrower & Winemaker - April 2015 by Provincial Press Group

APRIL 2015

AUSTRALIA'S LARGEST WINE COMPANIES Vancouver goes ‘oz-some’

Drones and viticulture

Skills with the still

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from the editor

Nathan Gogoll Editor

Never been to the French Riviera, but I remember St Tropez SOMETIMES truth is stranger than fiction. But not when it comes to labels on food and wine. Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) is responsible for enforcing the rules that govern what you find on a wine label. And there is a code designed to stop products from being labelled as something they’re not. The name or description on the packaging must indicate the true nature of what’s inside. So when a newsletter from a London website, that offers advice on choosing which wine to buy in supermarkets, recently drew attention to a ‘wine-based drink’ from an Australian producer and said it was “blatantly misleading customers”... it raised a few eyebrows. So I called Steve Guy, AGWA’s general manager of regulatory services. “The products comply with Australian law,” he said. “People think, naively, there’s a whole range of categories within the Food Standards code and each product will fit neatly into one of those. “The only argument against it is that you would think the product designation should be on the front label and shouldn’t there be an ingredient list? “But the categorisation clearly states, designates, it’s not wine.” I’ll admit, the way the code worked seemed counter-productive to me at first... but Steve set me straight. The term ‘wine-based drink’ is not a part of the code. And that’s because the code outlines what things are rather than what they are not. “If the product is not wine it would be false to call it wine,” Guy said. If it’s not wine but it claims to be, then there’s a problem. If it’s not wine, then putting ‘wine-based drink’ on the label actually tells you it’s not wine. “But there might be an argument that with a wine-based drink, maybe it should be declared what the other ingredients/ components are,” Guy said. “Domestically, AGWA doesn’t have a role to play at all. And we couldn’t do anything even if we wanted to. “The products don’t have a region or a vintage. And you can’t call it wine if it’s not wine.” April 2015 – Issue 615

It all falls to state health authorities to make sure the Food Standards are adhered to. “Chances are they are not interested in this issue whatsoever,” Guy said, pointing out Food Standards is only concerned with safety and to the best of his knowledge there have only been two cases of wine being recalled in Australia, for not listing known allergens. Here’s how the complaint phone call to your state agency looking after the Food Standards code might go, in the Clarke and Dawe style... Is that the right person to talk to about Food Standards? Yes, this is the state health department and we administer those standards. Good, I want to complain about a wine-based drink. Okay, what seems to be the problem? I don’t think it is real wine. It’s misleading. Does it claim to be a wine? I’m not really sure. The label said it’s a wine-based drink. Okay. Well, the code says something that’s not wine can’t be called wine. If it says it’s a wine-based drink on the label, then it’s probably not 100 per cent wine. Yes, it’s wrong. Not according to the code. But it’s not wine. Well not all of it. Are there any problems with the product? Where did you purchase it? They might have a return or refund policy. But I can probably only investigate this if you are worried it’s not safe? I saw it online, I didn’t actually buy it. So I’m not sure how bad it is, but I assume it doesn’t taste as good as real wine. But I don’t know there’s anything wrong with it. I assume it’s safe. But it might not be... It’s not really wine. It’s misleading. I don’t know what’s in it. And it’s a bad look. Well, if it says it’s a wine-based drink, we can assume because of what the code says it’s a product that is mostly wine, which is made from fermenting fresh grapes. Probably, but it could have anything in it. And somebody might get really sick drinking it because they don’t know if www.winebiz.com.au

they’re allergic to it. Well, no actually. The code clearly outlines that any potential allergens need to be declared. But I know that wine needs to be at least 85 per cent Merlot before you can label it Merlot. Does it say Merlot on the label? Well no, it doesn’t say anything about what’s in it. I think it says something like ‘Australian red’. That’s the problem. What do you think might be in it? Probably water. Or some other fruit juice, I don't know. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem under the food standards code. Well what’s the good of it then? It prevents a product from being labelled as a wine if it’s not wine. Yes. That’s the problem. It’s not wine. Beep. Beep. Beep. I think I’ve got a rough idea of how the code applies in this case, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant for the wine industry. Was it something to campaign against? I thought it might have been until I read another blog post on the topic. This time from Tassie winemaker Paul Smart (www.vineyardpaul.com.au). What he wrote made a lot of sense. “These wine products, though abhorrent to the wine purists, are actually enjoyable for a percentage of the wine drinking community. In fact, these flavoured wines could introduce a whole new bunch of people to drinking wine... And I see these products only playing in the low end of the market, where it is a lot less about the grape, and a lot more about the marketing. If somebody wants a flavoured wine, give it to them I say... As for this destroying the image of wine, I doubt that. With proper labelling, and no confusion, this will be just one part of the giant pie of the total wine industry. That will be key, proper labelling." I remember being handed a St Tropez ‘wine cooler’ as a teenager, whatever happened to those? Paul might be on to something. Enjoy the read. Nathan Gogoll Grapegrower & Winemaker

contents features APRIL 2015

TOP 20 Australian Companies

Top 5 New Zealand Companies

Pruning

Trellising & training

The list of Australia’s TOP 20 wine companies, based on sales figures, is in. And Jeni Port reports on the business highlights and milestones for each. There were quite a few big news items among this year’s list. Of course, not every story is a beautiful picture. But there is clear positivity.

AUSTRALIA'S LARGEST WINE COMPANIES

Fertilisers & nutrition

Vancouver goes ‘oz-some’

news

Drones and viticulture

COVER

Skills with the still

More details from Page 22.

news International wine communicator of the year ...............6

Vancouver International Wine Festival...... 12 Becoming the theme country at VIWF isn’t cheap, but Angela Slade, Wine Australia’s regional director for North America, said the industry views the extravaganza as an investment which often leads to an impressive sales boom.

Regional roundup: Queensland ...............16 22

TOP 20 ..................22

My View: Reinvigorating the palate for Australian wine ........7

John Hart, a partner at Ferrier Hodgson, believes things are looking up for the wine industry.

Movers & shakers .....................................8 Boutique focus for university winery ........10 Organic wine deal with China ................. 11

grapegrowing Do drones offer new opportunities to viticulture? ......................38 Dr Tony Proffitt looks at the capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles and the potential use of this technology for viticulture.

regulars 6 What’s online 18 R&D@Work JUNE

2 014

People in research: Dr Justin Cohen

73 Ask the AWRI “Then instead of returning to the US, to work in corporate management for a hotel group as planned, I accepted a scholarship to undertake a PhD in wine marketing. “It’s where I first connected with Professor Larry Lockshin (Pro Vice Chancellor for Strategic Coordination andA Head of Marketing at University of South Australia) and his research group.”

After completing his PhD, Dr Cohen moved to Europe to work in the Master Vintage program, which is an EU-funded Master of Science program (MSC) for oenology, viticulture and wine business. Responsible for the wine marketing component and research supervision, Dr Cohen said that after two exciting years of delivering education and conducting research across numerous European markets he was ready for the next challenge - at the Australian Centre for Retail Studies, a specialised retailing centre at Monash University.

Cohen said he happily made the jump.

“I focussed my energy on commercial research and strategy implementation

82 Advertiser index 83 Marketplace classifieds

Dr Cohen continues to work closely with Larry and Armando, particularly on the current China projects.

“We’re a great team. My focus is particularly managerial, it’s my job to solve problems and come up with ways to overcome hurdles that crop up with such projects. “Working in emerging markets like China now is really exciting, because we are getting past people just espousing their thoughts and feelings. Our EBI team is actually doing the research in country. We can make arguments and claims about market dynamics founded in data and not just conjecture.”

4 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Dr Justin Cohen, Research Fellow, Ehrenberg Bass Institute for Marketing Science

Beginning with a childhood spent at Cape Cod in the United States to a career that spans Europe, Australia and now Asia, for Research Fellow Dr Justin Cohen it’s been a journey inspired by great food and wine experiences.

81 Looking back

“Working in emerging markets like China now is really exciting.”

Dr Cohen is also enjoying the growing

www.winebiz.com.au

April 2015 – Issue 615

April 2015: Issue 615 winemaking

grapegrowing 49

Pruning snapshot ....49 An early vintage has meant lots of people already have their thoughts on this year’s pruning tasks.

Skills with the still ...................................63 63

Distillation is not a completely forgotten extension of a winemaker’s skill set and there are several wine industry links to an emerging local ‘craft’ spirits industry.

Creating resilient landscapes in the Barossa .......................52

On the grapevine ...................................68

Second round of pruning trials ................53

Wine on TV ............................................70

Pruning wounds sealed ...........................54

They say necessity is the mother of invention .................................56 56

Bringing the stories behind the labels to television screens is set to have an impact on how consumers understand the wine industry.

Ocvitti has developed a metal post for Australian conditions.

Young Gun ............................................. 74 Lazy bones: Jo Perry’s ironic nickname

Less wine companies ...............................75 Versatility the key to tough times .............60 Post-harvest vineyard care ......................62

sales & marketing The Yellow Tail story ...............................77 How two families turned an Australia product into America’s biggest wine brand

Reducing injuries during changeovers ......80

PUBLISHER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE Hartley Higgins

PRODUCTION Simon Miles

MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth Bouzoudis

CIRCULATION: Melissa Smithen subs@winetitles.com.au

EDITOR Nathan Gogoll editor@grapeandwine.com.au EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Dr Jim Fortune, Denis Gastin, Dr Steve Goodman, Dr Terry Lee, Paul van der Lee, Bob Campbell MW, Prof Dennis Taylor and Mary Retallack EDITORIAL Emilie Reynolds journalist@winetitles.com.au ADVERTISING SALES Chas Barter sales@grapeandwine.com.au April 2015 – Issue 615

WINETITLES PTY. LTD. 630 Regency Road, Broadview, South Australia 5083 Phone: (08) 8369 9500 Fax: (08) 8369 9501 info@winetitles.com.au www.winebiz.com.au @Grape_and_Wine Printing by Lane Print Group, Adelaide © Contents copyright Winetitles Pty Ltd 2014. 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) www.winebiz.com.au

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

on the grapevine what’s online Worst prices in a decade Sunraysia wine grapegrowers say they have received the worst prices from wine companies in nearly 10 years. Mike Stone, from Murray Valley Winegrowers, says unsustainable prices will see those who have just been hanging on leave the industry this year. “Winegrape prices must improve in 2016 or the industry in this region will continue to shrink,” he said, reports the ABC.

Marlborough exports $1billion Wine exports for Marlborough are estimated to have topped $1.02 billion last year. The latest figures provided by New Zealand Winegrowers show wine exports hit a new record, exceeding $1.37b, propelling wine to the country’s sixth biggest exporter. Wine Marlborough estimated the region’s exports were worth $1.02b, reports Stuff.

Growers exit In the inland wine producing regions some growers will not bother to harvest their grapes as Australia’s wine industry faces a period of rationalisation. Growers who do not have contracts to sell their harvest to wineries face the prospect of unwanted fruit – another year of financial loss, reports the ABC.

Expectations in trade deals WA’s oldest winery says free trade deals with powerhouse Asian economies will be one of the biggest boosts to producers in decades. Prime Minister Tony Abbott recently visited the Houghton winery, and tariff relief into north Asian countries was discussed, reports The West Australian.

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

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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.

HUGE ACCOLADE: Tyson Stelzer, the joint winner of the IWSC Wine Communicator of the Year.

Tyson Stelzer:

International wine communicator of the year TYSON Stelzer, award-winning wine writer and author of 14 wine books, has been announced as a joint winner of The International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC) communicator of the year, together with wine author and American restaurateur, Joseph Bastianich. For the first time in the history of the competition; the judges couldn’t separate the two nominees, so the decision was taken to award the communicator trophy to both candidates. Announced at the fair’s opening Gala Dinner in Verona on March 21, the annual award highlights an individual who demonstrates exceptional contribution to increasing awareness of wine and/or spirits. Stelzer, who is also an active campaigner against teen alcohol abuse, said the award will give him a greater voice to tell the remarkable stories of wine and Champagne, while furthering the cause of saving under-age teens from alcohol abuse. “It is a tremendous honour to be awarded the International Wine & Spirit Communicator of the Year, yet as a communicator I am but a voice for the great stories of the world of wine, and the true honour is deserved by those to whom these stories belong,” he said. Commenting on his joint win, Bastianich said he was honoured to have been nominated, and to have won the award which has seen a succession of big names in the industry over the years.

“This year, the satisfaction increases by sharing the prize with a communicator with the calibre of Tyson Stelzer, a great joy,” he said. As the joint 20th recipients of the award, both Stelzer and Bastianich join the IWSC hall of fame of past winners, including; last year’s winner TV wine expert and writer Jane Parkinson, whisky specialist Dave Broom, wine critic Jancis Robinson MW and wine writer and presenter Olly Smith. Ewan Lacey, IWSC General Manager, said both Stelzer and Bastianich were worthy winners. “They both have very different achievements in the drinks industry and are leaders in their field,” Lacey said. “I’d like to personally congratulate them on becoming our first joint IWSC Communicators of the Year.” As ever, Stelzer was hard at work during his trip to Europe in March. He hosted a tasting at Vinitaly; ‘The Wine Closure debate, Same Wines, Different Closures, You Decide’ featuring a range of Australian and New Zealand back vintage wines including: Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz 2004; Ata Rangi Pinot Noir 2003; Cullen Diana Madeline Cabernet Merlot 2004; Cullen Diana Madeline Cabernet Merlot 2005; Yalumba The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2003; and Brokenwood Rayner Shiraz 2001. You can read more about his latest project, the People of the Vines television program, from Page 70.

Correction Our March edition (Issue 614) carried a special news feature on potential changes to the Wine Equalisation Tax Rebate (Page 10-14). The final comments of this article on Page 14 were incorrectly attributed to Paul Evans, Winemakers Federation of Australia chief executive. Evans did not make these comments, they belong to Tony Pasin, the Federal Member for Barker. The Grapegrower & Winemaker apologises for the incorrect attribution and for any confusion it caused.

my view Reinvigorating the palate for Australian wine John Hart, a partner at Ferrier Hodgson, believes things are looking up for the wine industry. But he stresses that to fully capitalise on its opportunities Australian wine will need to re-establish market reputation and producers must resist the temptation to push high volumes of low-value wines to soak up the oversupply. THERE are numerous reasons to be optimistic about the outlook for 2015: A lower Australian dollar; free-trade agreements with China, Japan and South Korea; and the recovery of the US and UK economies. These factors will favour Australian wine producers, particularly those targeting the premium end of the market. Domestically, the current industry trends of rationalisation, restructuring and consolidation must continue if Australia is to capitalise on these opportunities, and further reduce the oversupply of high-volume, low-value wines. The attempted takeover of Treasury Wine Estates made headlines in 2014. Treasury resisted these overtures, and instead made a $385million provision and commenced a restructure under its new CEO, Michael Clarke. The company has already closed its Rosemount winemaking facility at McLaren Vale and proposes to rationalise its brands by focusing on its higher-end ‘masstige’ and luxury brands, where it believes global demand is improving. Treasury is the major player in Australia’s wine industry, with global wine sales in the past financial year totalling $1.7billion. Consequently, the rest of the industry will be closely watching any major strategic moves by Treasury, particularly growers for commercial-branded wines who will be most affected by these changes. Another major player is Woolworths, whose wine assets include Cellarmasters, Vinpac and Dorrien Estate Winery in the Barossa. In 2014 the supermarket chain acquired Isabel Estate Vineyard in New Zealand and Summergate, a wine and drinks distributor based in China. Woolworths’ decision to expand its vertical integration in the wine industry, to include the sale of wines into China, means it is now a competitor in both the domestic and export markets. Major consolidations came late in the year with the Casella family taking over Peter Lehmann Wines, Accolade acquiring Grant Burge Wines and the purchase of Chateau Yaldara by Chinese-owned 1847 Wines. All three sales involved Barossabased wineries, confirming interest in Barossa brands remains relatively strong. This consolidation by major wine companies into premium wine areas April 2015 – Issue 615

NOT DONE YET: John Hart, from Ferrier Hodgson, anticipates more restructuring and consolidations in 2015.

is reflective of the industry’s drive to increase their sales at the higher quality and price point segment of the market. In addition, any move by Australia’s major supermarkets to reduce the number of product lines, as already seen in UK supermarkets Tesco and Aldi, is likely to drive further consolidations. The reduction in the exchange rate relative to Australia’s two largest markets, the US and UK, was 2014s most exciting news. A year ago the Australian dollar was trading around US90¢ and was above US95¢ in mid-2014. By late February 2015 it was at a five-year low against the US dollar, at around US78¢. Similarly the Australian dollar has also fallen against the British pound from an average 62¢ in 2013 to 55¢ in 2014, trading just over 50¢ early in 2015. Assuming this trend of a low Australian dollar continues (or falls even further) and exporters are able to maintain their USD and GBP pricing, this will significantly boost the wine industry where export sales account for about 60 per cent of all sales for 2014. In 2014 bulk wine export volumes grew by eight per cent to 402 ML, and now make up about 60 per cent of export volumes. At an average price of only 99¢ per litre (down two per cent) and with significant volumes arguably selling below the costs of production, bulk wine export sales continue to be supply-driven. Grape prices continued to fall and averaged only $441 per tonne in 2014, which was 12 per cent lower than in 2013. The price of grapes has now fallen www.winebiz.com.au

about 50 per cent since 2011. The WFA predicts that 81 per cent of growers are now unprofitable, based on estimated costs of production. The challenge now facing Australian wine producers is to reclaim the market share lost after the GFC, particularly in the US and UK. This decline has been due to the unfavourable exchange rate, along with an increase in exports by ‘Old World’ wine-producing countries such as France, Italy and particularly Spain. The US market will remain particularly challenging as the Euro has been depreciating faster than the Australian dollar. Low-cost New World producers such as Chile, Argentina and South Africa are also aggressively targeting markets previously dominated by Australia. More than ever before Australia now faces tougher competition in export markets. Consequently, significant marketing will be required to re-establish Australia’s previously held reputation as a producer of high-quality, good-value wines. Closer to home, exports to China have now almost recovered to the levels they were prior to their austerity measures in 2012 and continued strong growth in Asia’s middle class will also help Australia’s wine industry regain strength, as the middle class tend to be the larger consumers of wine. Combining the falling Australian dollar, free-trade agreements, recoveries in the US and UK economies and growth in the middle class, the Australian wine industry appears well placed for recovery. However, Australia will need to re-establish its market reputation and resist the temptation to push high volumes of low-value wines to soak up the oversupply, if the local industry is to fully capitalise on these opportunities. A falling Australian dollar may not be the industry panacea it was once believed to be. With inventory and debt levels remaining high, and margins on both domestic and export sales remaining low, we anticipate seeing more restructuring and consolidations in 2015. John Hart, Ferrier Hodgson E: john.hart@fh.com.au P: +61 8 8100 7600 Grapegrower & Winemaker

movers & shakers Dr Julie Culbert wins $22,000 study grant DR JULIE Culbert has won the $22,000 Viticulture and Oenology 2015 Science and Innovation Award for Young People in Agriculture, sponsored by the Australian Grape and Wine Authority (AGWA). The study grant, one of 11 awarded as part of the Department of Agriculture’s Science and Innovation Awards for Young People in Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, was presented during the ABARES Outlook conference dinner held at the National Convention Centre in Canberra. Culbert, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Adelaide, will use her prize to employ computational modelling to identify the fining agents (adsorbents) best suited to removing volatile compounds associated with common faults and taints in wine. Culbert said the occurrence of faults and taints in wines means the wine can’t be sold resulting in significant financial losses to Australian wine producers. Her research hopes to determine a more timeand cost-effective way of identifying which adsorbents should be used. “This project aims to determine the binding interactions between wine components and various adsorbents, thereby improving the selection of adsorbents for specific fining or taint removal applications,” she said. Culbert said while computational modelling techniques are yet to be explored by the wine sector, they have been commonly used in other fields such as the pharmaceutical industry. “I’m looking forward to being able to help deliver financial benefits to the

HONOURS: Dr Julie Culbert receives her award from Barnaby Joyce, Minister for Agriculture and Dr Kim Ritman, chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture. Steve Keough Photography

Australian wine sector by improving both the efficiency of these processes and the quality of finished wines.” Liz Waters, AGWA’s research, development and extension portfolio manager, attended the presentation and congratulated Culbert on her successful grant application. “AGWA is delighted to support projects from innovative young researchers, like Dr Culbert, which can then be adopted by grapegrowers and winemakers to help their business be more profitable and sustainable,” Waters said.

“This project’s focus on using a new approach to designing an innovative winemaking tool will further improve the quality of Australian wine.” Culbert expects to conclude her research in December 2015 and a full report of research outcomes will be available on the AGWA website following completion. The findings will also be disseminated via a conference presentation and publication in peer-reviewed and industry technical journals.

Cullen honoured in ABN hall of fame IN THE build up to International Women’s Day, on Sunday 8 March, the Australian Businesswomen’s Network (ABN) has launched its annual Businesswomen’s Hall of Fame which recognises the achievements of 18 female entrepreneurs from diverse industries. Representing the wine industry was Vanya Cullen, founder of biodynamic Western Australian winery Cullen Wines. Cullen has been inducted into the ABN 2015 Hall of Fame for her “entrepreneurial finesse” as well as her dedication to producing wine for climate conscious consumers. As an environmentalist, Cullen refuses to have synthetic chemicals in the winery’s carbon-free vineyard and partakes in a program to plant trees, to offset carbon dioxide emissions. “The soils are healthy, the vines are

8 Grapegrower & Winemaker

healthy and the fruit’s healthy and that’s what gives us sustainability and quality,” Cullen said. “Only take on work you love and are passionate about. There is never complete calm sailing in business. Learn from your mistakes and move on.” For the past 17 years, the ABN Hall of Fame has honoured women who are trailblazers in their industries and highlights their business journeys to inspire up-and-coming female entrepreneurs on their path to success. Suzi Dafnis ABN chief executive officer said the Hall of Fame is designed to inspire Australian women with stories of entrepreneurial success and notable achievements from stand out female business owners. “The aim is to shine a light on female entrepreneurs, a group that is underrepresented by other awards www.winebiz.com.au

programs,” Dafnis said. “The women were chosen as Hall of Fame recipients because of their exemplary achievements and because they are shining examples for women who have started or are looking to start their own business.” Every year the Hall of Fame inductees are asked to share their business story and success secrets. These insightful tips and strategies are included in a downloadable Keepsake Booklet and share the inductees’ combined wisdom with aspiring businesswomen. Cullen’s strategies for success include a tenacious stance, clear goals and compassion. “You also need to be gentle on yourself, take care of yourself and remember that family and close friends come first,” Cullen said. April 2015 – Issue 615

Murray Valley Winemakers key appointment A HIGHLY-experienced wine industry operative has joined Murray Valley Winegrowers (MVW) in the role of industry development officer. David Coombes, currently Grower Liaison Officer with Pernod Ricard Winemakers, will replace Liz Singh in the role. Singh will be moving to Queensland after more than a decade with MVW. Brian Englefield, MVW chairman, paid tribute to Singh’s dedication to the role. “Over the past 10 years she has worked with hundreds of growers in the Murray-

Darling and Swan Hill wine regions, with many benefiting personally from her viticultural expertise and knowledge,” Englefield said. Coombes, who has been with Pernod Ricard for more than five years, will move into the role on April 20 and be responsible for managing grape supply processes, grower relationships and coordinating grape intake during harvest. “David’s position with one of Australia’s largest wine companies, being a guiding hand for growers in the terms of heir vineyard and crop management, will strengthen MVWs activities in the

areas of viticultural advice, adoption of research outcomes and cost of production programs,” Englefield said. “He will bring considerable experience to the job, which will be available to all growers in the Murray-Darling and Swan Hill regions, not just those associated with the one wine company,” he said. Coombes said he is pleased to be moving into an area that will give him the opportunity to utilise his experience and knowledge in helping more growers cope with extremely difficult industry conditions.

Pat Carmody announced as Melbourne Food and Wine ‘legend’ THE 2015 Melbourne Food and Wine (MFW) ‘legends’ were announced recently, with six of Victoria’s hardworking movers and shakers welcomed into the program by Lord Mayor Robert Doyle. Held at the Crown Towers, the ‘hall of fame’ program paid tribute to leaders, ground breakers and visionaries of the state’s food and wine industry. Pat Carmody, Craiglee Vineyard

owner, was the only winemaker to be inducted. Carmody was joined by Anne O’Donovan, publisher and founder of The Age Good Food Guide, Miranda Sharp, founder of the Melbourne Farmers’ Markets as well as John and Steve Lau from The Supper Inn, and popular baker, John Downes. Fleur Studd, co-founder of Market Lane Coffee was also inducted into the ‘hall of fame’ and won the 2015 Hostplus Trailblazer Award.

The new ‘Legends’ join the likes of Maggie Beer AM, James Halliday AM and Neil Perry AM in the MFW ‘hall of fame’. Each year since 1993, MFW takes a moment to celebrate the past as much as the present by commemorating the Victorians chefs, producers, communicators, vignerons, and restaurateurs who have forever shaped our state’s great culinary culture.

Returning to Adelaide July 2015 WISA presents

The National Wine Industry Supplier Trade Show Everything from the Vine to the Glass

Tuesday July 14 to Thurs July 16, 2015

Goyder Pavilion, Adelaide Showground, SA The Australian wine industry’s premier tradeshow will return to Adelaide in a dynamic new format in 2015. WISA will deliver a different experience, targeting those in the industry with a direct operational focus. The event will showcase leading industry suppliers and be complimented with seminars, workshops, social and networking events. For further details contact Kym Jones Exhibitions (Exhibition Manager) P: 08 8177 1499 E: kym@kjex.com.au www.winetechaustralia.com.au or Matthew Moate (WISA Executive Officer) P: 0409 783 221 E: eo@wisa.org.au

April 2015 – Issue 615

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

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Boutique focus for university winery CHARLES Sturt University (CSU) will discontinue large-scale wine production in Wagga Wagga and Orange, as part of its plan to focus on the premium boutique wine market. “A large-scale commercial wine operation is a significant undertaking, and is simply is no longer viable for the University in the current environment,” said Paul Dowler, CSU Executive Director of Finance. “Charles Sturt University recognises and values the role the large-scale commercial winery has played within the university community, in the Riverina and in the Central West, as well as within the broader rural and regional NSW communities. “Unfortunately the pressures facing the Australian wine industry as well as current uncertainty and resource pressure within the higher education sector mean large-scale commercial operations are no longer viable for the university.” The CSU commercial winery building was officially opened in 2002. It has a capacity of about 450 tonnes. One winemaker was employed at the site, but left CSU in the latter half of 2014. A trainee winemaker and casual staff were contracted annually to support the winemaker. There will be no commercial nor experimental vintage for CSU from 2015. It was proposed to sell the fruit from the Orange vineyard this season, but a severe hail storm in January has rendered the harvest uneconomic. From 2016, the boutique wines will be made through CSU’s experimental winery at the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre. Originally known as the CD Blake Experimental Winery, the facility at CSU in Wagga Wagga underwent a $1.75 million two-storey refurbishment which was completed at the end of 2008. Its core mission is to support research, teaching and professional learning including undergraduate and postgraduate students. The capacity for experimental wine production is about 15 tonne and is currently staffed by a fulltime experimental winemaker, with two casuals assisting during vintage, dependent on winemaking demand. The university will carry sufficient stocks of bottled vintage to transition to the experimental winery for its first vintage. CSU will continue to sell its wine stocks through its cellar doors in Orange and Wagga Wagga and wine

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Unfortunately the pressures facing the Australian wine industry as well as current uncertainty and resource pressure within the higher education sector mean large-scale commercial operations are no longer viable for the university. The commercial winery is no longer needed to train students due to the growth in online study, the university’s focus on industry placement for practical experience and the development of the experimental winery. sales and distribution will continue as it is for 2015. CSU anticipates that the experimental winery will produce sufficient premium boutique wines to continue the CSU brand, with a focus on the university’s hosted events, alumni and wine club. “Winemaking is an important part of our heritage, reflecting our commitment to ensuring our wine science students are equipped with the latest knowledge, and practical skills, on graduation,” Dowler said. “The commercial winery is no longer needed to train students due to the growth in online study, the university’s focus on industry placement for practical experience and the development of the experimental winery. “This strategic decision to change our focus to premium boutique wines reflects a broader trend within the industry, and will ensure the university continues to provide our students with relevant experience, and our research, development and extension activities are focussed on a key growth segment in the Australian wine market. “The decision also recognises increased competition in the higher education sector, coupled with ongoing uncertainty around reforms.” CSU students are taught and conduct research at the experimental winery and this will remain un-changed under the new structure. “Producing a limited release of premium, boutique wines through the experimental winery will build on the proud tradition of winemaking at Charles Sturt University and see the brand continue with a focus on the university’s hosted events, alumni and wine club,” Dowler said. In addition, the university is developing a broader focus on food www.winebiz.com.au

and beverage innovation, with John Mawson, the former head of the School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences and Professor of Food Engineering, appointed to lead the food technology initiative. “The experimental winery also has the potential to diversify into production of other juice and beverage products, including cider, mead and niche spirits from craft distilling,” Mawson said. “Which in turn creates opportunities for research and teaching in these areas.” Professor Mawson said student teaching and research is at the centre of the new direction. “Charles Sturt University has a strong reputation for producing graduates in wine science, wine business and viticulture with the experience and skills sought after by the industry,” he said. “The focus on innovative wine and food technology through the experimental winery will expand the opportunities for research and ensure our graduates have a competitive edge.” The University is negotiating to lease its commercial winery facilities and is seeking expressions of interest for leasing its commercial vineyards. There are 18 hectares of CSU vineyards at Orange, planted to Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. There are six hectares at CSU in Wagga, planted to Muscat, Shiraz and Cabernet. Both vineyards are in maintenance mode. Grapes will continue to be grown at Wagga Wagga to support teaching and research activities in the experimental winery. The National Wine and Grape Industry Centre at CSU is the only industry research centre in NSW and is an alliance between CSU, the NSW Department of Primary Industries and the NSW Wine Industry Association. April 2015 – Issue 615

Organic wine deal with China ANGOVE Family Winemakers, the 129 year old, fifth generation Australian winemaking company, has been crafting certified organic wines for the past 10 years and is regarded as one of the most significant organic winemakers in the country. This reputation is set to grow with the first official order received from their C h i nese d ist r ibutor. This places the winery among just a handful of Australian producers, and certainly the largest, to export organic wine to China. The order for Angove Organic Cabernet Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot comes on the back of years of work and collaboration bet ween Au st ra l ia n Certified Organic, Angove Family Winemakers and their distributor partner in China. “Once our vineyards and winery achieved certification to the rigorous Chinese Organic Standard late last year it has been a slow, at times tedious, but steady process to actually receive the order and get product to market,” said Mark Ramm, Angove Family Winemakers export manager. “There were a lot of hurdles we needed to overcome once certification was achieved including hand applying specific Chinese supplied certification stickers to each and every bottle. Now that we have done this once we can streamline the process to ensure the demand potential we are hearing about is fully achieved – the organic wine market in China is potentially worth $3-4million dollars in additional revenue to us so we need to do it right, first time.” Joanne Barber, Australian Certified Organic commercial manager, said Angove’s export to China is a significant achievement. “Chinese buyers have a lot of confidence in food and beverages labelled with the Australian Certified Organic logo. Like Australian shoppers, they also want products that have been grown free from synthetic pesticides, genetic modification and additives and they want to support farmers who care about the environment. We are working closely with Austrade in China to ensure products wearing the Australian Certified Organic logo are well represented.” April 2015 – Issue 615

Organic produce sales in China are currently growing at 20 per cent per annum according to Austrade, so the move by Angove Family Winemakers represents a significant ground floor opportunity. Angove currently have 172 acres of organic vineyard spread across the Riverland and McLaren Vale with an additional 136 acres currently being converted (a three-year process). The winery sourced additional certified organic grape supplies from a range of growers. The company believes organic viticulture is a great way to improve soil quality and optimise water use, which are key factors for strong and healthy vines as well as the production of quality fruit. While conceding that organic viticulture is more expensive, the company believes it makes a better tasting wine and, more importantly, improves the environment for the next generation of winemakers. Achieving organic certification is a stringent and complicated process, however Angove Family Winemakers see this as an essential investment in the future and part of a deeply-held belief to make sure natural resources are passed on to the next generation in better condition than when they started. The Angove organic range is one of the most-widely accessible organic wine ranges available in Australia with listings in a large number of independent and nationally-controlled wine stores as well as fine restaurants. Angove organic wine has already been sold to Canada, England, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Scotland.

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Team Australia impresses at Vancouver International Wine Festival AS THE 2014 Vancouver International Wine Festival (VIWF) wrapped up in March last year, participants waited eagerly for the announcement of the 2015 theme country. “Australia!” exclaimed Harry Hertscheg, VIWF executive director. “The 2015 festival is going to be Oz-some.” A display of all things ‘Oz-some’ ensued. An Australian flag was dropped down from the ceiling as a didgeridoo player led Aussie winemakers on a parade around the room with an impromptu chorus of “Advance Australia Fair” ringing merrily through the crowd. The locals were excited and the Australian wine industry had one whole year to plan, prepare and execute a world class event to propel sales and fix a broken reputation. Challenge accepted.

SAVOUR AUSTRALIA The Vancouver International Wine Festival is Canada’s premier wine show. One of the biggest and oldest wine events in the world, the festival boasts more than 915 wines to taste over eight days with 53 events, 14 countries and 25,000 participants. Becoming the theme country at VIWF isn’t cheap, but Angela Slade, Wine Australia’s regional director for North America, said the industry views the extravaganza as an investment which often leads to an impressive sales boom. “Each winery has to send over a principal for a week of activity and a lot of wine is involved, so countries tend to see it as a big investment.” When Australia was officially invited, Slade said Wine Australia weighed up the pros and cons of hosting the festival, and ultimately predicted a positive outcome. “We had a good look at the opportunity, taking into account the North American market and also spoke to the local wine industry in British Columbia to gage a response,” Slade said. “There was overwhelming support for Australian wine with two thumbs up from trade and consumer representatives.” As soon as Australia decided to take the 37th VIWF on board, Slade said the market erupted with enthusiasm. “When Australia was announced as the theme country in November, there was an immediate reaction from the local wine

industry in Vancouver,” Slade said. “It got everyone involved really excited, especially the organisers, tickets were selling like hot cakes!” As well as showing enthusiasm for an onslaught of Aussie wine, Slade said the B.C locals were excited to kick back with their friends from down under. “Everyone loves to have the Aussies in town! They think we are fun to work with – lively, friendly and very energetic.” As theme country, Australia was represented by 55 wineries from 30 distinct regions pouring more than 220 wines. In a “coincidental” turn of events, Shiraz was named as the featured grape for the 2015 festival, a move that gave our winemakers the perfect platform to showcase their finest wines. After the announcement, Wine Australia created the idea of ‘Savour Australia’, a tasting display of Aussie wine where themes of history, evolution and revolution would come to life. Slade said Savour Australia provided an opportunity for the local wine community to learn about the long history of Australian wine. “We created Savour Australia to be a sensory experience where people could be educated about the evolution and revolution of our wine as well as showcasing the different regions, climates and styles.” On the eve of the first trade only session for Savour Australia, Spade said the energy was “palpable”. “We expected more than 30,000 trade representatives and consumers to walk through the door,” Slade said. “It was just super energetic. The tasting room looked fantastic and had really raised the bar. We think it blew everyone’s expectations out of the water.” Opting for a natural aesthetic, Slade said the Savour Australia display was created with lots of wood, pallets and plants. “It was really popping and everyone was so surprised and delighted,” Slade said. “The positive feedback has been fantastic.”

THE NORTH AMERICAN MARKET No country needs a sales bump in the North American market more than Australia. The wine industry has seen sales

A display of Australian wine as part of Savour Australia. Photo credit: Kristof Gillese

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Stefanie Michaels, founder of Adventure Girl, shows off her personalised wooden box as part of #ShirazWeek. April 2015 – Issue 615

Steve Meyer, Wyndham Estate chief winemaker with Anthony Gismondi from The Vancouver Sun at Savour Australia.

steadily decline each year since hitting an all-time high in 2007, when the country last hosted the Vancouver festival. Theme countries often see a boost of sales and market shares, making the event a lucrative opportunity. Last year, France reaped those rewards after spending an undisclosed amount to host the festival. After the event, French wine experienced a strong first quarter that lifted full-year 2014 sales by 7.35 per cent to A$60.8 million and by 4.2 per cent to 2.5 million litres, according to British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch (BCLDB) statistics. California hosted the festival in the previous year and also saw a massive jump in sales, both in dollars and volume purchased in 2013. Slade said the Canadian market is worth A$181 million and is ranked as Australia’s fourth largest export market at 61 million litres after the US, UK and China. “By comparison, the US market is currently worth $427 million,” Slade said. “The location of the festival is great because it lends itself to the massive US market.” Although predominately from British Columbia, the crowd included wine buyers from across Canada’s Liquor Board Buyers, as well as 20 VIP special guest who were invited by Wine Australia to take part in the event. “We had buyers, journalists and retailers from Canada, the

Matt Fowles, Fowles Wine CEO, is all smiles at the successful Vancouver International Wine Festival. Photo credit: Kristof Gillese

US and Mexico join us,” Slade said. “There were a lot of trade influencers in the room.” While there are many benefits of being the feature country at VIWF, the persistent media attention surrounding Aussie wine has been invaluable, according to Slade. “The city, media and newspapers were saturated during the festival,” Slade said. “Consumers were reading about Australian wine almost daily, there was a real thirst for an Aussie wine comeback. We are anticipating a lift in sales and have already experienced high support from consumers. Once the festival is over, it will be my job to sustain that enthusiasm for Australian wine.”

FROM THE WINEMAKERS Matt Fowles, Fowles Wines chief executive officer, described Australia’s involvement in the festival as “outstanding”. “I had never been there before so I don’t have a point of comparison, but I have been to dozens of events around the world and this was up there with the best ever,” Fowles said. “Comments from other countries about our display were revealing as well,” he said. “Everyone was very complimentary and people said we knocked it out of the park.”

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news Giving event organisers “top marks for execution and effort”, Fowles said the team created a genuine buzz around the wine. “As a paying exhibitor I was extremely happy with the way it all went,” he said. Although predominately a Canadian crowd, Fowles said he spotted some US buyers among the trade attendees. “There was a genuine interest and engagement from the trade community,” he said. “Sometimes events like this can garner poor attendance from trade, but it wasn’t the case here.” Fowles said he believed the event could effectively renew excitement for Australian wine in Canada. With the priority among winemakers to engage with both consumers and the trade crowd, Steve Meyer, Wyndham Estate chief winemaker, said it was fantastic to see all events were sold out. “There was a lot of interest in Australian wines,” Meyer said. “The trade seemed very interested and it looked like they were reconfirming in their own minds that Australian wines are as good – if not better – than ever.” Following a cheerful trend among

Fowles Wines set up at Savour Australia. Photo credit: Kristof Gillese

TWITTER TRENDING Wine Australia @Wine_Australia Feb 27

Vancouver Wine Fest @VanWineFest Feb 27

Over 1,000 different people have used the #ShirazWeek hash tag since Sunday. That’s a whole lot of Shiraz lovin’!

170 Syrah+Shiraz expressions in @ AcuraCanada Tasting Room. Celebrate Global Shiraz Day.#ShirazWeek #VIWF #iloveshiraz http://ow.ly/i/8OmtD

Wolf Blass Wines @WolfBlassWines Feb 25

Pressing lots of Shiraz this week and the colours are intense - should be some cracking wines across the board #inkyshiraz #ShirazWeek

Joe Czerwinski @JoeCz Feb 26

The Wine Wankers @winewankers Mar 1

Penelope Goodsall @PennyLane101 Feb 26

Sydney, New South Wales Kicked back and sipped away on my last #shirazweek #wine yesterday. A delish and power packed drop from @ semprevino!

@yalumba makes a Shiraz for every occasion. Straight up, blended, shaken or stirred! #ShirazWeek #aussiewine

Sara M @wineconcubine Feb 28

And #ShirazWeek continues for me with @ penfolds Koonunga Hill! Happy Saturday night! #cheers #wine #winelover

Finally opened a bottle for #ShirazWeek but this 2002, from @RosemountWines is labeled Syrah. Still counts, right?

kristof gillese @astudentofwine Feb 26

Only #Australians would call this work! #SavourAustralia #ShirazWeek #wine #shiraz #wine late-entry: #WineWednesday Countess Rose Perry @VinoCaPisco Feb 25

Gruner? Touriga? Malbec? You’d never guess all these wines are from Australia. But that’s Mod Oz. #ShirazWeek #viwf

Taste differences between Syrah and Shiraz? Syrah tends to be spicy. Shiraz is more fruit forward. #WineWednesday #ShirazWeek #Wine101

Brett Saunders @saunders_brett Feb 28

Alexandra Gill @lexxgill Feb 25

I have had the best day doing wine tastings at the #Barossa #winery #winetasting #ShirazWeek #CabernetSauvignon

@licorous Tasted so many elegant, peppery cool-climate shiraz today... Hard to pick a fave. Cool temp = world of difference #ShirazWeek

Tout sur le Vin @toutsurlevin Feb 27

d’Arenberg @darenbergwine Feb 25

Le #VIWF bat son plein à Vancouver #ShirazWeek

@astudentofwine Glad you liked The Dead Arm! Bit early for #shirazweek over here - it’s only 9.30am. Give me an hour & i’ll join you :)

Joanne Sasvari @joannesasvari Feb 28

Diana Adams @adamsconsulting Feb 27

@Wine_Australia I never knew there was a whole world of Aussie Shiraz until this week. I’ve really enjoyed learning about it! #ShirazWeek :)

14 Grapegrower & Winemaker

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Kimberley Blaine @TheGoToMom March 2

My shower wine holder is Perfect for #ShirazWeek enjoying @TorbreckBarossa "The Factor 2010" in the bath. #aussiewine April 2015 – Issue 615

Aussie winemakers who journeyed to Vancouver, Bernard Hickin, Jacob’s Creek chief winemaker, agreed the festival was “very successful”. “It was well organised by BCLDB, and Wine Australia did a great job in showcasing Australian wine through Savour. “The trade engagement was great. We showcased a range of current Jacob’s Creek wines as well as some new innovations – a number of which were big hits.”

#SHIRAZWEEK In a bid to maximise exposure throughout the whole of North America (and beyond), Wine Australia came up with #ShirazWeek, a global social media marketing campaign. Coinciding with Savour Australia at VIWF, the social media push was described by Wine Australia as “an easy and lively way to engage with customers, media, trade and consumers from around the world”. “There were obviously some people who weren’t able to enjoy the event with us,” Slade said. “We created #ShirazWeek so that everyone would be included in Savour Australia.” The social media storm was brewing before the festival had even begun, according to Slade. “The hashtag had reached 5.8 million, with 21.8 impressions, 1,700 tweets and 890 unique tweeters,” she said. “It was trending on Twitter the day before the festival started.” Slade said the instant success of #ShirazWeek mirrored the industry’s enthusiasm for Australia’s hero variety. “The theme country is Australia and the theme grape is Shiraz. It puts us in the perfect position to show off.” Especially interested in gaining recognition in the US, Wine Australia sent out wine samples in custom-made wooden boxes to some top social media and lifestyle influencers. “We reached out to our digital communication specialists to assess who would be a good pick as a social media ambassador,” Slade said. “We were really looking at how to reach consumers, so we chose gatekeepers who have the strongest following.” Although some of the more popular social media ambassadors were noticeably absent from the campaign, including Hollywood actress Julie Benz and YouTube superstar Ali Spagnola, a number of heavily followed personalities enthusiastically joined in. Stefanie Michaels, American TV personality and founder of the Adventure Girl website, tweeted a photo of the wine sent to her along with “#shirazweek” to her audience of 1.36 million followers. Amy Payne, American wine communications consultant and certified sommelier, has also been a vocal campaigner through #ShirazWeek. “For those of us who couldn’t jump on a plane to Vancouver, they brought the festival to us,” Payne said. “They even gave us a personalised wooden wine box which was pretty cool.” Payne said #ShirazWeek was a virtual conversation and global celebration of Australia’s Shiraz styles, price points and brands.

THE OUTCOME Andreas Clark, Wine Australia CEO, said the event was highly successful. “It was exciting to see the enthusiasm for Australian wine by both trade and consumers right throughout the festival,” Clark said. “Savour Australia has been one of the best in-market activities Wine Australia has been involved in. The team in North America have worked tirelessly to execute an event that put Australian wine firmly in the festival spotlight. “The feedback we’ve received from participating wineries and event partners has been overwhelmingly positive and there have been many fabulous articles by some of North America’s April 2015 – Issue 615

Everyone loves to have the Aussies in town! They think we are fun to work with – lively, friendly and very energetic. most respected wine journalists on the quality and diversity of Australian wine. “Now the job at hand is to continue the wonderful momentum in North America by rolling out Aussie Wine Month in May for the first time.” If local media was anything to go by, Savour Australia surpassed expectations and raised the bar for future countries hosting the Vancouver Wine Festival. Anthony Gismondi, Canadian wine reviewer, said Australia “knocked it out of the park” from the beginning. In an article for the Vancouver Sun, Gismondi said Australia’s notion of not becoming ‘too big for your britches’ led to a camaraderie among wineries that is unparalleled in the wine world. “Team Australia brought its newest and best and really made a statement about where the future of Down Under wine is headed,” Gismondi said. “The combination of regionality along with what can only be described as a brighter and fresher style, was driven home at countless tastings throughout the week, and it looked good on them.” The wines spoke for themselves, but Slade said often it’s the people behind them that make a lasting impression. “A lot of people have been praising the Australian team spirit,” she said. “Australian wine is connected and all of the wineries are working really well together to present the vibe of a tight knit community that enjoys a good time with great wine.” Challenge completed.

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

Regional Roundup: Queensland On the back of a couple of cyclones, Queensland’s finest wine regions have found time to stomp plenty of grapes and celebrate the end of a diverse vintage. Emilie Reynolds reports.

Graze the Granite for QLD Wine Week GRANITE Belt Wine Country’s annual ‘Grazing the Granite Belt’ festival will be held on the 16th and 17thy of May across the region. Coinciding with Queensland Wine Week, the event is a collaboration between Granite Belt winemakers and brewers. Guy Cantrel, Granite Belt Wine and Tourism marketing manager, said the event gives local winemakers an opportunity to connect with consumers on a more personal level. “Grazing the Granite Belt is an authentic and intimate event that brings

our visitors closer to the winemakers, brewers and food crafters and enhances the unique experience that is the Granite Belt,” Cantrel said. “We are excited that this event continues to bring Granite Belt winemakers and brewer together to showcase the amazing wine and produce on offer, and enthused that the specially designed menu is a true celebration of the seasonal harvest from our unique region.” Eliminating the need for a designated driver, this year the event includes a

touring grazing bus which will rotate around the seven participating wineries and one brewery on an hourly basis. Sam Costanzo, Granite Belt Wine Committee chair, said these events are a good opportunity to highlight some of the smaller wineries. “As a boutique wine region that focuses on lesser known varieties, the wine industry is really proud to be working together to deliver this collaborative approach to food and wine matching,” Costanzo said.

Horticulture growers to review innovation in QLD AN OPPORTUNITY for horticulture growers in the Burnett Mary and surrounding regions to take a look at innovative technology in action on southern Queensland farms is on offer in April. The Burnett Mary Regional Group and peak horticulture body Growcom have announced a three-day master class for leading horticulture growers to see firsthand new technologies at work in the industry and meeting other progressive growers. Robert Doyle, Organiser from Growcom, said the study tour would feature visits to five farms as well as presentations from growers and researchers. “There will be an opportunity to network with like-minded growers in

Stanthorpe, the Lockyer Valley, the Fassifern Valley and the Sunshine Coast regions,” Doyle said. Field visits will include presentations on the use of soil mapping data and centre pivot technology for improved irrigation and fertigation practices, the use of GPS and controlled traffic technology to reduce tillage and improve soil health as well as moisture monitoring technologies to improve water use efficiency and reduce loss of nutrients. “On the tour growers will see firsthand how growers from outside the Wide Bay region are putting innovative practices into action for increased returns, reduced environmental impacts and long term viability,” Doyle said. “All site visits will include discussion on the use of technology and practice to

improve soil health, reduce compaction, minimise moisture and nutrient losses, increase soil carbon and microbial action and decrease losses of nitrogen to the atmosphere (GHG emissions).” The subsidised cost to participate in the tour is $220 including GST. Inclusive in the price are meals, twin share accommodation, return air-conditioned coach travel and a visit to a vineyard with complimentary wine tasting. To secure your seat, please RSVP to Robert Doyle, Growcom by registering on the Growcom website at www. g r ow c om .c om .au /s t udy_ tou r_ 2015/. Places are secured with a $110 deposit on a first in - first served basis. For more information please contact Robert on 4153 2555 or 0439 898 867 or via email rdoyle@growcom.com.au.

‘Embarrassing’ lack of QLD wine in restaurants QUEENSLAND’S largest winemaker has accused the state’s restaurants and wine professionals of ignoring the quality wines on offer in their own back years, reports The Brisbane Times. Adam Chapman, Sirromet Wines chief winemaker, said the lack of local Queensland wine represented in restaurants was “almost embarrassing” and holding the industry back. “Let’s say we’re living in Tasmania, you go out to a restaurant and a lot would have 80 to 90 per cent Tasmanian wines,” he said. “You go to Melbourne you’ve got Victorian wine, you go to South Australia and you’ve got South Australian wine

16 Grapegrower & Winemaker

and so on. You come to Queensland and it’s like five or ten per cent.” Chapman put it down to a lack of understanding from “so-called highly qualified sommeliers” who disregard Queensland wines in favour of more widely-known varieties. Queensland’s industry only makes up one per cent of the nation’s annual wine production and less than 0.1 per cent of exports, according to Australian Grape and Wine Authority information. Chapman said while Queensland winemakers could never compete on volume with the bigger regions, the state could match them on quality. www.winebiz.com.au

“If you call it a punch up in the ring I’ll put my wines up against anything else they want to show me in price and value for money and probably win or equal,” he said. Jim Barnes, Queensland Wine Industry Association acting president, said it was a case of increasing awareness of Queensland wines. “It’s more so convincing customers of the quality of Queensland wine,” Barnes said. “Once you get it in their mouth they can see it is comparable to wine from other regions.”

April 2015 – Issue 615

REGIONAL ROUNDUP A stompin’ good time WHO DOESN’T enjoy the tradition of making wine by stomping in barrels of grapes until your toes are stained with purple juice? With gypsy jazz tunes flowing through the Coral Sea breeze, it’s no wonder the Flame Hill Vineyard annual Grape Stomp was a sell-out. After being skimmed by Cyclone Marcia on the original stomp date, the event was rescheduled to give the Flame Hill crew time to mop up leaks in their cellar door. Tony Thompson, Flame Hill Vineyard owner, said although not everyone could make it to the revised date, the event was a resounding success with one tonne of Merlot crushed on the day. “Each year we try to cover costs, but now in its sixth year the Grape Stomp is fast becoming iconic and an important event of the Hinterland and Sunshine Coast calendar benefiting all businesses,” Thompson said. “It will go ahead each year regardless of the elements and the cost.” Tony also has exciting and creative plans for the future. But he maintains that whatever happens the event will remain, “ethical and authentic, supplying a true rural Australian experience.”

April 2015 – Issue 615

GRAPE STOMP: Flame Hill Vineyards had plenty of helpers to crush Merlot, their annual event was a sell-out.

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APRIL 2015

Working to ensure research has impact Professor Alain Deloire believes one of the key things wine sector researchers need to improve on is how best to share their research findings. The Director of the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre (NWGIC) is acutely Professor Alain Deloire aware that even the best-planned extension programs can fall short of the mark if they do not lead to adoption. To start addressing the issue, six pilot seminars the Centre ran last year to launch a new resource to optimise and potentially predict harvest dates concluded with participants being asked to assess the value of what had been presented and what more was needed. “It’s clear from their responses that what they are asking for is close contact. They asked the researchers to work with them; it’s not about consulting – they want follow up,” Professor Deloire said. “Of course it’s difficult for researchers to do that because it’s time consuming, so the question is who can do it? What is the nature of the service when it comes to the calibration and implementation of decision-making tools?” The next stage – and a significantly bigger step – is to examine and assess the effectiveness of various communication strategies for information seeking and research extension in a wine sector context.

The NWGIC and the Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education at Charles Sturt University have launched a major research project to do just that, in conjunction with the AWRI and the Victorian Department of the Environment and Primary Industries, with support from AGWA and a number of sector partners. “This is not just an issue for Australia, it’s true of the wine world, but we’re in a strong position to address it,” Professor Deloire said. He believes another global issue is the need to value fundamental research and accept that we sometimes have to be patient when waiting for results. “We need to invest in high-level, cutting-edge research to be able to understand the basics of the vine and the complex fruit and wine composition nexus. We need to keep exploring the processes that occur in the vineyard and that underpin everything that follows.” Professor Deloire has been doing just that for more than two decades, focusing primarily on grapevine physiology and grape berry biochemistry during a distinguished research career in his native France and then at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University. After a brief return to Europe two years ago, the opportunity then arose to lead the NWGIC and experience the Australian research environment first-hand.

“In France they want to innovate but the appellation system can get in the way,” he said. “You can show people that they can get better results by, for example, adopting irrigation or changing some cultural practices, but it may take 20 years to change the rules. In Australia if you can show the sector that something will make them more competitive and profitable they can just do it.” That, Professor Deloire believes, is a major competitive advantage, and could be even more so if Australia can focus more fully on regionality and the concept of terroir in the broadest sense. “Combine terroir with innovation and you end up with innovative terroir, a concept that can be unique for Australia. We have the expertise and resources to do it.” Since arriving in Wagga Wagga, Professor Deloire has continued the NWGIC’s focus on supporting the NSW sector but has strongly advocated a collaborative approach to research across the country. With sector support, he has put in place a network of commercial vineyards in NSW in which researchers are working, via an AGWAfunded project, on the nexus between fruit and wine composition to understand the regional character of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.

His dream would be to extend this nationally, with multidisciplinary researchers examining and comparing findings on one or two selected Professor Deloire has been impressed by our research approach, the volume and quality of the varieties in a network of vineyards. It’s an output from a “beautiful but small” sector, and he’s approach he used with great success in South delighted by the flexibility of the Australian sector. Africa, focusing on Sauvignon Blanc.

Australian Grape and Wine Authority, Industry House cnr Botanic & Hackney Roads Adelaide SA 5000 PO Box 2733 Kent Town SA 5071 | T: 08 8228 2000 | F: 08 8228 2066 | E: research@agwa.net.au | W: research.agwa.net.au

Fining research wins national award Innovative research into better fining techniques for wine has won Dr Julie Culbert from the University of Adelaide the 2015 Science and Innovation Award in the Viticulture and Oenology category. Dr Culbert, who was sponsored by the Australian Grape and Wine Authority (AGWA), received her award at a presentation ceremony during the ABARES Outlook conference in Canberra on 3 March. Her 12-month project focuses on the use of computational modelling to identify the adsorbents (i.e. fining agents) that are best suited to the removal of volatile compounds associated with common faults and taints, with the aim of making the fining process faster and cheaper for winemakers. Computational modelling has rarely been used in the wine sector, but is common in many other fields. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, regularly models the biochemical behaviour of target compounds to inform drug design.

In Dr Culbert’s project these techniques will be used to predict to what extent a specific molecule will bind to a target by calculating values for the energy of adsorption. The higher the energy of adsorption, the stronger the interaction between a given molecule (e.g. a taint compound) and the target (e.g. an adsorbent), and the greater the likelihood binding will occur. Central to the work is access to a computer program for atomic-scale materials modelling that is available on highpowered computers at the Australian National University in Canberra. “Previous studies concerning fining or taint amelioration typically have relied on chemical and sensory analyses to evaluate adsorbent performance, approaches which are relatively time and cost intensive,” Dr Culbert said. “By comparison, computational techniques are rapid, and modelling experiments can be performed on large numbers of compounds with minimal cost, prior to undertaking more costly practical trials.

So they have the potential to act as a screening process.” Laboratory-scale trials will be performed to validate the outcomes from the computational studies. These will involve treating wine spiked with wine components of interest (such as the compounds responsible for smoke taint) with different adsorbents. The impact of fining on the concentrations of desirable and undesirable wine compounds will be determined by chemical analysis. Selected fining trials will then be performed on a commercial scale to determine scalability. “My hope is that this research will deliver financial benefits to industry, by improving both the efficiency of these processes and the quality of finished wines,” Dr Culbert said. “Improved utilisation of adsorbents may also result in reduced winery waste outputs, thereby offering environmental benefits, in terms of reduced landfill.”

Brett research moving into second phase It’s the nature of science that sometimes you actually don’t want to replicate in the field what you’ve done in the lab. Chris Curtin’s current project falls into that category. For nearly two years the AWRI researcher and his colleagues have been painstakingly analysing whether strains of Brettanomyces that are known to be more tolerant than others to sulphite have the potential to become even more so. Preliminary findings suggest the answer is “yes”, which makes the next stage problematic. The team will go looking for similar evidence in wineries, while hoping not to find it. “Our aim is to see whether there is a risk of these strains, or any strains of Brett, becoming more sulphite-tolerant to the extent that winemakers can no longer rely on SO2 as their main tool for combatting them,” he said.

“If we don’t find this occurring in the field, it would offer some reassurance that the current control strategy is not under imminent threat.” And if they do, it will signal a likely need to research alternative control strategies, so the industry is not as reliant on SO2. The four-year, AGWA-funded project follows earlier research suggesting that up to 85 per cent of Brett strains in Australia are in a group considered to be relatively sulphitetolerant. This compares with 30 per cent in overseas samples tested as part of the project. The work to date has involved the relatively simple process of constantly increasing the dosages of sulphite applied to a range of Brett samples (one experiment ran continuously for six months) followed by the more sophisticated use of genome sequencing to work out why some strains did increase their tolerance.

To prepare for the next stage, Curtin’s team is looking for a marker – a particular region in the genome that is consistently responsible for increases in sulphite tolerance during laboratory trials – that can provide a focus for the field trials. “That is much more feasible now with next-gen sequencing. It has made a lot of experimental approaches cheaper, so we can go out and take a large number of samples and pull them all together and just look for evidence of these regions changing.” The research project has actually followed two paths to get to this point. The other tested whether Brett is similar to Saccharomyces cerevisiae in how and why some strains are more tolerant than others. To Curtin’s surprise, the data shows it isn’t – but, as he says, “that’s research”.

Industry must move quickly in Korea The Australian wine industry has a small but definite window of opportunity to make its presence felt in South Korea in the wake of the recently signed Free Trade Agreement, according to a leading academic. Associate Professor You-il Lee, from the UniSA Business School at the University of South Australia, says Australia should follow the lead of Chile, which developed effective marketing activities to capitalise on its own FTA. “These actions have led to perceptions of increased value of Chilean wine among Korean consumers, regardless of whether the retail price was actually reduced,” Associate Professor Lee says in the final report on an AGWA-funded project examining FTA-linked opportunities. “Likewise, Australian wine producers should embrace the opportunity presented by the KAFTA to change the current consumer mindset that Australian wines are relatively expensive and lack value for money as low-end or mid-range products.”

The Korean wine market has grown by 350 per cent since 2000 and in 2012 was worth US$70 million a year. Chile is the second biggest importer, with a 22 per cent market share – behind France (32 per cent) but ahead of Italy (17 per cent). Australia’s share has fallen in recent years to just 4 per cent. Associate Professor Lee says Australia was hampered by the 15 per cent import tariff that applied prior to the FTA signing in December, but the wine industry should not assume that lifting the tariff is all that’s needed to reverse its fortunes. His research, in collaboration with Dr Richard Lee from the University’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, included interviews, surveys and focus groups. It showed that Australian wine lacks a presence and profile in Korea, with exporters seen as not really understanding the market or the way Koreans do business. In contrast, its competitors were making their presence felt with regular tastings, tours, workshops and media events.

“The findings also show that there is a gross lack of highly recognisable Australian wine brands,” the report says. “It appears that Australian wine has done little to capitalise on the positive associations with Australia as a country.” On the up side, Associate Professor Lee notes that during the FTA negotiations there was a steep increase in interest in Australia wine among Korean importers and distributors, who are the most influential players in the wine market. Working with them to “maximise the word-of-mouth factor” is crucial. The report makes six recommendations, including the importance of developing products to meet Korean tastes. “Australia presently exports around 450 stock-keeping units to Korea. It may be necessary to map supply with demand by focusing on wines that meet Korean consumers’ taste. This may also mean that Australian producers need to develop market-specific products to meet these preferences.” The full report is available on the R&D website: research.agwa.net.au

Unique tool provides insights into tannin levels A unique tool giving individuals the ability to assess how tannins in specific grapes might impact on their finished wine is now available through the AWRI as a result of AGWA funded research. It’s the result of clever research (clever enough to win the AWRI’s innovation award for 2014) meets new technology. AWRI’s Commercial Services has built a calibration model for extractable grape tannins that is accessed via its WineCloud. Users can simultaneously measure the ‘total tannin potential’ of grapes and the extractable tannin components, as well as the level of anthocyanins and phenolics. All they need is the kind of UV-Vis spectrophotometer that is already widely used in the wine industry. “We’re the first in the world to have cracked this extractability question for tannin and to translate it into an easy to access format,” said Paul Smith, the AWRI’s Chemistry Research Manager. “If winemakers have a better idea of the level of extractable tannin in grapes they can make better decisions about how to process those grapes and have a greater ability to achieve specific tannin levels in finished wines. “More broadly, this tool can provide for more efficient viticultural management and harvest logistics, and more objective fruit grading and allocation.”

The key was the AGWA-funded research carried out by a team led by Dr Keren Bindon. They developed a grape-based analytical method for predicting wine tannin, and compared its performance with that of the standard industry method. Tannins are tricky beasts. The degree to which they are extracted during the winemaking process varies according to temperature, yeast strain and the way they are processed, and not all tannins are the same. Skin tannin is more extractable than seed tannin, for example.

As such, this approach provides an excellent benchmark for how much tannin is likely to be extracted during winemaking. For example, if it’s predicted to be low winemakers can plan to increase cap management or use a high-tannin yeast, but if it’s high they can ease off. The research data also revealed quite significant differences in extractable tannin levels between regions.

Research showed that while the traditional extraction approach used to measure colour (using a 50 per cent ethanol solution on homogenised grapes) provided an excellent prediction of total grape tannin, it was only moderately predictive of the potential extractable tannins in grapes and was not accurate in predicting the likely tannin concentration in finished wine. In contrast, the AWRI’s approach extracts gently crushed grapes with 15 per cent ethanol in a ‘model’ wine, which is less aggressive and closer to the actual extraction environment present during winemaking. The trials demonstrated that grape tannin concentrations in these extracts (measured using the AWRI’s MCP Tannin assay) were strongly correlated with the tannin concentrations in the finished wine.

Final reports now available: USA 1301

Australia and South Korea Free Trade Agreement: Understanding and Opportunities in the South Korean Wine Market

MVG 1301

McLaren Vale Wine Region ISO14001 – scoping study for consortium certification

WCA 1202

The opportunities for Australian wine in the online channel in the United Kingdom

UA 1102

The relative sustainability of organic, biodynamic and conventional viticulture

Travel reports are also available on the AGWA R&D website: research.agwa.net.au

Australian wine companies

Taming the wild things Nathan Gogoll sets the scene for this year's TOP 20 list. JUST six months ago I was sitting in a big room for the first morning of the Outlook Wine Industry Outlook Conference in Adelaide. And before lunch there were a few things said in the heat of the moment that were far from constructive. It kind of felt like I was watching something not far removed from the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are. The conference theme was ‘taking charge of our future’ and a fair chunk of the content presented was based around optimism, but there was an ‘expert panel session’ just before lunch on the first day which got a couple of ‘wild things’ roaring their terrible roars, gnashing their terrible teeth, rolling their terrible eyes and showing their terrible claws. Sure times were tough and people were being honest about it, however, the #

Top producers by revenue ($)

Treasury Wine Estates

Pernod Ricard Winemakers

Accolade Wines

Casella Wines

Australian Vintage

De Bortoli Wines

McWilliam's Wines Group

Warburn Estate

Brown Brothers Milawa Vineyard

The Yalumba Wine Company

Tahbilk Group

Kingston Estate Wines

Grant Burge Wines

Angove Family Winemakers

Qualia Wine Services

Peter Lehmann Wines

Andrew Peace Wines

Littore Family Wines

Zilzie Wines

Berton Vineyards

Tyrrell's Vineyards

Wingara Wine Group

22 Grapegrower & Winemaker

catchy and negative one-liners didn’t necessarily outnumber the positive anecdotes, they were just delivered more forcefully – roared more terribly. So by the time the lunch break arrived, the journos in the room took their notebooks and headed off to file their stories. The stories they filed had either slightly mad headlines like ‘wine industry needs methadone for WET’ or were overwhelmingly depressive summaries. But the terrible roars died down after lunch. And across the next day-and-a-half heard there were updates about positive economic growth in the US, increasing wine understanding in Asia, and forecasts for better trading conditions at some stage in the future if the Australian dollar continued to fall. Sure, the reality of industry profitability was also laid bare. And there weren’t always answers. If you fast-forward just six months, the dollar has certainly done the right thing. On 1 October 2014 one US dollar would buy you A$1.17. Which meant a case of wine bound for the US with an FOB price of A$150 cost the buyer just a few cents more than $135 in their currency. Today the US dollar buys more than A$1.30 and that same case of wine is a whole ‘Jackson’ cheaper (that’s a US $20 note, with Andrew Jackson the seventh president on one side) for the US buyer. Sure, it’s just one thing and not proof the good times are about to roll again, but I’m pleased our TOP 20 was put together now, not six months ago. Because six months ago, if I’d asked Jeni Port to present this feature she might have just got the wild things roaring again. Instead, she was able to report on successful acquisitions (Accolade’s purchase of Grant Burge Wines and Casella’s deal to secure the vast majority of Peter Lehmann Wines); the McWilliams family buy-back; significant profit increases (take a look at De Bortoli and Brown Brothers for examples); and businesses being adjusted to tackle current and future conditions. Of course, not every story paints a beautiful picture. But there is clear positivity. www.winebiz.com.au

Neil McGuigan, chief executive of Australian Vintage, is the most upbeat of any company leader at the moment, publicly anyway. “The ball has been passed to us,” he said. “We just need to make sure we kick it and grasp the opportunity to take the Australian wine industry to another level.” He might be mixing his metaphors, but he is certainly very positive. Then there’s the example, from Bruce Tyrrell no less, of how a business shake up has brought a more positive outlook. “We are a different business to what we were 18 months ago,” said Tyrrell. “We sat down and we pulled the joint apart brick by brick and put it back in quite a different shape. There’s some stuff that we did in the bottom end of the market that we don’t do anymore. We’re smaller, we’re leaner and we are in a lot better position and safer than we were a few years ago.” And Accolade’s Michael East summed things up well. “We’ve spent a lot of time bemoaning the things that didn’t go our way,” East said. It’s time to get on with planning for a bright future. From here, I hand over to Jeni Port, who has compiled our TOP 20 profiles. Port is a freelance wine writer based in Melbourne, the longest serving wine writer for The Age newspaper who also writes for a number of leading Australian wine publications. She is a regular wine show judge, educator and author as well as the 2014 Wine Communicators of Australia (WCA) ‘wine communicator of the year’. The list ranks the TOP 20 wine companies based on sales figures. Two Barossa wine companies would have featured inside the TOP 20 (Grant Burge Wines at 13 and Peter Lehmann Wines at 16) but we have left them out due to the fact they were both recently purchased by other producers on the list. How much of a boost these purchases will give Accolade (third on this year's list) and Casella (fourth) we will only see for next year. But we should not get to far ahead of ourselves! April 2015 – Issue 615

Setting the scene In 2013–14: The total winegrape intake decreased to 1.7 million tonnes of grapes. Beverage wine production decreased slightly to 1,202 million litres. Domestic sales of Australian-produced and imported wine increased marginally to 539.3ML.

Vintage 2014: In its annual vintage survey, the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia estimated that the 2014 Australian grape crush overall dropped by 7% compared with 2013. The 2014 is estimated at 1.7million tonnes, down considerably from the record 2005 vintage. The crush of red varieties decreased by 5% and whites by 9%.

Wine production: The Winemakers’ Federation of Australia reported that an estimated 1,202ML of beverage wine was produced by winemakers during 2013–14. This beverage wine production figure was 2.4% less than ABS’s estimate for 2012–13 but more than the eight-year average of 1,167ML by around 35ML.

Wine consumption: The latest ABS data (Apparent Consumption of Alcohol, Australia 2012-13, cat. no. 4307.0.55.001) estimates per capita consumption of wine in Australia at 29.11 L/person which represents a small decrease from 29.78 in 2011–12. White wine per capita consumption decreased to is 14.31 L/person, while red wine increased slightly to 10.41 and other wine remained at 4.40.

Domestic wine sales: According to the ABS, the total domestic sales of wine – Australian domestic plus imported wines – increased very slightly during 2013–2014 to 539.3ML. Domestic sales of Australian-produced wine decreased by about 1% to 457.5ML. The market share of domestic wines has reduced in comparison with that of imported wines which made substantial inroads in the Australian domestic market. Australian-produced wine accounted for 84.8% of total sales, while imports accounted for 15.2%. Sales of domestic table wine sold in glass containers of less than two litres increased (+1.6%) and continued a trend which has seen this category increase every year since 2008.

Wine exports: Australia has seen a rise of 1.9% in both the volume and value of wine exports in 2014 according to the Wine Export Approval Report December 2014, released by the Australian Grape and Wine Authority (AGWA). Total Australian wine export volume increased by 1.9% to 700 ML and total value increased by the same rate to A$1.82billion, the first time exports have risen in value since the global recession took hold in 2007.

Wine producers: The latest edition of the Wine Industry Directory lists 2,481 Australian companies who commercially sell their wine. The Directory lists 103 new wine companies this year however, 195 companies either went out of business, were absorbed into another existing company or requested that their details are not listed in the directory. April 2015 – Issue 615

Michael Clarke

Treasury Wine Estates WOULD they, wouldn’t they? The question on so many commentators’ lips these past 12 months has been the continued wooing of TWE by overseas wine interests and a possible uncoupling of flagship performer, Penfolds by the new owner. There were suitors, namely US-based Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Rhone Capital as well as TPG, but despite a $3.4billion offer, there was no sale. In August the company posted a $100million net loss for the year to June, a considerable fall from the previous year’s $47.2million profit. Full year earnings were a less than exciting $184.6million. While waiting for the right suitor to come a long, the world’s biggest wine company engaged in cost reduction programs and primping its star attraction, Penfolds. The South Australian-based producer did not let its parent company down, winning Australian Wine Producer of the Year at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London, and releasing one of the strongest Granges in years from the 2010 vintage. Plans were also announced of the removal of between 10 to 15 TWE brands from the “lower end” of the company’s portfolio, thus maximising value and avoiding a fire sale of brands. Treasury chief executive, Michael Clarke, said in June last year that he was looking at exclusive supply deals with the major supermarkets and promptly struck an exclusivity deal with Dan Murphy’s for the 2013 Pepperjack Shiraz. “Deals with Woolworths and Coles is one of the planks of a revival strategy,” Clarke said. The shadow of an expensive on-going legal stoush, however, hangs over TWE and its decision back in July 2013 to destroy more than $35million of aged and excess stock in the US due to oversupply problems. The action cost TWE $160million. Melbourne City Investments (MCI) and a number of disgruntled shareholders have taken legal action alleging the company breached its disclosure obligations. Treasury Wine Estates has denied any wrongdoing and is fighting the actions. The rumour mill was quite persistent for a while, maintaining French drinks giant Pernod Ricard was circling Treasury Wine Estates, vulture-like, ready to snap up its assets should it be sold.

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

Australian wine companies

Pernod Ricard Winemakers THE RUMOUR turned out not to be true, but you could see the logic for Pernod Ricard last year was in a bullish mood, buying California’s Kenwood Vineyards in the Sonoma Valley. The feeling was that together with its Napa Valley sparkling maker, Mumm Napa, it was forging a beachhead to break into the US market. It is known that Pernod Ricard has big ambitions for the US. Meanwhile in Australia, the company which owns Jacob’s Creek continued to hammer away at Asia, working hard to get JC into restaurants and upmarket hotels. Jacob’s Creek is the company’s “star performer” in China with the brand expected to grow 10 to 15 per cent annually. The strategy is simplicity itself: use Jacob’s Creek broad wine base to drive consumers “up the chain” to the reserve range and then premium brands like St. Hugo. However, Jacob’s Creek now has both a colleague and competitor in China with Pernod Ricard developing a new local wine brand, Helan Mountain. Jean-Christophe Coutures, chief executive of Premium Wine Brands, the wine division of Pernod Ricard, weighed in on the Australian wine tax reform debate calling for tax to be implemented on alcohol content rather than price. He also called for supermarket retailer private labels to be labelled to inform consumers that the brands belong to the retailers.

24 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Among all of this in-house Australian business, the company had a change at the top with Alexandre Ricard – the grandson of Paul Ricard, creator of Ricard Pastis – taking control. He immediately made known his business agenda was “top-line growth” and “acceleration.”

Accolade Wines ACCOLADE Wines had been looking to forge a presence in the Barossa Valley. In 2014 it found it with Grant Burge Wines. The sale price, though undisclosed, was believed to be around $50million. “Grant Burge and the Barossa were a natural next step,” reported Michael East, general manager Asia Pacific, in February this year after the acquisition was completed. The Group gets the Grant Burge brand, Burge and Rathbone Fine Wine Merchants and the historic Krondorf winery, which recently underwent major renovations to include a luxurious tasting area for special guests. It was just one more step for Accolade as it pushes ahead with its global strategy, which according to chief executive John Radcliffe is to become a “full-service new world wine proposition globally across the three core price segments of value, mid-market and premium”. Grant Burge Wines can deliver across all three segments. Accolade, which separated from Constellation Brands in

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April 2015 – Issue 615

2011, is the custodian of some of Australia’s oldest and hardest working wine brands: Hardy’s, Houghton, Banrock Station, Leasingham and Tintara. In March, 2014, the company secured US$300million from GE Capital International in a fresh financing package, allowing it to strengthen its balance sheet and continue investment in its flagship, Hardy’s. In October, Michael East decided to tell the Australian wine industry a few home truths. Feeling bullish, he said there was way too much negativity in the wine industry with too many people complaining. “We’ve spent a lot of time bemoaning the things that didn’t go our way,” he said. The big supermarket retailers, for instance, he said weren’t “gorillas” but by working with them closely companies like Accolade could expect the “best financial results.” Seems like East and Accolade Wines are in a good place.

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Casella Wines A FAMILY-owned wine company that has seen its share of ups and downs, most notably breaching debt covenants in 2012, Casella Wines bounced back in 2014 with the purchase of Peter Lehmann Wines for $57million. The source of the funds was reportedly cash reserves and lending facilities through the National Australia Bank. The PLW takeover was seen as a good fit by most commentators. Casella managing director, John Casella, even allowed himself a comparison with the late Peter Lehmann, suggesting both shared “the values of one’s word being one’s bond”. The purchase was in keeping with Casella’s often stated aim of branching out and becoming a fully rounded Australian wine producer, not only capable of producing a world-beating wine like Yellow Tail that sells 12.5million cases annually, but also super premium wines of quality, the kind that might be viewed as Australian benchmarks. Wine such as PLW’s multi-award winning Stonewell Shiraz (RRP $100), Margaret Semillon and Wigan Riesling, perhaps? “We have a clearly defined strategy,” explained managing director, John Casella, at the time of the purchase, “to extend our Casella brand portfolio to include an incredible range of premium wines that highlight the enormous diversity of the Barossa and its sub-regions.” The ambitious Casella family also rolled out in 2014 a new brand identity, changing from Casella Wines to Casella Family Brands, signalling that the new identity would represent a significant shift in the businesses’ vision. “As a company we must be inspired to create new and exciting products and drinking occasions,” explained John Casella. The new name, he said, would allow the company to explore trends, innovations and importantly, attract new drinkers. April 2015 – Issue 615

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Australian wine companies

Australian Vintage WHAT'S all the doom and gloom about? The always glass half full wine man, Neil McGuigan, chief executive of Australian Vintage was in scintillating form at this year’s ProWein trade event in Germany. Australia, he said, was heading towards an exciting period of growth. “The ball has been passed to us,” he said. “We just need to make sure we kick it and grasp the opportunity to take the Australian wine industry to another level.” It was another bravura performance, and McGuigan had good reason to be seeing the wine business through rose glasses with Australian Vintage Ltd increasing revenue by 16 per cent to $121.7million in the half-year results to December 2014, and posting a net profit after tax of $4.4million compared to $4million the year before. Bottled wine sales in the UK and Europe were on the up with good performances by McGuigan Wines, Nepenthe and Tempus Two. Like so many Australian wine producers, Australian Vintage noted better margins as the Australian dollar weakened against the main currencies but noted it had yet to fully reap the benefits. It was busy in Asia opening an office in Hong Kong and seeing sales increase by 11 per cent.

26 Grapegrower & Winemaker

At home, Australian Vintage sold its 10,000-tonne Yaldara winery in the Barossa Valley in November 2014 for $15.5million to 1847 Winery. “The decision to sell Yaldara,” explained McGuigan. “Was made in line with the company’s current fundamental strategies to grow export business, build branded sales with emphasis on the McGuigan, Tempus Two and Nepenthe brands and to be the lowest cost producer of quality wines.”

De Bortoli Wines WHAT a difference a financial year makes. In 2013, De Bortoli Wines – one of Australia’s largest family-owned wine groups – was licking its wounds and was swimming in red ink after posting a $24.7million full-year loss. Come October, 2014, the company announced an $11.39million profit for the year ending June 30. Cost reduction strategies and an increase in the valuation of equities were listed as the main reasons, but it also appears that De Bortoli managing director, Darren De Bortoli had been visited by some good luck. The third-generation wine man is known for his penchant to invest the group’s surplus cash in the stockmarket, bringing with it high risk and the opportunity for high return… or high losses.

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April 2015 – Issue 615

McWilliams Wines Group Darren De Bortoli

Revenue for the year ending June 30, 2014, was $132.5 million. Like most big wine companies, De Bortoli has a host of problems existing at any one time, but De Bortoli maintains there is one issue that is causing him the most pain. He has alleged widespread rorting of the WET Rebate that he claims should be of greater industry concern than the Australian dollar or the supermarket duopoly. And he said rorting has reached crisis point. “We are getting a proliferation of people applying for (wine producer) licenses and they can then go out and buy grapes, contract made, contract bottled and effectively sell it to the retail market at cost and claim a 29 per cent rebate back from the government.” On a brighter note, the company has decided to get on board this year’s 50th birthday celebrations for the Australian wine cask and plans to launch new cask products during the year.

THERE have been changes aplenty at the McWilliams Wines Group in the last year, most notably the return to being 100 per cent family owned. Late last year the New South Wales-based producer bought out its partner of 13 years, Californian heavyweight, E&J Gallo. McWilliam’s chairman, fifth generation wine man Jeff McWilliam called it a “significant milestone in the country’s history”. The buy-out was followed in February this year by the sale of three McWilliam-owned vineyards to Hong Kong-listed group, CK Life Sciences for $15.7million in a sale and leaseback arrangement. The deal includes the Hanwood vineyard at Griffith and the Kirkgate and Station vineyards in Coonawarra, a total of 650 hectares of vineyards. Some momentous changes have been made under the stewardship of CEO, Robert Blackwell, who came to McWilliam’s in 2011. The company has undergone significant capital restructuring, including securing a $55 million financing facility, which allowed it to buy back the farm. The historic Aussie wine brand founded in 1877 was one of the first producers in the Riverina and the Hunter Valley (Mount Pleasant) and has a presence across New South Wales,

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Australian wine companies including the exciting Hill Tops region as well as Coonawarra (Brands Laira) and Margaret River (Evans and Tate). Blackwell has made no secret that he regards export as a priority for the company, a wise move given the continued flatness of the Australian wine market, eyeing Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. He intends to capitalise on Australia’s recent fair trade agreement with South Korea. He prides himself on being a very “hands-on.” In a magazine interview in February he explained his philosophy. “Whether it is talking about prices of grape contracts, the viticulture investments we make, dealing with the retailers, you have to have a far more hands-on approach. This actually makes us more agile.”

Warburn Estate WARBURN Estate looks for where opportunities exist with consumers and the trade and aims to respond as quickly as possible with products on the self, both here and overseas. To be honest, the reason many people recognise the Warburn Estate name is because it is the winemaker behind the AC/DC wines: Highway To Hell Cabernet Sauvignon and You Shook Me All Night Long Moscato, etc. The 2011 deal with one of the world’s biggest rock bands

Warburn Estate

to produce the wines was a smart one, but stitching up an exclusive national launch through the Woolworths Group was even smarter (35,000 bottles were sold in the first week in Australia). But then Warburn, a mega wine producer from Griffith, has long enjoyed an extensive relationship with Woolies with a vast range of no fuss labels, the kind piled high in stacks that greet you as you enter a Dan Murphy’s store. Its Gossips and Rumours wines are reportedly among the fastest growing brands in the under $7 a bottle market. Warburn Estate’s size makes it a big player here and overseas but mainly at the lower price points. It makes no bones about its business philosophy. “We look at the market and see where there are opportunities and we are very much into servicing the $10 a bottle and under market,” said Mairead Jarrett, Warburn Estate marketing manager. Production of the AC/DC wines is a more modest these days but should the band return to Australia for concerts, Warburn is ready to ramp up production. The company definitely works hard for its money, the Sergi family turning over around $100 million annually.

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Brown Brothers Milawa Vineyard IT'S HARD to think a mini winery – a kindergarten by name, because it nurtures small things – could make such a big difference to a wine company’s bottom line. But it does. “If we did not have our new product development program bringing new things to market (aka the kindergarten winery designed to take small, experimental parcels of fruit),” said Ross Brown of Brown Brothers. “We wouldn’t have been as successful as we have been with wines like Moscato.” In just 18 months, Brown Brothers Moscato has shot out of the pack to become the fifth biggest-selling Moscato in Australia. The company is also the largest producer of Prosecco in the country, another kindergarten winery graduate, recording double-digit sales growth. Taking a chance on new products can be risky but he believes it has given his company an edge in the marketplace. Brown says his family-owned company based in Milawa has worked hard to re-shape its wine business over the last six years. “The name of the game,” he said, “is continuing to take out costs and become more efficient, to try and have a business with no fat at all.” For the 2014 fiscal year the company posted a full-year net profit of $5.04 million, up from $2.1 million recorded the previous year. Revenue was $84.4 million. Brown Brothers continues to enjoy seven per cent sales growth in China, and plans a return to the UK market after being “thrown out” (Ross Brown’s own description) for not supplying retailers with big enough discounts. This time round, he suggests, it will be different. He expects a higher quality image for Australian wine in the UK with more sales on-premise and less in the bargain bin.

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The Yalumba Wine Group LAST year, one of the great bastions of the Barossa winemaking establishment turned 165. Typically, Yalumba played it cool preferring not to look back but ahead to the future, vowing to remain independent and innovative. With five generations of Hill-Smiths behind it (and more waiting in the wings), the company appears to be in good hands with brothers Robert and Sam Hill-Smith, the current custodians, capably steering it through, what have been, some tumultuous times. “For some time now I have reinforced widely the view that the wine business as we know it has changed forever,” said Robert Hill-Smith to mark Yalumba’s 165th birthday in November. Within three months he had made his own change, stepping down as Yalumba CEO after 30 years to take up the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors. He was replaced as CEO by Nick Waterman who joined Negociants Australia as general manager in 2002. Yalumba produces around two million cases of wine and cask April 2015 – Issue 615

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Australian wine companies wines annually and is one of the few medium-size Australian wine companies to aim for higher domestic wine sales (60 per cent) over exports (40 per cent). The company may rejoice in a weakening Aussie dollar, an encouraging sign for export sales, but Robert Hill-Smith warns his fellow Australian producers not to become obsessed by its rise and fall. Other forces are at play on the international wine market these days. “The problem is not price,” he recently told The Sydney Morning Herald in February. “The problem is fashion and reputation.”

Alister Purbrick

Tahbilk Group A HARD business decision made by the Tahbilk Group to re-structure and cut costs four years ago, is now bringing home benefits to the Nagambie-based wine business. “As painful as it was,” says chief executive Alister Purbrick, “particularly when you’re dealing with people’s futures and livelihoods, the savings from these decisions have come through quite strongly over the last few years and allowed us to survive in a very competitive environment.” The fourth generation wine man believes the Australian wine industry has been operating in “the eye of the perfect storm.” “There’s nothing else that can go wrong that hasn’t already slapped us around.” The group’s 2014 net profit was $514,000, up from $212,376 the previous year, the result of the Purbrick family removing $2.5 million in business costs. Purbrick says he has gradually felt the weight on his shoulders lifting with the Aussie dollar recently dropping under US90c, allowing the group to reclaim margin and be just a little more price competitive. While the increasing global strength of retail chains with their private wine brands continues to pose a threat, the Tahbilk Group has its own powerful in-house weapon: the Tahbilk Wine Club. The direct-to-the-consumer club is one of the strongest in Australia, notching up an impressive 65 per cent of sales within the Tahbilk group. The ageless 19th Century Tabilk winery with underground drives, wetlands and water front café is also doing its bit. “Tourism winery visitors (here) have held up quite well compared to other regions which has been a bonus,” says the chief executive, with more than a hint of relief.

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Kingston Estate Wines KINGSTON Estate Wines once enjoyed healthy domestic sales, but slowly across recent years it has all but turned its back on producing Australian wine for Australians. Today, more than 95 per cent of its production is exported. What’s more, little of the wine bound for Europe, Asia and beyond bears the Kingston Estate brand. “We have not chosen to play in the domestic market,” said Bill Moularadellis, Kingston Estate’s managing director. Moularadellis said the domestic market is currently largely unprofitable and he is disappointed with his Australian winemaking colleagues who treat the Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) as a subsidy. “We have chosen to turn our back,” he said. “Because without a subsidy all of the domestic business becomes unprofitable, because 70 to 80 per cent of the trade is controlled by two or three retailers and effectively what they are doing is taking the subsidy into their own margin.” Instead, Kingston Estate looks outwards, tailoring its wines to individual overseas markets. “Whatever the market opportunity, we tailor to it, whether it be branded (wine), whether it be a tertiary label or a private label. Effectively we are developing every opportunity as it becomes presented to us.” The trend, he says, is towards exclusive labels. “That is the direction for our company. Tertiary labels, controlled labels are growing 25 per cent and will probably end up being 50 per cent of the international wine business,” he predicts. As one of the biggest producers of wine in Australia, Kingston Estate, based at Kingston-on-Murray, Moularadellis said it’s incorrect to presume that tertiary labels are just about mainstream grape varieties. On the contrary, he said interest is high in grapes like Petit Verdot and Viognier. “The consumer actually sees them as producer labels,” he said. “They’re not seen as private labels.”

Angove Family Winemakers THIS year the Australian wine industry celebrated 50 years of the wine cask, an invention that remains close to the heart of the Angove winemaking family. It was Tom Angove who launched the bag-in-a-box (aka the wine cask) in 1965, thereby changing the drinking culture of an entire nation. These days, however, the Angoves have moved on from the wine cask choosing to concentrate on table wines and organic wines in particular. “It’s something we are putting a lot of time and effort into,” said John Angove the Angove Family Winemakers managing director. “We are slowly converting more and more of our vineyards to organic and encouraging some of our better growers to have a go.” So far, 30 per cent of Angove’s vineyards have been converted

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Australian wine companies to organic grape growing. “We continue to convert more and more each year.” In 2010, the company sold its Tea Tree Gully Winery and moved into nearby McLaren Vale, establishing a cellar door complex in 2011 on the 10ha historic Warboys vineyard site. It was the right move, said John Angove. “We are seeing a very strong response from our presence down there and it’s giving the consumer a geographical indication to tie to us.” He admits the company’s Riverland identity just wasn’t strong enough with consumers. Visitation at the new cellar door is “constant and growing”. Vindication indeed. While John Angove may not personally drink gallons of the stuff, he is keen to back Pinot Grigio as the great successor to New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. “We need the consumer to decide that he has had enough of Sauvignon Blanc and needs to go out and taste something different,” he said. “Pinot Grigio is growing quite strongly.” Angove’s has a “patch” of Grigio planted, he says. “But we’d like to have a larger one!”

John Pezzaniti

Qualia Wine Services THE NAME Qualia Wine Services is not a well-known wine name in Australia. And, truth be told, it’s not a name that many overseas consumers have come to know, or ask for. Qualia Wine Services is one of Australia’s largest privatelyowned winemakers that makes wine under “bespoke” labels, that is wines specifically made for a price and a buyer. It’s becoming a growth industry in this country with buyers phoning in their needs pre-vintage and Qualia making wine to order. Its company philosophy is: lowest possible cost, highest possible quality. Based outside Mildura, production is in excess of 52,000 tonnes. Wines are shipped to 25 countries with export becoming more and more of a feature of the business with around 70 per cent of production ear-marked for overseas, most of it as bulk wine. The company has customers from Sweden and Russia to Belgium and the UK. The Australian dollar remains a challenge but Qualia executive director and winemaker, John Pezzaniti, believes Australian producers can become too fixated on price. It’s all about product, service and flexibility as a supplier and winemaker.

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Andrew Peace Wines ANDREW Peace Wines is a poster child for the Victorian Government’s push to attract investors. It has it all. It remains in growth phase with its 1500 hectare property near Swan Hill pumping out 25-30million litres of wine annually. Within the small town on Piangil with a population of 150, 70 are employed at APW. Export is its business with 95 per cent of its production going to Europe, the UK, US and Asia. It’s innovative too, claiming the largest planting of the Italian grape variety, Sagrantino, in Australia in addition to popular alternative styles like Tempranillo and Pinot Grigio. Andrew Peace was also among the first producers to embrace the environmentally-friendly TetraPak packaging. However, recently the Peace family has been making plans to diversify, to get away from dealing with the large supermarket retailers and insuring themselves against some of the high risks associated with exporting. Under third generation Calum Peace, the family is now growing wheat, corn and canola. The transition has been slowly occurring over the past five years. The reason for the diversification will be understood by every Australian winemaker. It’s called cash flow. “If you have 1000 tonnes of wheat, corn or canola sitting in a silo and you want to turn that into cash tomorrow you can ring someone and sell it,” Calum Peace said in a recent newspaper article. “With wine it’s not that simple.” But this is not to suggest that the Peace family is getting out of wine. It has ambitions to have packaged wine sales of one million cases of wine annually.

Littore Family Wines LITTORE Wines is a company built on volume with 1400ha of vines in the Murray-Darling region and a smaller 15ha vineyard in the Moorabool Valley, Geelong. That’s a lot of wine in need of a sales outlet. Contrary to so many Australian wine producers, the Littore family chooses to embrace the bulk wine market and supplies supermarket chains with wine for their private labels. It shares a particularly close relationship with Coles. “We are probably one of the few (producers) that has accepted it,” said Vince Littore who supplies Coles with wine for four private labels: Slippery Fish, Trails End, St Andrews and Whispers. In the past 12 months a few labels have been dropped by Coles but volume of each of the remaining labels, he said, has increased. The Littore family’s efforts at establishing their own brand, Jindalee, have been largely unsuccessful with Jindalee ceasing production for the Australian and UK markets. “But it is the number one selling wine in Russia!” he quipped. Export is a big component of the Littore wine business, done exclusively in bulk.

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“We work very much in partnerships. In China we work with people where they will develop their own brand and we’ll supply.” The producer’s main bulk wine markets continue to be the US and the UK. “What we are trying to do is find our place in the world of wine,” he said. “We all went into the industry 15 years with the idea of establishing a niche brand that tells our story, but it’s just been a tough gig. “You can count on one hand the labels that have been able to get up and keep going in the last 15 years.”

The company seeks a balance in its wine business, preferring a 40 per cent/60 per cent split between export and domestic. In export it has found China, in particular, to be a rewarding market capable of a few surprise like the recent growth in demand for Moscato. “It’s not just red wine,” said Robertson. “But we are seeing huge interest in Moscato. It’s hard to keep up with the demand.” Bob Berton

Zilzie Wines “WE'RE a small, nimble team family-owned doing the best we can,” said Bryn Robertson, Zilzie Wine’s national sales manager. They’re a humble lot at Zilzie, maybe it’s the farming background. The Forbes family have been on the land four generations in the Murray Darling Region of North West Victoria and originally entered the wine game as a supplier of grapes to Southcorp. Today, they enjoy an impressive presence on both the domestic and export wine scene. The company’s on-premise or restaurant-only wine brand in Australia, BTW (By The Way) has only been running four years but Robertson reports that it is enjoying astonishing growth of 18 per cent. Zilzie’s hard-working Regional Collection grew this past year with two new arrivals, a $17 Pinot Noir from the Adelaide Hills and a $22 non-vintage Prosecco from the King Valley in its own impressive eponymous bottle. “Finding Prosecco fruit and building consistent long-term partners has been a challenge,” explained Robertson, who says 1300 dozen was launched onto the market before Christmas 2014 and has been selling like hot cakes. Big things are expected for the newcomer sparkling. “We expect it to have a halo effect,” said Robertson. “Driving up the profile of our brand.”

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Berton Vineyards BOB BERTON appears as a man reinvigorated. When he travelled to Germany in March this year for the important 2015 Prowein international trade fair, he found renewed interest in Australian wine. It brought a smile to his face. “The signs are good that Australian wine is back on the global wine table and being considered,” he said. “So we really need to bring home the bacon and give our country some strong positive signals.” His biggest fear, however, remains for the future of Australian grapegrowers who continue to struggle with low grape prices.

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Australian wine companies Australian winemakers might be in a good position to win business but it may come, he warns, at a high cost to grape growers. “Weaker than expected demand combined with at least an average 2015 grape crop has seen grape prices fall,” explains Berton, ”and this is likely to see continued downward pressure on bulk wine prices. So whilst this should put Australia in a strong position to win business back, it may well come at the cost of our grower base.” Bob Berton’s concern is tangible because Berton Vineyards sources fruit from growers all over the country, namely the Riverina for its popular labels Oddsocks, Foundstone and Head Over Heels. It also gets fruit from Coonawarra, Tasmania, King Valley, Yarra Valley and the Swan Valley in addition to its home vineyard, the one that started it all in 1996, in the Eden Valley. The company has around 50 growers that bring in almost 100 per cent of its grape intake. At its Yenda winery base, Berton has been making improvements, including adding five million litre of storage, which Bob Berton says has had a direct influence of wine quality. “Red quality has improved as we are able to pick grapes when they are ready, rather than vintage being dictated by available space in the winery.” And he’s seeing plenty of interest in alternative grape varieties which he says, is another reason to smile. Bruce Tyrrell

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“THE LAST 12 months have been among my hardest times in the industry,” said Bruce Tyrrell. The high Aussie dollar put a damper on exports. That was a blow. Then the Chinese government cracked down on gift giving and wine sales plummeted. China is Tyrrell’s biggest export market and was a great source of cash flow. “With the Chinese, it’s all cash up front,” said Bruce Tyrrell. “Sell wine in America and you get paid four or five months later.” Still, there were some highlights during 2014. He regards the Canadian wine market as one to watch. The recent Wine Australia promotion at the Vancouver International Wine Festival reinforced his opinion that Canada could be the next big market for Australian wines. He also noted increased interest in blended wines in both the US and Canada and now is months away from releasing a $20 blended wine, as yet name unknown, that he hopes will excite his overseas clients as well as domestic drinkers. The domestic market, he stresses, remains his big focus representing 80 per cent of sales. Commentators note that Tyrrell’s Wines is no longer as big as it once was, no longer a player in the bargain bins of supermarkets. It’s deliberate says Bruce Tyrrell. “We are a different business to what we were 18 months ago,” he said. “We sat down and we pulled the joint apart brick by brick and put it back in quite a different shape. www.winebiz.com.au

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There’s some stuff that we did in the bottom end of the market that we don’t do anymore. We’re smaller, we’re leaner and we are in a lot better position and safer than we were a few years ago.” He then adds, “the Australian market is bloody hard.” Closer to home, he reports cellar door visitations are up and the direct to the consumer wine club is growing 15-20 per cent. But still, he adds, some retail price increases would be nice.

Wingara Wine Group THERE were changes a-plenty for the Wingara Wine Group during 2014. After seven years in Australia, chief executive Diego Jimenez called it quits and returned to the mother company, Freixenet in Spain to resume a senior role. His cousin, Jose Maria Ferrer, replaced him. The grandson of Freixenet founders Pedro Ferrer and Delores Sala, Ferrer has watched the company become the biggest producer of sparkling wine in the world. But for now, his focus is on Australian table wines (and just the odd sparkling) produced at Katnook in Coonawarra and Deakin Estate in the Murray Darling region. As if to announce the change at the top, Wingara launched a new wine brand. La La Land Wines has a distinctly Spanish feel employing red grapes, Tempranillo and Malbec. With a retail price of

April 2015 – Issue 615

Jose Maria Ferrer

$16 a bottle, La La Land continues on the Spanish theme established by the company’s 2014 launch of Azahara sparkling Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The name Azahara was intended as a tribute to the company’s Spanish ties and loosely translates as ‘orange blossom’, a reference to the orange groves of the Murray Darling region. The sparkling has achieved some overseas show success, belying its $15 price tag. In the lead up to this year’s vintage, Deakin Estate lost long time winemaker, Dr Phil Spillman. His replacement is Frank Newman, one of the most experienced winemakers going, having worked with BRL Hardy, Angoves and Penfolds.

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New Zealand wine companies

TOP 5 NZ Wine Companies

Pernod Ricard

Lion

Pernod Ricard Winemakers remains New Zealand’s largest wine company. It maintains some of the pioneering New Zealand wineries and brands, including Brancott Estate, Stoneleigh and Church Road. Brands like Brancott Estate help maintain Pernod Ricard’s position at the TOP 5, on the back of 2.1 million cases sold in 2013-14. Brancott Estate also followed up on last year’s success with Brancott Estate Flight, its early harvest, low-alcohol innovation, by introducing Flight Song to the US – meeting consumer demand for a lighter style wine.

Lion maintains its position are the second largest wine company in the country with a portfolio of wine brands including Wither Hills, Lindauer, Two Tracks, Te Hana, Huntaway and Saints (Lion remains New Zealand’s largest alcohol beverage company thanks to its beer and spirits portfolios). Lion added to its portfolio in 2014 with the purchase of the Morton Estate wine brand, including the estate’s Stone Creek vineyard, adjacent to Lion’s Wither Hills property in Marlborough. “Morton Estate will be a great complement to our existing brands, giving us more flexibility in the way we service customers and consumers by way of range and price. We expect to grow Morton Estate beyond its existing channels in order to fully unlock the potential of the brand,” said Rory Glass, Lion’s New Zealand managing director. Earlier this year Lion reported strong domestic and export growth for Wither Hills, while Huntaway became the fastest-growing premium wine brand in grocery in the country.

Delegat Group Across two generations and six decades, the Delegat Group has earned a reputation as one of New Zealand’s best known winemakers. And the company is not sitting back and taking things for granted, continuing a focus on premium wine production. In late 2014 it announced it was on target to achieve its sales forecast of 2,205,000 cases, up nine per cent on the previous financial year. It was also on target to achieve operating profit in line with consensus of $34 million, again up nine per cent on last year. The company is still growing. It completed a winery expansion in Marlborough in time for vintage 2015 and a new Hawke’s Bay winery will be built in time for vintage 2016. There’s also

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Record NZ wine exports Wine exports have reached a record high and now stand at $1.37 billion, up 8.2%, propelling wine to New Zealand’s 6th largest export good. This strong demand in key markets bodes well for the wine industry, whose 2015 grape harvest is now underway. Prospects for a high-quality vintage look positive due to ideal summer weather, according to Philip Gregan, New Zealand Winegrowers CEO. “The warm dry summer of 2015 has been absolutely perfect for growing and ripening grapes. As we move into autumn the prospect is for an outstanding, albeit smaller, vintage in all our grapegrowing regions,” Gregan said. Although the expectation is that the 2015 vintage will be significantly smaller than last year, Gregan said the sales in the year ahead will be supported by retained stocks from vintage 2014.

still plenty of growth in the vineyards. This financial year, more than 200ha was planted in Marlborough; 33ha planted in Hawke’s Bay; and 12ha planted in the Barossa. Almost 100 more hectares are planned for the Barossa in 2015-16.

Constellation New Zealand Constellation New Zealand continues to drive toward becoming the premier supplier of branded New Zealand wines to the world. Brands including Kim Crawford, Nobilo, Monkey Bay, Selaks, Drylands and The People’s Wine. Earlier this year there was some encouraging news for premium wine sales, with the parent company’s third quarter 2015 financial highlights report that net sales in the spirit and wine portfolios matched the previous year’s third quarter, despite higher promotional spend and lower bulk wine net sales. “During the third quarter, we experienced solid depletion trends for some of our fastest-growing wine brands, including Kim Crawford,” said Rob Sands, president and chief executive officer, Constellation Brands. April 2015 – Issue 615

Villa Maria THE VILLA Maria story goes like this: From a one-man band to a global brand in just 50 years. Today the company portfolio comprises seven brands, including Villa Maria, Vidal, Esk Valley, Thornbury, Riverstone, Kidnapper Cliffs and Te Awa. Reflecting the degree at which the company is still growing, it appointed Richard Thomas as its first chief operating officer in late 2014. A recent innovation from the company has been the launch of a lower alcohol wines into the UK. The ambition is to stay ahead of the curve with these products and work with the NZ government push for the country to be recognised for low alcohol wine. Sales growth will no doubt get a boost from the news that Drinks International has named Villa Maria as the fourth-most admired wine brand in the world. “New Zealand is a very young wine producing country so to achieve fourth place, in such a prestigious competition, with old world leaders such as Torres, Château d’Yquem and Château Margaux is a huge source of pride,” said George Fistonich, Villa Maria founder. “I’m incredibly proud.”

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT BOB CAMPBELL is New Zealand’s leading wine educator, an international wine judge and New Zealand wine editor for several consumer publications. If you want to know what’s happening across the New Zealand industry, Bob is the man you turn to. We put a number of questions to him, to get a feeling for the sentiment across the country.

I know it’s the middle of vintage (and the success/difficulty of the season may affect this sentiment), but how positive do you think NZ grapegrowers, winemakers and winery owners are at the moment?

Are there any reasons for negativity?

BC: The New Zealand dollar remains volatile. The international wine market is well supplied and very competitive at all levels. Marlborough Sauvignon had a record vintage last year which put a little supply pressure on the market. Kiwis are naturally negative – it reduces the risk of disappointment.

Thinking back across the past 12 months… what issue to you think had the biggest impact across the industry? And what issue still keeps people awake at night?

Bob Campbell: I think they are reasonably bullish.

BC: The fluctuating New Zealand dollar would be my guess.

What reasons positivity?

are

there

for

BC: They’ve just enjoyed two great vintages, particularly in the North Island. Cyclone Pam caused alarm throughout the North Island but damage appears to have been fairly minimal. Vineyard prices and sales are climbing which eases the pressure from banks. The sharemarket is reasonably buoyant, unemployment is low, interest rates are low and likely to stay that way for some time and the New Zealand dollar has weakened against the US dollar, which is a very important market. The crop forecast for Marlborough Sauvignon is down significantly which will take the pressure off prices and supply to some extent.

Can you gaze into the crystal ball for me and predict what will be happening 12 months from now?

BC: A looming threat is the lack of potential vineyard land in Marlborough – estimated to be around 10%, perhaps a touch more. On the other hand Pinot Gris is a rising export star, promising to make New Zealand more than just a one-trick pony, with the help of another rising star, Pinot Noir. Climate change is another gamechange although no one seems to be worried about it yet. If you track the growing optimism over the past five years a betting man would say that the industry will be even more positive than it is now.

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grapegrowing Do Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) offer new opportunities to viticulture? Tony Proffitt has worked in the technical, consultancy, extension and educational sectors of the Australian wine industry since 1995. He has worked for Southcorp Wines (now Treasury Wine Estates), and currently shares his time between AHA Viticulture/Precision Viticulture Australia, a vineyard management and consultancy company in Margaret River, Western Australia and Curtin University where he teaches viticulture to undergraduate and diploma students. In this article he looks at the capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles and the potential use of this technology for viticulture. THROUGH the development of a range of spatially-enabled technologies, collectively known as Precision Viticulture (PV), grape growers and wine producers are able to map the spatial variation in vine performance and soil characteristics and also model landscape topography across their vineyards. Armed with this information, they can precisely apply a range of management strategies to distinct zones (areas) where they are required. The differential management of inputs and/or selective harvesting of a vineyard to reflect the spatial variability in vine performance has, in many cases, led to improved efficiency, profitability and/or production sustainability. One of the most cost-effective tools to assess vineyard variability is remote sensing whereby imagery information (i.e. reflectance data) is transformed into a single index (number) which can be related to photosynthetically active biomass (PAB). This, in turn, can be related to the size and/or health of the vine canopy. Remote sensing should not be confused with close-range (proximal) sensing whereby parameters are measured using on-ground sensors. Numerous studies have demonstrated that vegetation indices such as Plant Cell Density (PCD) and Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) can provide valuable information, not only about vine vegetative status, but also about vine water status, crop yield and berry composition. These indices are generally derived using multispectral imaging systems which are capable of capturing canopy reflectance in both the visible and near-infrared (NIR) wavebands. In Australia, PCD has been adopted as the preferred vegetation index to use; elsewhere, NDVI tends to be used. However, the information provided by these two indices is essentially the same. Remote sensing involves the acquisition of data using platforms such as satellites operating hundreds of kilometres above the earth, aircraft operating at altitudes between 600 and 1700m and, in more recent times, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, also referred to as drones and as remotely piloted aircraft, RPA) operating a few metres above the canopy and upwards to the regulation-imposed altitude of 120m (Figure 1). The spatial resolution (i.e. pixel size) that can be provided by light aircraft is typically within the 0.1-0.5m/pixel range. In commercial Australian vineyards, data is generally acquired using this platform and PCD imagery is provided to growers with an on-ground resolution of 0.5m. For the planting densities commonly used in Australia, this spatial resolution provides sufficient detail, at an optimal cost, to allow vine and non-vine information (e.g. soil and mid-row vegetation) to be separated. The highest spatial resolution currently available from a satellite is 1.2m/pixel (e.g. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Worldviewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; satellite). The use of this platform to acquire imagery is less popular than aircraft because of its lower spatial resolution, limited operational

38 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Figure 1: The level of coverage and detail captured using remote sensing technologies differs with the type of platform employed.

flexibility, the requirement to purchase large areas in a single image (100 square kilometre minimum) and the relatively high risk of acquiring poor quality data due to cloud cover. Imagery is generally acquired at veraison, the phenological stage of the crop cycle where leaf surface area is at its maximum. This timing is convenient as it provides vineyard managers sufficient time to make beneficial adjustments to the canopy before harvest. The timing of veraison, and therefore the timing of image acquisition, varies depending on seasonal weather conditions, the geographic location of the vineyard and the variety of grapevine being grown. UAVs are remotely piloted aircraft that can be operated from the ground or fully/semi-autonomously according to preprogrammed flight plans. Historically, they have been used by the military but in recent years they have become popular and affordable for civilian applications. Civilian uses and development research currently include fire-fighting, police and border surveillance, search and rescue, powerline, pipeline and building surveying, traffic monitoring, land, soil, vegetation and wildlife monitoring, and sport event film coverage. Since small UAVs are capable of flying at low altitudes, they can, when fitted with appropriate cameras, acquire imagery at ultra-high resolutions (up to 0.01m/pixel). Some models are able to hover and can therefore acquire imagery from different angles (e.g. vertically and obliquely). They are also very flexible with respect to flight scheduling and the frequency at which data can be collected. It is not surprising therefore that they are being considered with agricultural applications in mind. While examples of the use of UAVs in environmental studies are becoming more apparent in the literature, in comparison,

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April 2015 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Issue 615

Figure 2: Fixed-wing model of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV or drone) coming into land at a vineyard in the Margaret River region.

there are few documented case studies in agriculture. Examples include grain, horticulture and viticulture production systems. The costs, availability, processing, quality and delivery of imagery acquired using the light aircraft platform have made this form of spatial information popular, practical and affordable to grape growers and wine producers. In recent years, UAV service providers have emerged in many wine producing regions and they offer a number of land, agricultural and environmental-focused services. Individual wine companies are now considering the merits (or otherwise) of investing in UAVs. But before we embrace this new technology, we need to consider the following questions. Is there value in

using UAVs to perform tasks in viticulture that we can already do cost-effectively with existing technologies? What are the ‘other tasks’ that we would like to undertake in vineyards and is the UAV able to perform them? This article provides growers and wine producers with a brief synopsis of the UAV platform and its remote sensing capabilities at present, and discusses possible opportunities that may be worthy of research and development as well as some practical issues that should be considered.

UAV PLATFORMS A variety of models (airframes) are available and they differ

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grapegrowing

Figure 3: Rotary-wing model of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV or drone) hovering above vines in a vineyard in the Geographe region.

with respect to their size, shape, configuration and flight characteristics. The models generally fall into two categories: 1. Fixed-wing. These are generally used to acquire imagery across areas of up to 200ha in a single flight (depending on flight altitude and payload) and have a range of approximately 2km (with line-ofsight restrictions) (Figure 2). They can either be launched by hand or from a catapult and can fly at relatively high cruising speeds (75 km/hr). A relatively flat piece of land (about 20 x 50m in size) is required for landing. 2. Rotary-wing. There are a range of configurations with main and tail rotors (conventional helicopters), coaxial rotors, tandem rotors and multi-rotors. Most have vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capability and have the advantage of being able to hover above the target. They are generally used to acquire imagery from small areas (<100 ha) and have a practical range of about 0.5 km (Figure 3). UAV models are available as either complete, commercially available units (e.g. eBee® manufactured by senseFly) or can be assembled from off-the-shelf parts. Guidance and navigation Commercially-used UAVs require on-board guidance, navigation and computing equipment. There are three forms of flight control that an operator can exert: • Ground-control (remote piloting). This requires constant radio-controlled input from the operator (i.e. similar to models available for the hobbyist to purchase). • Semi-autonomous. This requires ground input during critical parts of the flight such as take-off and landing. Once airborne, an autopilot function can be engaged and the aircraft will follow a set of pre-programmed waypoints. The operator can assume control at any time. • Fully-autonomous. This capability allows the aircraft to complete all operations without an operator doing anything more than monitoring its system. For autonomous piloting, a UAV must be fitted with devices that assist with altitude control and navigation. The latter is achieved by using a global positioning system (GPS). Payload, flight duration and wind speed UAVs are potentially limited in both their payload capacity and flight duration. The payload is the equipment that is installed to perform a particular task and requires some space and a certain weight and power consumption allocation.

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Payloads for agricultural remote sensing applications consist of digital imaging cameras. Other payload options such as predatory insect dispensing systems are also in use. The flight duration of a fixed-wing UAV carrying a multispectral camera system ranges from about 20-90 minutes depending on weather conditions and the battery configuration. This allows approximately 100ha to be covered when flown at an altitude of 120m to acquire imagery at a resolution of between 0.06-0.13 m/pixel. For a rotary-wing UAV, the typical flight duration is about 10-15 minutes which allows about 6.25ha to be covered when flown at an altitude of 60m to acquire multispectral imagery at a resolution of between 0.03-0.07m/ pixel. High wind speeds reduce the total distance that a UAV can fly for a given flight time. Therefore, to maximise efficiency, wind speeds in which UAVs should be operated should not exceed 40km/hr.

UAV REMOTE SENSING TECHNOLOGIES Just as there are a variety of commercially available UAV platforms, there are numerous types of remote sensing digital imaging systems available for data acquisition. The restriction on payload weight has resulted in off-the-shelf cameras becoming popular due to their low cost, durability, compact size and low weight. High-definition digital cameras and video (e.g. GoPro®) are commonly used for a wide range of surveillance applications. High-quality remote sensing for agricultural applications requires the use of narrow-band, multi- or hyper-spectral imaging systems which can detect light at the blue, green, red and NIR wavelengths. The main problem with off-the-shelf cameras is that for the majority, the blue, green, red and NIR (if available) wavebands are not well-defined which can result in data contamination. While NIR image capture is possible with such cameras, they must be modified by removing the infrared blocking filter. It is also important to ensure that these cameras are not operating in a mode that automatically adjusts for changing light conditions to preserve image quality. When used in this mode, images will change from shot to shot, thereby making the data useless for processing to extract information about the spatial variability in vine canopy characteristics. Such issues are being addressed and the quality of off-the-shelf camera systems is improving. A range of high quality digital imaging systems have

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April 2015 – Issue 615

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grapegrowing been designed specifically for UAV agricultural applications. Examples include the 3-band Agricultural Digital Camera (ADC) imaging system (Tetracam®) and the 5-band Multiple Camera Array (MCA) imaging system (MicaSense®). These are considerably more expensive than off-the-shelf systems and apart from having the important NIR channel, operators have greater control over camera functions and image parameters. Thermal infrared (TIR) sensors are also available but the technology available for UAVs is currently limited.

UAV IMAGE PROCESSING UAV image quality is often constrained by hardware and software limitations. Data processing is generally complex and hence the most appropriate routines need to be selected. With hundreds of images often acquired and the need for fast product delivery, data processing is often a main concern for UAV users. It is worth noting that hardware and software developments to support the UAV industry are also benefiting aircraft remote sensing operations.

UAV regulation Australia was the first country in the world to regulate UAVs. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) website is the best place to source information on the requirements to fly UAVs, including details on applying for an Operator’s Certificate, a Remote Pilot Certificate, and a Controller’s Certificate. CASA is currently reviewing these regulations and it is possible that UAVs with a gross weight of 2kg or less will no longer require a licence for commercial use. (http://www.casa.gov.au/scripts/nc.dll?WCMS:STANDARD:: pc=PC_100374) The restrictions that have been imposed by CASA are for the safety of uncontrolled airspace. Operators of UAVs that are flown in unpopulated areas at an altitude less than 120m with approval of the land owner may not be required to have all the certificates. In this case approval from CASA is required and certain rules, including distance from airports and people, obstructions such as buildings and powerlines, and line-ofsight between the UAV and operator, need to be followed.

Potential applications When considering potential applications of UAVs in vineyards, it is important to consider both the platform and the payload. They have the ability to carry out functions in near realtime or ‘on-demand’. This is attractive (and potentially costeffective) where there is a need for tasks to be performed throughout the growing season and in exploiting limited windows of opportunity (e.g. cloud cover). Tasks are not limited to the acquisition of imagery and might include the dispersal of predatory insects for controlling insect pests (http://www. aerobugs.com.au/) and managing bird issues. They have the ability to fly at very low altitudes which allows ultra-high resolution imagery to be acquired. Applications for such data might include regular monitoring to determine seasonal changes in phenology and canopy characteristics (e.g. volume and leaf area) and to detect pests, diseases, nutrient deficiencies and weeds. This data will also provide greater accuracy to topographical models of the landscape. Note that the same potential outcomes may not be realised for all camera systems and that low altitude flying means that imagery will take longer to acquire for a given area compared to an aircraft. Rotary-wing models have the ability to ‘hover’ above a target, thereby allowing imagery to be acquired obliquely as well as vertically. Oblique imagery may be useful in estimating crop yield by detecting bunches and changes to their shape and size over time.

42 Grapegrower & Winemaker

When used with high resolution digital camera and video systems, they could be used for surveillance purposes (e.g. tracking the movement of staff, vehicles and animals). With one person operating the UAV and another person viewing and recording the imagery on a smart phone, it is possible to get a simple ‘birds-eye’ view of what is happening in the vineyard. New developments in thermal infrared sensors may offer opportunities for detecting irrigation leaks and assessing vine water stress. Note that this application would also be suitable for light aircraft. It is potentially easier to calibrate camera systems on-board UAVs using on-ground reflectance targets (i.e. small canvas panels of colour ranging from black to mid-grey). Therefore, it should be simpler to compare imagery acquired from different flights within a single season or over a number of seasons.

Remote sensing costs The cost of purchasing a UAV and associated hardware and software is highly dependent on the type of platform model and what application it is required to perform. For high quality remote sensing applications, the capital cost will be high. The costs associated with operating a UAV include data acquisition and processing time, operator training and licensing, and repairs (crashes and damage from eagles are common).

Purchasing imagery (Australia) Satellite: For sub-metre spatial resolution (with a minimum area of 100km2) imagery costs range from about $32/km2 (using a 4-band spectral system) to $65/km2 (using an 8-band spectral system). Aircraft: For 50cm spatial resolution, imagery costs range from about $35/ha to $45/ha, with cost generally depending on vineyard size and, to a lesser extent, location. UAV: Imagery costs vary greatly depending on proximity to site (travel time), vineyard size and flying altitude (operational time), imaging system and data processing requirements. Higher resolution imagery (e.g. 0.05m/pixel) and smaller vineyard area (e.g. 25ha) is generally more expensive than lower resolution imagery (0.10m/pixel) and larger vineyard area (e.g. 100ha). Indicative costs range from about $25/ha to $50/ha. Note that there may be additional data processing and image delivery costs to be considered in all of the above.

CONCLUSIONS The use of UAVs in agriculture is in its infancy and there is considerable room for further research and development. In addition, there are risk management and safety issues that need to be addressed through regulation. Grapegrowers and wine producers need to be aware when engaging a service provider or purchasing a UAV that considerable multi-skilling is required to integrate flight planning, safe flying procedures, image capture, and data processing and interpretation. Recent work comparing imagery acquired by light aircraft and UAVs indicates that either platform can be used to determine the spatial variability in vine canopy characteristics across a vineyard provided that the imaging system used for data acquisition is appropriate for the task. At present, it is hard to envisage the UAV platform being a cost-effective replacement for light aircraft if the imagery is only required on an annual (or less frequent) basis (e.g. for PV applications). However, the availability of experienced, local UAV service providers with high quality equipment may lead to competitive pricing in the future. UAVs may offer new opportunities to viticulture and should be viewed as having the potential to fill an unoccupied niche that becomes complimentary to, rather than a substitute for,

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April 2015 – Issue 615

data currently being acquired with existing technologies. The industry needs to identify what these opportunities might be.

Baluja, J., Diago, M., Balda, P., Zorer, R., Francio, M., Morales, F. and Tardaguila, J. (2012). Assessment of vineyard water status variability by thermal and multispectral imagery using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Irrigation Science 30(6): 511-522.

Acknowledgements

Bramley, R. (2010). Precision Viticulture: managing vineyard variability for improved quality. In. Reynolds, A.G. (Ed.). Managing Wine Quality. Vol. 1. Woodhead Publishing, UK. pp. 445-480.

The Australian Grape and Wine Authority (AGWA) provided funding for the project ‘Investigating the potential application of unmanned aerial vehicles in vineyards’ through their ‘Regional Program’ which is managed in Western Australia by Wines of Western Australia. This article is one of the outcomes of the project. The author would like to thank Rob Bramley (CSIRO Agriculture Flagship), David Lamb (University of New England), Andrew Malcolm (SpecTerra Services), Robert Lednor (Global Unmanned Systems) and Frank D’Emden (Precision Agronomics Australia) for their comments on an early draft of this article.

Disclaimer While every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this article, Wines of Western Australia accept no liability by reason of negligence or otherwise arising from the use or release of this information or any part of it. In relying on or using any advice or information that has been expressed or implied and contained within this article, the reader accepts all risks and responsibility.

References

Acevedo-Opazo, C., Tisseyre, B., Guillaume, S. and Ojeda, H. (2008). The potential of high spatial resolution information to define within-vineyard zones related to vine water status. Precision Agriculture 9(5): 285-302. Ballesteros, R., Ortega, J., Hernandez, D. and Moreno, M. (2015). Characterisation of Vitis vinifera L. canopy using unmanned aerial vehicle-based remote sensing and photogrammetry techniques. American Journal of Enolgy and Viticulture (in press).

Hall, A., Lamb, D., Holzapfel, B. and Louis, J. (2002). Optical remote sensing applications in viticulture – a review. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research. 8(1): 36-47. Lamb, D., Weedon, M. and Bramley, R. (2004). Using remote sensing to predict grape phenolics and colour at harvest in a Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard: timing observations against phenology and optimising image resolution. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research. 10(1): 46-54. Mathews, A. and Jensen, J. (2013). Visualising and quantifying vineyard canopy LAI using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) collected high density structure from motion point cloud. Remote Sensing 5(5): 2164-2183. Primicerio, J., Di Gennaro, S., Fiorillo, E., Genesio, L., Lugato, E., Matese, A. and Vaccari, F. (2012). A flexible unmanned aerial vehicle for precision agriculture. Precision Agriculture 13: 517-523. Proffitt, T., Bramley, R., Lamb, D. and Winter, E. (2006). Precision Viticulture. A new era in vineyard management and wine production. Winetitles, Adelaide. Proffitt, T. and Bramley, R. (2010). Further developments in precision viticulture and the use of spatial information in Australian vineyards. Australian Viticulture 14(1): 31-39. Rey, C., Martin, M., Lobo, A., Luna, I. Diago, M., Millan, B. and Tardaguila, J. (2013). Multispectral imagery acquired from a UAV to assess the spatial variability of a Tempranillo vineyard. In. J. V. Stafford (Ed.). Precision Agriculture ’13. Wageningen Academic Publishers. Sepulcre-Canto, G., Diago, M., Balda, P., Martinez de Toda, F., Morales, F. and Tardaguila, J. (2009). Monitoring vineyard spatial variability of vegetative growth and physiological status using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). International Symposium of Viticulture. GiESCO. UC Davis, USA. Turner, D. and Lucieer, A. (2011). Development of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for hyper resolution vineyard mapping based on visible, multispectral and thermal imagery. Proceedings 34th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of the Environment. Sydney.

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Irrigation and nutrition: Start early to prepare for next season Dr Jason Smith, Charles Sturt University Dr Bruno Holzapfel, NSW Department of Primary Industries

In spring, grapevines use carbohydrates from stored reserves in perennial tissues to support new root and shoot growth. These carbohydrates are stored as starch and as free sugars, mainly glucose, fructose and sucrose. The combined concentrations of starch and sugars in the roots range from approximately three to 50 per cent on a dry weight (DW) basis, and in the wood from

two to 20 per cent DW (Figure 1a). Starch is stored as granules within the xylem and phloem ray cells, and areas of high starch concentrations can be seen at the whole-tissue level after staining with iodine (Figure 2). During the growing season, starch concentrations are higher than those of sugar in the wood, but leading into dormancy some starch is converted to sugar to help protect the vine from cold damage during winter. In roots, starch is the main form of storage carbohydrate all year round. The total amount of carbohydrate reserves stored by dormant grapevines ranges between 0.52 and 2.2 kg/vine, with a typical single-cordon vine storing between 50 and 75% of its total reserves in the root system. Research suggests that more than 80% of these reserves can be used if needed, but normally less than half of the total stored carbohydrates are mobilised in spring. The difference provides vines with some buffering capacity to grow new shoots or leaves after events such as frost or hail. Localised carbohydrate reserves are used to support initial shoot growth. In the weeks after bud-break, carbohydrate reserves from more distant parts of the vine are progressively utilised as vascular connections develop between the new shoot and mature wood from the previous season. Transport of reserve carbohydrates to the shoot reaches a maximum at the eight to

(a)

(b)

TEMPERATURES in most Australian grape-growing regions are warm enough for vines to retain their leaves for a period of time after harvest. In cooler areas, this may only be for a few weeks, but more commonly it extends from one-to-four months in the hotter, inland regions. Continued photosynthesis and nutrient uptake during the post-harvest period allow vines to store carbohydrate and nutrient reserves for use in the next season. Carbohydrate and nutrient reserves play an important role in the seasonal growth cycle of grapevines, and irrigation and fertiliser inputs can be used efficiently to promote carbohydrate and nutrient storage during the latter part of the season. In this report Dr Jason Smith, Charles Sturt University, and Dr Bruno Holzapfel, NSW Department of Primary Industries, look at closely into postharvest options.

CARBOHYDRATE RESERVE STORAGE AND DYNAMICS

Figure 1: Concentration ranges of carbohydrate reserves (a) and macronutrients N, P and K (b) in grapevine root, wood and cane tissue at dormancy. Figures based on a survey of 34 own-rooted and grafted Shiraz and Chardonnay blocks across southern NSW over three consecutive seasons (Smith et al. 2009; Smith, Quirk & Holzapfel unpublished).

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April 2015 – Issue 615

carbohydrate reserve concentration (%DW)

Figure 2: (a) Transmission electron microscopy image of starch granules (st) in a xylem ray cell of a dormant grapevine cane, and (b) a two-yearold wood section at dormancy, showing areas of high starch storage in the xylem rays after the starch granules have been stained blue with iodine. [Images courtesy Helen Waite (top), Jason Smith (bottom)].

10-leaf stage, and then declines as canopy photosynthesis becomes sufficient to meet carbohydrate demand. Newly produced carbohydrates then start to be exported back to the perennial parts of the vine. Below the ground, root growth flushes that occur in early spring are supplied from carbohydrates stored in the permanent roots. The high initial dependence on stored carbohydrates leads to a decline of starch concentrations in root and wood tissue through bud-break and into early spring (Figure 3). In the week or two leading up to flowering, the canopy begins to produce sufficient carbohydrates to replenish wood and root reserves. These stores continue to build in parallel with fruit ripening, provided that yields are sufficiently low, or photosynthesis rates high enough to produce excess carbohydrates. However, under high crop loads, conditions of vine stress such as water deficit or high temperatures where photosynthesis is reduced may cause reserve replenishment to be delayed. Under heavy crop loads, mobilisation of carbohydrates may also occur in the earlier part of the ripening period to aid berry ripening. In these situations, the post-harvest period is of particular importance for carbohydrate storage and to ensure long-term vineyard productivity

Figure 3: Seasonal pattern of carbohydrate reserve dynamics in the wood and roots of mature own-rooted Shiraz vineyards at two locations during the 2006/07 season. Growth stage dates are shown for bud-break (BB), flowering (FL), veraison (V), harvest (HF) and leaf-fall (LF). The yield and pruning weight ratio were (a) 13 t/ha and 4.6 respectively for the Wagga Wagga vineyard, and (b) 6 t/ha and 2.2 for the Canberra vineyard.

Figure 4: Carbohydrate reserves are used to support initial shoot growth in grapevines

Figure 5: Leaf senescence after harvest. The post-harvest period is a critical time for carbohydrate storage in grapevines

to store them and remobilise them again in spring, depends on nutrient mobility within the plant. This is high for the macronutrients nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulfur (S) and magnesium (Mg), but low for calcium (Ca). With the exception of manganese (Mn), which also has low mobility, the micronutrients iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), molybdenum (Mo) and boron (B) have intermediate mobility. Studies with whole mature vines have shown that about 50% of N and P in the new season’s canopy comes from stored reserves. NUTRIENT RESERVES Around 15% of the demand for K is met by reserves, and As early nutrient demand in spring cannot be met by root 5% uptake alone, storage of nutrient reserves prior to dormancy 4 0 3 2 Me t a r e x 8 8 x 1 8 5 1 2 0 1 4 - 0 2 - 1 3 T 1 5of: that 5 5 :for1 Mg 9 + and 1 1 Ca. : 0 Of 0 the main macronutrient reserves, N is stored in the highest concentrations, followed by K and P is also required to support shoot growth in the following (Figure 1b). Average Mg concentrations in the roots and wood season. The cycling of nutrients, and thus the vine’s ability

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During harvest and post-harvest, grape growers should make some observations and take steps towards planning for next year. Growers should keep a watch on mite activity throughout harvest as mites love hot, dry and dusty conditions. Rust mites (Calepitrimerus vitis) in particular feed on the grapevine leaves, damaging the outer layer of cells. The damage is visible as a brownish-purple discolouration of leaves in autumn. Damage can result in premature leaf drop, which can expose grape bunches to sunburn or delay ripening in later maturing varieties in cooler areas. Rust mites migrate from the leaves to the vine wood in autumn where they overwinter and some overwinter under the outer scales of buds. In the following season, rust mites migrate back to the canes or spurs and invade the newly emerging vine shoots - they can cause up to 10 per cent yield loss. Identifying areas where rust mites are a problem, at or after harvest, will help you develop management strategies for next season when control will be much more effective. Rust mites are most vulnerable for a very brief period in late winter/early autumn. Research in cool climate vineyards in southern Australia showed mite migration on several vine varieties correlated with the woolly bud stage in Chardonnay vines. This indicated rust mite migration was a response to environmental conditions rather than being connected to a developmental stage of the vine itself (however rust mites cannot access buds on other varieties until they begin to expand). Vineyard spraying for rust mite should therefore commence at Chardonnay woolly bud stage. As long as sprays are applied before each variety reaches mid-woolly bud stage, control should be achieved. Any later than that and any migrating rust mites will already have moved into the buds and commenced feeding and laying eggs. Rust mite is most effectively treated by spraying very high volumes of wettable sulphur and oil to runoff at the time of chardonnay woolly bud stage and when temperatures reach at least 15°C. Sulphur activity is reduced below this temperature. To achieve adequate control, sprays must be targeted to saturate the bark of cordons and crowns to kill migrating adult rust mites as they leave their overwintering sites, before they can lay their eggs, which are not susceptible to wettable sulphur.

Vine Talk is compiled by Dave Antrobus, Syngenta Solutions Development Lead dave.antrobus@syngenta.com 0429 133 436 46 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Figure 5: Soil pit excavation showing fine roots (painted white) within soil profile, which are critical for nutrient and water uptake

Figure 6: Numbers of flowers on bunch inflorescences can be negatively affected by low grapevine carbohydrate reserves

are similar to those of P, and Ca is found in approximately the same concentration as K. There is little published information regarding the storage of micronutrients by grapevines. Total N storage at dormancy ranges from approximately 25 to 70 g/vine, and like carbohydrate reserves, more than half will usually be found in the root system. For P, which is the other main nutrient reserve (in terms of the proportion of total reserves mobilised at bud-break), stored amounts range from 2.5 to 4.5 g/vine. For the other macronutrients, dormant vines store 10–25 g of K, 4–8 g of Mg, and 25–40 g of Ca. In warm climates, approximately one third of annual N and P requirements are met by post-harvest storage from the preceding season, 20% for Mg and Ca, and 15% for K. Storage of nutrients during the postharvest period is due to both re-translocation from the leaves, particularly for N and P, and further root uptake from the soil.

GRAPEVINE ROOT GROWTH STYLE Fine roots are important for the uptake of nutrients and water (Figure 5), and the peak of fine root growth can generally be expected between flowering and veraison in Mediterranean and cool temperate climates . In hot irrigated regions of Australia (e.g. the Murray Darling Basin), recent studies indicate that fine root growth can commence at or before bud-break in some seasons, with new roots present to some extent from spring through to mid-summer. These observations would suggest that a fairly broad window of opportunity for nutrient uptake exists from before flowering to veraison in warm- to hot-climate vineyards. Post-harvest root flushes are also observed, although these are generally smaller in magnitude, and do not occur every year. In these vineyards, fine roots can survive into winter, and may even continue to absorb some nutrients after leaf-fall.

IMPACT OF RESERVES ON SHOOT GROWTH AND YIELD High carbohydrate and nutrient reserves, and in particular stored N, will encourage strong spring shoot growth and promote higher bud fruitfulness. In research trials where carbohydrate reserves had been reduced by partial or complete defoliation, reductions in shoot growth rates and diameters were observed in the following spring. Over successive seasons, reductions in shoot growth caused by low reserves can also be accompanied by reduced bud fertility and lower flower numbers on bunch inflorescences (Figure 6). The subsequent processes of flowering and fruit-set are also influenced by carbohydrates, but the supply from current photosynthesis is more important than that from stored reserves. There is evidence that N reserves play a greater role than carbohydrates in regulating shoot growth after bud-break, but the effects of the two can be difficult to separate. However,

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April 2015 – Issue 615

Figure 7: Grapes just before harvest. Vine carbohydrate reserves are largely restored by harvest in cool climates but in hot climates there is a greater reliance on the post-harvest period for replenishment of reserves.

Figure 8: Vine canopies in poor condition may not have enough capacity to ripen fruit and store reserves at the same time.

grapevines will use stored N to support initial shoot growth irrespective of soil N availability, and then transition to newseason uptake in the weeks leading up to flowering. The N status of the vine at the end of the post-harvest period will therefore have an important impact on the development of the canopy in the following spring.

CARBOHYDRATE STORAGE For carbohydrate storage to occur after harvest, continued photosynthesis is required. This means maintaining the leaves in reasonable condition for as long as possible after harvest with adequate irrigation and nutrition. Effective pest and disease control through the season is also important to ensure a healthy canopy. Apart from the loss of functional leaf area, infections with powdery or downy mildew can considerably disrupt and reduce carbohydrate export from the leaves. The carbohydrate status of vines at harvest is most influenced by seasonal weather conditions, yield and harvest date. In cooler climates, vine carbohydrate reserves are largely restored by harvest (Figure 7). Late-season defoliation may still have an impact on carbohydrate reserve accumulation, but this needs to occur across several consecutive seasons before effects on growth and yield are observed. In hot irrigated regions, at the other end of the climate spectrum, yields are typically higher and temperatures during the ripening period are often in the optimal range for photosynthesis. If vines are water-stressed during these periods or suffer significant heat damage to the leaves, the canopy may not have the capacity to ripen fruit and store reserves at the same time (Figure 8). In these situations, the vine has a greater reliance on the post-harvest period for reserve replenishment. The loss of leaf area following machine harvesting can impact on reserve storage, but provided this doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exceed 40-50%

and the remaining leaves remain healthy, the effects will be minimal. A direct measurement of carbohydrate reserve status at harvest provides the most definitive method for assessing the importance of the post-harvest period. However, a general guide to the need for post-harvest replenishment can be obtained from the vine yield. Slow or uneven berry ripening and delayed or incomplete cane lignification can provide additional indicators that vines have experienced a shortage of carbohydrates during the season. With lower-yielding vines up to about 10 t/ha, sufficient carbohydrates will usually be stored in parallel with fruit ripening if growing conditions have been favourable. Post-harvest reserve storage becomes more important as yields increase from 10 to 20 t/ha, but other than maintaining some irrigation if rainfall is low through late summer and early autumn, little management intervention is required. However, for fruit yields from 20 to 30 t/ha and above, the post-harvest period becomes increasingly critical for sustaining long-term vine productivity and some 6-8 weeks may be required for full restoration of reserves. In these situations, it is important that irrigation is used to maintain leaf photosynthesis after harvest, and for early harvest dates in particular, that leaf and canopy function are retained through any remaining summer heat events.

NUTRITION For the overall management of grapevine nutrition, using combinations of annual petiole test results, knowledge of soil conditions, visual canopy assessments and juice N concentrations (if available) is currently the best way to assess vineyard nutrient status. Nutrient removal rates with fruit can also be considered. Post-harvest fertiliser applications provide an opportunity to address any late-season nutrition issues, promote the retention of leaves for a longer period into autumn, and build up nutrient reserves for the following season. However, nutrition strategies may vary between regions, and according to the time available for mobile nutrients such as N to move into the root-zone and be taken up by the vine before leaf-fall.

HOT-CLIMATE IRRIGATED VINEYARDS The majority of growers in hot-climate irrigated regions apply fertiliser during the post-harvest period, with N, P and K the most commonly applied nutrients. Post-harvest N applications in particular can assist with maintaining functional leaf area for a longer period after harvest, and given the role of stored N in supporting spring shoot growth, it is also important that N reserves are replenished in the post-harvest period. Of the other main macronutrients, P and K may also be taken up in the postharvest period, but as these have much lower mobility in the

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

grapegrowing

Figure 9: Early season application of nitrogen may be beneficial for vines with known deficiencies.

soil, timing of application is less critical than for N. The amount and type of fertiliser applied after harvest needs to take into account the overall nutritional status of the vines. For N, which is the most important nutrient to consider for the post-harvest period, about one quarter to a third of the total seasonal requirement might typically be applied in this period. If, at harvest, vines have a canopy in good condition and no major indications of N deficiency, fertiliser applications may be able to wait until early autumn. Alternatively, earlier applications may be beneficial for vines with known marginal N concentrations (Figure 9). In both cases, irrigation should be managed to minimise water movement and loss of soluble N forms below the rootzone.

WARM-CLIMATE VINEYARDS Warm-climate viticultural regions in Australia represent a diverse array of growing conditions, from low-yielding vineyards with sometimes very limited water availability though to intermediate-yielding vineyards with reliable water supplies. Where canopies have suffered leaf damage or water stress during the ripening period, N applications with irrigation shortly after harvest can assist with maintaining leaf function into the post-harvest period. Even for low-yielding vineyards, storage of N reserves will also occur in the post-harvest period. In situations where irrigation water is limited and chances of post-harvest rainfall low, there will be limited movement of nutrients into the rootzone. Any fertiliser applications should be delayed until the next season to avoid leaching losses over winter.

COOLER-CLIMATE MANAGEMENT As the duration of the post-harvest period decreases, the scope for varying management practices during this time also decreases. With a short post-harvest period, there may only be the opportunity (or need) for one or two irrigations timed with a fertiliser application before leaf-fall. For locations where leaf-fall normally occurs shortly after harvest, vine nutrition by default is managed with fertiliser applications earlier in the season. Soil or foliar N applications around veraison will primarily be directed to the fruit, but applications closer to harvest may be effective for increasing leaf and reserve N later in the season.

IRRIGATION Where possible, some water should be saved for use during the post-harvest period. This allows for some irrigation to maintain leaf function, and in the absence of rainfall, to help move any applied fertilisers into the rootzone. In the event that no water is available for irrigation during the post-harvest period, research suggests that even high-yielding vines can tolerate this for one or two seasons. Carbohydrate reserve accumulation in the roots may be reduced, but provided that vines have had reasonable irrigation or rainfall prior to harvest,

48 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Figure 11: In dry soils, irrigation prior to budbreak can avoid uneven and reduced early season shoot growth.

Figure 10: Vineyard following harvest with obvious leaf senescence.

the amount of reserves stored should still be adequate. However, if dry post-harvest conditions are anticipated, it is advisable to save some water for irrigation at the end of the season to avoid entering vine dormancy with a dry soil profile. An irrigation to bring the main part of the rootzone back into the readily available water range in late winter, or several weeks before bud-break, may also suffice and will also assist in leaching applied salts from the rootzone. Vines that reach bud-break with a dry soil profile can have uneven and reduced shoot growth, possibly as a result of a decline in root function and delay in vine rehydration (Keller 2010). Trials have also shown delays in ripening due to increased crop load, as dry soils through budbreak appear to have a greater effect on canopy growth than yield (Holzapfel & Smith 2012).

Disclaimer This information does not constitute professional advice or services. The original sources of the information and the author expressly disclaim any form of liability to any person in respect of anything included or omitted that is based on the whole or any part of the contents.

References and further reading

Bennett J, Jarvis P, Creasy GL & Trought MCT (2005) Influence of defoliation on overwintering carbohydrate reserves, return bloom, and yield of mature Chardonnay grapevines. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture 56(4): 386–393. Comas LH, Bauerle TL & Eissenstat DM (2010) Biological and environmental factors controlling root dynamics and function: effects of root ageing and soil moisture. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 0238.2009.00078.x).

16:

131–137

(http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1111/j.1755-

Greven MM, Neal SM, Tustin DS, Vasconcelos MC & Boldingh H (2012) The effect of postharvest defoliation on Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc productivity. NZ Winegrower Oct/Nov 74–77. GWRDC (2009) Management of carbohydrate reserve accumulation as a tool for regulating vine productivity and fruit quality. Final Report for Project CSU 05/01. 83 pp. Available at www.gwrdc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CSU-05-01.pdf Holzapfel BP & Smith JP (2012) Developmental stage and climatic factors impact more on carbohydrate reserve dynamics of Shiraz than cultural practice. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture 63(3): 333–342. (http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.5344/ ajev.2012.11071) Holzapfel BP, Smith JP, Field SK & Hardie WJ (2010) Dynamics of carbohydrate reserves in cultivated grapevines. In Janick J (ed.) Horticultural Reviews, vol. 37, John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, pp. 143–201 (http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1002/9780470543672.ch3). Keller M (2010) The Science of Grapevines: Anatomy and Physiology, Academic Press: Burlington, MA, ISBN 9780123748812, 378 pp. Nicholas P (2004) Soil, Irrigation and Nutrition, Grape Production Series, no. 2, Winetitles: Adelaide, ISBN 9781875130405, 201 pp. Rogiers SY, Smith JP, Holzapfel BP & Hardie WJ (2011) Soil temperature moderates grapevine carbohydrate reserves after bud break and conditions fruit set responses to photoassimilatory stress. Functional Plant Biology. 38(11): 899–909 (http:// dx.doi.org/10.1071/FP10240). Smith JP & Holzapfel BP (2009) Cumulative responses of Semillon grapevines to late season perturbation of carbohydrate reserve status. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture 60(4): 461–470.

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April 2015 – Issue 615

roundtable Pruning

Pruning snapshot

An early vintage has meant lots of people already have their thoughts on this year’s pruning tasks. We put a few questions to vineyard experts to find out if there is anything to consider for this dormant season. We asked them about alternative pruning techniques; how involved wineries are getting in the vineyards; how important the costs versus precision decisions are; and where people are turning for advice. There’s some interesting feedback from different regions. Q. Are there many trails with alternative pruning techniques and times being carried out? Ben Rose: Not many new trials, but many growers returning to spur from cane pruning to reduce cost and in some instances seeing a reduction in tonnage, and therefore income. To overcome this more buds are being left and more shading which may reduce future yields further. Some growers have moved away from movable foliage wires to fixed foliage wires and undertaking more trimming during the season to reduce costs further. Liz Riley: Not dormant season pruning as in a high pressure disease climate it’s all about spacing to ensure canopy openness and airflow in the next season. We do tend to cane prune a fair bit as this helps manage some of the trunk disease we have. However in light of weird autumnal weather we had last year (see further on for details) we are having to think about when to start pruning and if it should be delayed (which poses lots of headaches when you have vineyard running on July to June management

April 2015 – Issue 615

SUPER SNIP: Karl Schiller, Eden Valley grapegrower, in action during the pruning competition at the 2014 Barossa Pruning Expo.

contracts and you want to shift pruning from June to July). Last year we had a cold April and then a warm May and saw bud movement which was like what we would expect to see in Late August/

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September prior to true budburst. So we will really need to get to grips with this with climate change and warming/more variable weather. Steven Raidis: We are involved in any

Grapegrower & Winemaker

grapegrowing trails right now but going back five-toeight years ago there were a lot of trials going on in Coonawarra. One thing that did come out of these trails that very important was that the machine work before people following up had a big impact on the end cost, 30 to 40 per cent saving for good machine work.

Q. Are wineries/GLOs getting more involved with pruning decisions? BR: No, I would say that they would be less involved now than they have been, with many wineries having reduced the number of GLOs and viticulturists in the field. The expectation is the growers should know enough to get them through. LR: Not directly, unless it’s a company owned vineyard; growers/contractors do get feedback about yields and are asked to consider this when determining bud numbers. It is a bit different, with no major corporates, up here. SR: You would need to talk to the growers about this. We just prune to the growers specifications.

Q. How much thought are vineyard owners and managers giving to costs versus precision? BR: A lot. Most growers have been concerned about cost for a long time and there is an obvious trade-off between cost and precision. In many cases there is still a lot of pride in how the grower produces grapes, but it must still be economic (to some degree) to do so. LR: They all want precision without the cost! Hand pruning is increasingly expensive and with smaller blocks and hills/contours only so much mechanisation is worthwhile/possible. Some commercial blocks are left a bit ‘shabbier’ but high pressure sites need good pruning ($) regardless of end use. SR: A lot. People are willing to spend money to get good results down here.

Q. Are you seeing any trends in re-structuring? BR: In some areas non-viable varieties (such as late reds) are being grafted to earlier varieties (such as Prosecco) and small amount of boutique/alternate varieties with some limited demand. LR: Only that high value blocks are being reworked to help to keep them viable. i.e. old vine blocks. Again selective reworking to manage trunk diseases – these go together. Also to convert blocks that can’t be machine harvested due to aging trellis being reworked to facilitate this to help manage costs and options for intake i.e. if it is going to rain it can be machined to beat the weather. SR: Most of the re-structuring

50 Grapegrower & Winemaker

PRECISE: Marty Gallasch, Ebenezer grapegrower, another competitor from the 2014 Barossa Pruning Expo.

Ben Rose is the principal consultant of Performance Viticulture, and is committed to the continued economically sustainable winegrowing. He grew up on his family’s Rising Vineyard in the Yarra Valley and always been involved in wine and viticulture. His professional work has been wide-ranging: from feasibility projects in South Africa and Georgia, reviewing vineyard performance indicators for corporate businesses and in education. He now has many clients, whose vineyards range from two hectares to 100 hectares in size, in Australia, Spain, France and Georgia. Liz Riley is the owner and operator of Vitibit Pty Ltd. She commenced viticultural consulting in 2000, after eight years of working in the wine industry on a local, interstate and international basis. Liz has a Bachelor of Applied Science and is also an Nuffield Australia Farming Scholar. While at Southcorp Wines from 1993-2000, Liz had a major role in the national viticultural team, with a focus on Grape Quality Specification. This was followed by three years working across NSW as the Regional Viticulturist (97-99). She has also been a vineyard owner in the Hilltops region of NSW. Steven Raidis is the managing director/winemaker at Penola’s Raidis Estate. He’s spent countless hours over the years in vineyards. He is intimately familiar with the Raidis Estate vineyards, and this experience combined with his former role as the manager of Coonawarra Labour Hire, means he knows all about the costs of pruning.

happened in Coonawarra a few years back. Most of this was to bring the vines into a 40-bud spur style.

Q. Where should people look for advice and support when making re-structuring decisions? BR: Talk to the local growers/ winemakers associations, and local larger wineries. LR: A mix of people – harvesting contractors (will it be machine harvestable for example, post types, height, headlands etc.), management contractors (similar to harvest contractors, but will all practices be able to be executed for example machine pre-pruning, wire lifting etc.?), viticulturist (will it achieve the desired fruit outcomes – quality, airflow, light exposure, manager crop load etc.), potentially the winemaker, also potentially your re-seller – about www.winebiz.com.au

options for materials. SR: I am not really sure on this one. I think mostly people have asked the mate over the fence.

Q. Have you seen any new techniques/skills developed in Australia as more alternative varieties come into production? BR: People are generally aiming to spend less time in the vineyard and more time doing things that will make money. Multitasking is becoming more common (mowing and weed control, spraying and trimming and the like) to increase inefficiencies. LR: Not so much with winter pruning, but in season management of foliage and thinning early to mid-season. SR: Not many new varieties in Coonawarra. Just planting what we know goes really well down here. April 2015 – Issue 615

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grapegrowing

Creating resilient landscapes in the Barossa THE BAROSSA Grape & Wine Association (BGWA) is seeing some interesting results at the demonstration vineyards set up as part of its ongoing Creating Resilient Landscapes initiative. Set up with funding from the Australian Grape & Wine Authority’s Regional Program, the demonstration vineyards will ‘show, not tell’ growers and winemakers how modern viticultural techniques can boost soil health for more consistent yields, reduce inputs, and potentially improve fruit quality. “One or all of these factors can improve vineyard resilience and profitability – and that’s vital for a sustainable wine industry,” said Nicki Robins, BGWA viticultural development officer. “And, in preparation for the hotter, more extreme weather, by improving soil management growers can combat the ‘highs and lows’ in yield due to seasonal influences. “This results in more consistent production, and therefore increased vineyard profitability,” said Robins. The trial blocks, based at Light Pass, Vine Vale and Ebenezer in the Barossa, are between 0.6 and 0.8Ha. At one vineyard, the water used on the trial rows was 40 hours, compared to 144 hours on the control (the grower’s current practice). Water savings were made by laying mulch under vine, and applying irrigation based on canopy health (condition of tendrils and shoot tips) as opposed to a regular schedule. “The yield is slightly lower on the trial rows, however winemakers have reported

SHOW, NOT TELL: Christa Deans and Rolf Binder, from Rolf Binder Wines; and Nicki Robins, BGWA viticultural development officer, in the Binder Vine Vale vineyard.

improvement in fruit quality which may, down the track, result in a higher grade – as well as the money saved on water and pumping costs,” said Robins. “To improve soil condition, we’ve laid Jeffries Dura Mulch under vine, which has a five-to-seven year lifespan and ongoing soil health benefits as soil carbon levels build up. In addition, all the vineyards have mid-row swards, which are important for beneficial microbes to feed on and create ‘pathways’ for water and nutrients,” said Robins. “We’re also trialling different midrow grasses, as the idea is to find grasses which suit the vineyard’s soil type - so they’re not ‘robbing’ the vines of water during the growing season but still providing infiltration benefits. Native grasses such as Wallaby Grass are ideal.” In a warmer, drier climate, growers

can’t influence seasonal variability but they can adopt better soil management practices that will result in more consistent, sustainable production and improve their profitability, said Robins. And with rising water and electricity costs, improved soil health will reduce growers’ reliance on these increasingly scarce resources, she said. “Improved soil condition improves water porosity, aeration and structure, which reduces the need for irrigation and combats problems such as compaction and salinity. It also significantly reduces reliance on chemicals, fertilisers, fuel and machinery used for operations.” For more information, contact Nicki Robins P: 8563 0650 E: nicki@barossa.com

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April 2015 – Issue 615

Second round of pruning trials A NEW season of trials is underway in South Australia as part of an Australian Grape and Wine Authority (AGWA) funded project investigating the impact of temperature and pruning time on vines, grapes and wine. Scientists from the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) are conducting experiments on Barossa Shiraz throughout the 2015 vintage, at both the Nuriootpa Research Centre and in a Treasury Wine Estates vineyard at Marananga. The aim is to test whether late pruning is a viable option for ‘decompressing’ harvest and maintaining wine quality in the hotter, drier conditions that are likely to prevail in the future. “We are looking at the effects of pruning the vines in early spring rather than in winter so that flowering and fruit set are delayed and harvest would then coincide with cooler conditions in February,” said SARDI crop scientist Dr Victor Sadras. The trials during the 2014 vintage produced some promising findings. In both vineyards, some vines had been pruned the previous winter and others in spring, in both cases at two-to-three unfolded leaves. At Nuriootpa, pruning time was combined with two thermal treatments – one at ambient temperature and the other at a raised daytime temperature generated using open-top chambers to enclose the vines. Grapes were picked at a targeted total soluble solids (TSS) of 25°Brix (14°Baumé), around 12 March 2014. At Marananga, grapes were picked on the basis of TSS, ripe flavours and tannins; winter-pruned vines were harvested on 4 March and spring-pruned vines on 17 March. Experimental batches of wine (10 litres of each) were made and tasted at an industry workshop in November 2014. Wines were assessed for 24 attributes divided into six categories (colour, aroma, taste, flavour, body and tannins, and aftertaste). The panel considered that wines from winter-pruned vines

April 2015 – Issue 615

We are looking at the effects of pruning the vines in early spring rather than in winter so that flowering and fruit set are delayed and harvest would then coincide with cooler conditions in February showed more intense colour, bitterness, and earthy and savoury flavours than those from spring-pruned vines when the vines had been grown at ambient temperature, and showed more alcoholic aftertaste when the vines were grown at higher daytime temperatures. Heated vines pruned in winter produced wines with less colour, more intense red fruit flavours, less body and tannin when compared with wines from current temperature vines. Heated vines pruned in spring produced wines with less colour, black and ripe fruit aromas, saltiness and sweetness when compared with wines from the ambient temperature trials. At Marananga, it was also noticeable that wines made from winter-pruned vines showed less intense sweetness and ripe flavour but more acidity when compared with those from spring-pruned vines. “These findings have a seasonal component that requires further evaluation, and that will form a part of trials in 2015 and 2016,” Dr Sadras said. A second industry workshop will be held later in the year. For more information contact Victor Sadras P: (08) 8303 9661 E: victor.sadras@sa.gov.au

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grapegrowing

Pruning wounds sealed IN RECENT years, a revolutionary new pruning wound dressing has developed an enviable reputation in major wine grape regions, reports Andrew Doecke, Omnia’s Specialist Agronomist. Greenseal™ is a specially developed pruning wound dressing incorporating a tough, rubber like acrylic resin and a powerful fungicide with excellent disease prevention capabilities. Greenseal™ is easy to apply and dries quickly to seal off pruning wounds on grape vines to provide protection against the ever present Eutypa Lata enemy. Eutypa Lata, known as ‘dead arm’ disease is a very destructive disease of grapevines. The fungus is more prevalent where annual rainfall is likely to exceed 600mm. Spores of Eutypa Lata invade the vine via pruning wounds and slowly colonise ‘woody’ tissue; during this invasion, expect foliage to be starved of vital nutrients. Infected vines have a yellowed, stunted and distorted appearance due to various

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toxins growing in brown-stained wood. An invasion of woody tissue progresses, foliar symptoms become even more severe. This leads to a decline in productivity and may ultimately cause vine death. The benefits of Greenseal™ are delivered through the sealingoff of pruning and grafting wounds for effective prevention of Euytpa Lata. This assists in the plant’s natural healing process by promoting wound callus formation and the ready-made applicator is easy to use and is refillable many times over. Once Eutypa dieback becomes so extensive that the entire vine is compromised, vine reconstruction strategies should be seriously considered if productivity is to be restored. The trunk is cut 10-20cm below any signs of brown Eutypa staining and a new basal shoot is trained. This maintains the existing rootstock. Yield will be zero until a new vine structure becomes established. Be sure to apply Greenseal™ the same day as pruning cuts are made. Make clean, smooth pruning cuts with sharp pruners or saws. This helps provide a good surface for the Greenseal™ application to adhere to. A healthy shoot is selected from the base of the trunk and trained up. The infected trunk is not removed until the new shoot is producing. Depending on vine structure, size of pruning wounds made and pruning regime (spur or cane pruned), application rates of Greenseal™ will vary between two to eight litres per hectare. For more information contact Omnia Nutriology. P: +61 3 5133 9118 E: info@omnia.net.au

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April 2015 – Issue 615

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grapegrowing

Trellising

AT A GLANCE: Across the past five years Ocvitti Australia Pty Ltd has studied vine trellising in Australia, New Zealand and the US, to determine the best type of post for strength, durability and functionality for Australian conditions. A close examination of almost all other available products, especially in the US, where CCA and Creosote posts were banned in 2000, gave rise to ‘Ocloc A’ a versatile and robust trellis support post superior to anything presently offered in the market place.

They say necessity is the mother of invention NIGEL Catt and Brian O’Malley are innovators. They were determined to deliver the best vineyard post option for the Australian industry. They began by developing the now very successful Ocloc X, the fix for broken wooden posts, winning many industry awards for their innovation. Seeing large stockpiles of broken wooden posts made them determined to create a ‘post’ solution. “I’ve got 33 years in the industry both winemaking and viticulture and I recognised many years ago there was a need to get away from wooden posts,” Catt said. “Wooden posts not only have natural flaws that result in significant breakage rates but they cause even larger headaches when they reach their use-

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56 Grapegrower & Winemaker

by date, not only are they expensive to replace, they are piled up with no way of disposing of them.” “The real replacement cost of a wooden post in the vineyard is about $30, and that’s for a product with an average expected lifespan of six-to-seven years. “If you look at 100 acres of vineyard, which has 400 to 500 posts per acre, you are looking at breakages of about 900 -1200 posts per year. The replacement cost of between $27,000 and $36,000, in most cases is more than the cost of pruning. There is still a pile of broken posts to deal with. When you go to most vineyards around Australia there’s a scruffy problematic pile of both CCA and/or creosote posts.”

Nigel spoke of his own experiences, pointing out, “it’s been such an enormous problem and I know this from our own vineyards, I can end up replacing wooden posts in the same position a number of years in a row”. “Replacing them is expensive and takes a lot of time and resources. I relate Ocloc to the, now widely used, screwcap, why use wood with natural flaws when you can use something that is far more structurally sound and homogeneous.” O’Malley’s research estimates there are about 85million vineyard posts currently in the ground across Australia with about 4million breaking each year.

1300 558 361 www.tuckaway.com.au www.winebiz.com.au

April 2015 – Issue 615

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grapegrowing

VERSATILE: The wire height on Ocloc A posts can be easily manipulated across multiple positions, which can be especially useful when training young vines.

O’Malley figured, “that’s 60,000 tonnes of landfill per year of broken treated wooden posts.” “There’s only one good thing you can possibly do with them is to give them to farmers who need six foot posts which extends the life but just puts off the inevitable problem of disposal.” Catt and O’Malley believe their Ocloc A is the answer for a long term ‘environmental fix’ the Californians have already adopted. “Ocloc A is a steel post specifically designed for Australian conditions, we have even developed an Ocloc M to fix the posts in-situ should they be

driven over,” Catt said. “Ocloc A is based on US post that was developed 30 years ago, but we’ve improved them making them more practical for local conditions plus using better materials and specific profiles that has made Ocloc A stronger.” Ocloc A is a metal trellis post specifically designed to replace and outlast CCA, Creosote, and alternative vineyard trellis posts. “I looked at all the options available for vineyard posts and I thought we should use metal,” O’Malley said. “I know in some areas there will be issues, but in most vineyard areas they’ll

last more than 20 years and if broken can be fixed with Ocloc M and last another 20 years or if need be recycled. “We decided to make a big, thick, wide post after a few years of research, development and trials we came up with something that allows a grower to put a post in and forget about it. We looked at major flaws and issues of available posts which gave us a template for a ‘greenfield’ approach designed specifically to handle everything that the modern vineyard demands. Each facet of the post, the shape, the width, wire holes and retro fitted clips, have all been done for versatility and longevity.”

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58 Grapegrower & Winemaker

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April 2015 – Issue 615

FUNCTIONAL: The Ocloc A wire slots accommodate and hold 2.45mm - 3.2mm wires.

O’Malley said, of the specifications “we have used for, Ocloc A, a building grade high tensile steel , the same sort of stuff they build skyscrapers out of”. “The post itself is five kilograms and only takes a few hits to knock in, able be set up for all mechanical pruning including the new ‘Klima’ cane pruner. There are cheaper alternatives but versatility and durability are paramount plus Ocloc A is Australian owned, made and manufactured, employing local people, it is top quality.” Catt said “we looked at the circumference of a staple which lead to a ‘coined’ hole in the Ocloc A, the same radius as the staple this is to hold the wire ‘soft’,” as he put it. “Serving not to de-galvanise through abrasion. The hole has a 65 degree slot to stop wires working their way out during machining or wind movement”. Attending to the detail has allowed Ocvitti to develop a post that prevents wear on wires, increasing wire life and reducing the chances of breakage. Steel posts have already proven longevity with usage over 30 years in California, so it’s a natural progression for us to start using them in Australia. Up until now there hasn’t been a feasible alternative to wood, Ocloc A seems to have achieved this. Catt said, “Brian and I really improved on what was available in the US April 2015 – Issue 615

but the best thing is once they’ve reached the end of their life in the vineyard, they can be recycled”. O’Malley added, “now there’s no need to add to the estimated 150,000 cubic metres of CCA and Creosote posts currently piled up across the country plus we recognise carbon footprint is important so we are manufacturing in South Australia, using Australian steel. I’m passionate about this industry and I know we need to look at how we can compete in the international market place. We can have an advantage with being green. Replacing or bracing wooden posts that will end up as landfill with fully recyclable metal posts just makes sense”. The Ocloc A can be used as a broken wooden post replacement, without changing the whole vineyard at once or retro fitted behind existing posts to alleviate removal. One customer made the comment ‘with the wooden post breakages that have been occurring in our ageing vineyard, by replacing brokens with Ocloc A within a few years I will be over half Ocloc A’. “It’s easy for people to understand the benefits once they see it, feel the structural strength, and get an understanding of its flexibility,” Catt said. The posts are easy to install, and designed to penetrate hard soils, wires can be easily manipulated across multiple positions. Advantages include: • G450 Steel coating highest corrosion resistance; • High tensile steel, ultra-high strengthto-weight ratio; • 1.9 mm metal for longevity in harsh vineyard conditions; • Unique profile for in ground strength and stability; • Pressed formed profile; • Curved edges for machine pruning and harvesting; • Wire slots rounded to minimize wire damage; • Raised wire slots to avoid lateral weakness; • Angle wire slots to keep the wires in place; • Wire slots accommodate and hold 2.2 mm - 3.2mm wires; • 90mm post width reduces vine crowding; • Wire slot intervals of 150mm allow for easy relocation of wires • Much faster to install and wire up (no staples) All variables have been examined and trialled such as vine fruit weight, topography, soils, chemical sprays and the rigours of machine pruning and harvesting to create the toughest and most adaptable post. Ocloc A serves as the best choice for a long term, environmentally friendly replacement for wooden posts. www.winebiz.com.au

Your Vineyard’s

Future

Australian owned & made

• Galvaspan G 450 High Tensile Steel • 1.9 mm thick Steel • Sustainable, reduces your chemical inputs • Soft rounded edged wire holes • Angled and strengthened wire holes • Unique design shape for strength • 90 mm wide to alleviate vine crowding • Curved design for machine pruning & harvesting • Easy to install • Recyclable

www.ocloc.com.au Ocloc A metal trellis post Nigel Catt: 0418 832 967 Brian O’Malley: 0424 112 120 Grapegrower & Winemaker

grapegrowing

Versatility the key to tough times PRIMARY production has always been an uncertain game and those who are unwilling to change and adapt could be considered at a disadvantage. While renowned for their ability to overcome obstacles by thinking outside the box during troubled economic climates, Australian farmers need to be able to react quickly. Market, weather and economic conditions could all change by the time a newly planted vineyard is fruiting, making adaptable infrastructure a smart choice. For some growers, this means switching vines to a more marketable grape variety, or a variety better suited to their micro-climate or regional market – and in many cases that’s achievable by grafting to existing root stock in an established vineyard. Strategic moves of this nature are easier if a vineyard has been planned with versatility in mind and Tristan Badger, Tuckaway Engineering manager, said growers should consider moveable trellising to allow for grafting and replanting. “There is no need to fix wires in place when there is an option to easily get the benefits of being able to move them and react easily to future trellising needs without major labour or infrastructure costs,” Badger said. “Even if you’re not changing varieties, being able to vary the sunlight reaching the fruiting zone and ensure optimum airflow through the canopy is reason enough to build an adaptable trellis infrastructure.” Badger said the Tuckaway Staple is a hook-like steel fastener holds trellis wires in place during vineyard operations, but allows wires to be easily removed for pruning, regrafting,

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60 Grapegrower & Winemaker

NAILED IT: An example of the Tuckaway Staple as installed by the Pneumonic Driver in a Hunter Valley vineyard.

replacing broken posts, or even full-scale renovations. While installing the Staple using hand tools could be arduous, Badger said the Tuckaway Pneumonic Driver essentially completes the same task at a fraction of the time using mechanical air compression. “Hundreds of vineyard posts are replaced each year due to being hit by mechanical harvesters or pruners. It is much easier to replace them if it’s just a matter of unclipping them from the wire,” Badger said. “That’s change on a micro scale – changing one post. But multiply one post by one or two hundred, and you’ve got your work cut out for you.” Badger said the Pneumatic Driver, although four times more expensive than a hand tool, is the more cost effective option in the long run. “Hand tools are fine for small installations and touch-up jobs, and a large crew armed with hammers will get a big job done, but if time and cost are important factors a mechanical approach might be the way to go.” Badger said the Pneumatic Driver pays for itself by reducing both costs and hammer injuries. “When you consider speed of installation – rates of up to 3,000 staples her day per person – you have to ask yourself if it’s still worth trying to keep costs down by sticking with the hammer,” he said. A complete driver kit with everything you need to plug into the end of an air hose costs a couple of hundred dollars, according to Badger. “You only need a very modest sized air compressor, and can run several units at once,” said Badger. “Tuckaway offers spare parts for and servicing of the rugged pneumatic units. And there’s an optional tool head to suit standard barbed fencing staples.” For more information contact Tuckaway Engineering: P: 1300 558 361 E: info@tuckaway.com.au

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April 2015 – Issue 615

Future-proof your vineyard

Product Update

TIRED OF BROKEN POSTS? STEEL POSTS: The Eco Trellis posts in the Ara Wines Waihopai Valley vineyard at Marlborough.

ECO TRELLIS® offers a complete vineyard trellising solution using posts, clips and strainers as relevant to site location. Since 2009, NZ Tube Mills product development engineers have worked closely with the Australasian wine industry to develop Eco Trellis® steel posts and wire clips. Research and new product development is on-going and in the past 12 months has included: • Intensive testing of steel posts in vineyards that are exposed to high wind and extreme weather conditions; • The launch of a patented colour coded clip range to make the viticulturists and vineyard workers more efficient in the field; and • The introduction of a brand new Eco Trellis® plug which has been designed specifically to fill any unused pre-punched holes on the Eco Trellis® posts. (They are easily removed if you want to change the position of irrigation or cordon wires and do not protrude or interfere with mechanical pruning or harvesting equipment.) In addition to new vineyard development Eco Trellis® is also ideal for replacement of broken wooden posts. So you can say goodbye to the thankless task of repeatedly replacing these damaged posts. Durable Eco Trellis® lasts the distance, superseding the lifespan of wood and posting excellent results for trouble-free replacement uprights. The company has a team in New Zealand and Australia and is working with leaders in the Australasian wine industry including Constellation Wines, Treasury Wine Estates, Pernod Ricard, Smith & Son/Yalumba Group, Henschke, Villa Maria Estate Wines and Ara Wines as well as with many boutique producers. This revolutionary new trellising system continues to be popular with organic winegrowers and those practising sustainable viticulture methods. You can learn more about Eco Trellis® at Wine Tech in Adelaide from 14 to 16 July, 2015.

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Or, for more information, contact: P: +64 4 576 1800 E: ecotrellis@nztubemills.co.nz April 2015 – Issue 615

See the light with ECO TRELLIS®. Photo courtesy Felton Road, NZ

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

grapegrowing

Post-harvest care

nutrition issues, replenish essential elements that are removed with the harvested fruit and also to support carbohydrate accumulation. Information from annual petiole tests, knowledge of soil nutrient status, visual canopy assessments, juice nitrogen concentrations (some wineries measure this), and nutrient removal rates will assist with making an informed decision about fertiliser requirements.

IRRIGATION Post-harvest irrigation is important where the soil profile is dry. Irrigation helps to maintain leaf function and also assists the movement of soil-applied fertilisers into the rootzone and root uptake. Care should be taken not to ‘over-apply’ post-harvest irrigation, particularly when a long post-harvest period is anticipated. Over-irrigation may promote unwanted shoot growth which will reduce the total carbohydrates available next spring.

OTHER POST-HARVEST CONSIDERATIONS

TOWARDS the end of harvest attention turns to maintaining functioning leaves on vines. Good leaf function will ensure that adequate carbohydrate reserves accumulate in the grapevines prior to winter and are available to developing shoots and flowers next spring. This is achieved by minimising the impact of pests and diseases and supplying adequate nutrients and irrigation.

PEST AND DISEASE CONTROL The presence of downy or powdery mildew on grapevine leaves can disrupt and reduce carbohydrate export. Post-harvest

eradication (if available) and protection of the remaining leaves is recommended. This will also assist in reducing inoculum carry-over to next season. Vine moth caterpillars are currently very active, especially in Mudgee. High numbers of these caterpillars can significantly reduce leaf area which will also decrease carbohydrate storage. Many growers are achieving good control using Bt sprays post-harvest.

NUTRITION Post-harvest nutritional maintenance is important to address late season

Other factors that indicate the need to replenish carbohydrate reserves include high vine yield (this will vary, depending on region), slow/uneven berry ripening and delayed/incomplete cane lignifications after harvest. Vines that have been water stressed and/ or have leaves which have suffered heat damage will require additional postharvest care. Disclaimer: The information presented here has been adopted from the VineWatch bulletin, which is provided by The Australian Wine Research Institute to support grapegrowers in New South Wales, specifically the Riverina and Central Ranges. This information is intended to be generic in nature. Always seek professional advice specific to your vineyard.

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Stoller has nutrient programs to: • optimise spring growth • eliminate nutrient deficiency symptoms • improve bunch formation and retention • lessen the impact of stress • aid proper ripening • Deliver maximum return for farmers. CONTACT STOller AUSTrAlIA ON freeCAll 1800 337 845 Or info@stoller.com.au www.winebiz.com.au

Zinc deficiency

Manganese deficiency

Iron deficiency

Magnesium deficiency April 2015 – Issue 615

winemaking 78 Degrees gin is made with 12 individually-distilled ingredients.

Skills with the still Nathan Gogoll reports

DISTILLATION is not a completely forgotten extension of a winemaker’s skill set. Undergraduate winemaking students still take part in theoretical and practical lessons in distillation and there are several wine industry links to an emerging local ‘craft’ spirits industry. Graham Jones, University of Adelaide adjunct associate professor, has guided many students through the process of

distillation and says although it’s less common for graduates to put this part of their education into practice, this doesn’t dampen the enthusiasm. “From a sensory point-of-view, winemakers are ideally placed to get involved in distilling because of that’s their training background,” Jones said. “I’ve always had a few people each year who would come to me really keen on distilling and

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April 2015 – Issue 615

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Grapegrower & Winemaker

winemaking

Sacha La Forgia makes gin from a very humble distillery in the Adelaide Hills.

fortifieds and there are always a couple who tell me they are determined to do something with what they’ve learned. “I know the interest in spirits has been picking up. I think there’s been a lot more interest in spirits and cocktails, in particular. Spirits are selling well in bars and it’s exciting to see young people are willing to try making them. “The students I’ve seen who are keen on distillation have really lapped up the theory and the practice; they have no problems getting their heads around the process. But they do need a lot of fortitude to complete all the paperwork and produce their own spirits.” Kevin Glastonbury has recently taken responsibility of “fortifieds and other such treasures” at Yalumba, since the retirement of David Zimmerman, and he said the modern-day reliance on table wine is the reason hardly any winemakers are involved in distillation. “I’m sure many winemakers understand the basic principles of distillation, however it is certainly a specialised craft. If you went back 30 to 40 years, when distillation and fortified production was a much larger part of everyone’s life, I’m sure many more winemakers were involved and understood the process much more than today. “With the passing of time and the decline in fortified sales, wineries and winemakers began focussing on table wine production more and more and distillation was left to the likes

of Tarac. “However, now there seems to be small batch distilleries popping up and producing unique spirits and gins, which is really exciting. “I wouldn’t say I completely know and fully understand the distilling process, as I have more experience in making fortifieds rather than the actual distilling process, but I’m up for a challenge. I have talked with Zim a lot over the last couple of years and he certainly has a lot of experience to pass on.” One young winemaker who has been determined enough to complete the state and national requirements to gain a licence to distil is Adelaide Hillsbased Sacha La Forgia. He produces tiny batches of gin from carefully-selected botanicals using a home-built column and basket still. He has set up in a small room, behind an unassuming locked door in the corner of the contract winemaking facility he currently works for. At the moment, La Forgia can produce up to 400 bottles of his 78 Degrees gin per week. He readily admits “some distilleries could do that in half a day”. Having only just recently started selling his gin, he’s happy with that capability at the moment and said one of the biggest hurdles he’s had to jump had little to do with making it – just attaining the licence was a battle. Essentially, you can’t

I’m sure many winemakers understand the basic principles of distillation, however it is certainly a specialised craft. If you went back 30 to 40 years, when distillation and fortified production was a much larger part of everyone’s life, I’m sure many more winemakers were involved and understood the process much more than today.

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April 2015 – Issue 615

distil anything without a licence, but you can’t prove that you are ready for a licence without having all the appropriate equipment to not only start distilling, but to keep accurate records of everything you produce. There are both state and national components of the licence process. “It takes a while to get and it is incredibly expensive,” La Forgia said. “But I’ve actually found the ATO to be fairly easy to deal with.” Producing alcohol via distillation is a highly-regulated and closely-monitored activity, which means very accurate record keeping is essential and distillers need to be prepared to be regularly audited. But there is a way around having your own licence, not that it’s necessarily much cheaper. You can make your own spirits in partnership with an existing licensed distiller and ‘bonded facility’. “The university has a licence and a bonded facility,” Jones said. “If we distil something with a winemaker, as long as it’s in the bonded facility it doesn’t attract any excise. There are very strict regulations on measurements of alcohol, so the tax office knows how much tax you should be paying. There are winemakers using bonded facilities at the moment. Jeffrey Grosset, is producing an Ea de Vie from Clare Riesling with Jones at the Waite Campus of the University of Adelaide; and Peter Althaus, from Domaine A in Tasmania, has been working with the Lark Distillery to produce a barrel-aged brandy. Althaus said his experience with distilling began in the early days of his winemaking career in Switzerland. He’s taken his knowledge and his sensory skills in evaluating the “heads, hearts and tails” to produce a barrel-aged brandy. “We worked with the Lark Distillery because they have the still and the bond store,” Althaus said. “Our brandy has spent eight years in barrel and the quality compares to top-end Cognac. The texture and ‘roundness’… it’s very smooth.” Perhaps the main difference between the Domaine A brandy and the 78 Degrees Gin is a huge whack of patience. La Forgia can spend a week distilling his botanicals and tweaking the blend... and the next month hit the road to selling his latest batch. Whereas Althaus has to wait for evaporation and oak integration across several years before his brandy is ready. “The evaporation is about five or 10 per cent per year,” Althaus said. “Depending on the storage conditions. And what I’m looking for over time is the integration of the alcohol and the flavours.” Grosset has yet another version of the process with his Grosset45, which is single-distilled from his organically-grown Clare Valley Riesling into an “extraordinarily perfumed and complex” final product. The Clare winemaker said he picked up basic distilling skills when he was studying, but he has literally gone back to university to make his ‘eau de vie’ with Jones. “His knowledge and experience was invaluable. He did comment though that he had not seen such a clean spirit run, reflecting the fact that the quality of wine we used is rarely if ever, used for distillation. “By using such high quality wine, we found that the spirit quality can be amazing and the distillation process relatively straight forward. Grosset45 is also unique, as one sommelier has put it ‘distilled terroir’, because it is from a special place; a vineyard known for the quality of wine.” “The trap, as we found, is that by starting with wine of this quality, virtually every drop from the still can be used to make a complex and lingering spirit and from just one distillation, two distillations are often used, and you have to be ready to make your decision on what is to be included from the very first drop.” April 2015 – Issue 615

For further information, please contact Kauri NZ Tel: 0800 KAURIWINE NZ Fax: 04 910 7415 Email: winery@kauri.co.nz

www.winebiz.com.au

AUS Tel: 1800 127 611 AUS Fax: 1800 127 609 Website: www.kauriwine.com

Grapegrower & Winemaker

winemaking

Jeffrey Grosset has single-distilled Riesling to create his Grosset45.

The other trap, according to Grosset, is that his production was “extraordinarily expensive”. “Following the introduction years ago of an almostprohibitive tax, distillation of wine virtually ceased. It’s been more a case of whisky and gin makers driving the renaissance. In that respect Grosset45 is quite different,” he said. Then there’s the cost of the ingredients and the process. The 600 Grosset45 bottles (500ml) started life as 2500kg of organically-grown Riesling grapes. “Due to the experimental nature it was more than normal but it in the future it will still be just over 2000kg based on the methods we used.” The grapes were very carefully fermented, especially for the still, with no added sulfur dioxide. “About 1300 litres was needed, although we used more,” Grosset said. “It’s a different approach to making bottled wine. Fairly straightforward but more risky.” The Grosset45 was released on March 1 and Jeff hoped the growing interest in Australian-made spirits would see his first 600 bottles sell well enough to justify repeating the process three times per year. He’s already got some good support for the product, with Rockpool creating a cocktail to highlight its distinctive qualities. While this is expected to remain the only distilled product from the Clare winery, Grosset did let slip that he has other secret experiments up his sleeve. However, Kevin Galstonbury said Grosset isn’t the only winemaker winemaker with a Riesling spirit, at Yalumba they have a Riesling spirit, “biding its time”, that was made at the same time as last year’s whisky charge. In fact, there are a few different products being made with the old copper pot. “The still house was officially de-commissioned in 1983 with the last of our Yalumba pot still brandy bottled in 1996,”

66 Grapegrower & Winemaker

Glastonbury said. “The still house was then re-commissioned in 1997 for the first charge of Smith’s Angaston whisky. We followed this with further charges for whisky in 1998 and 2000. After an 11-year ‘slumber’ and with consumers of Smiths Angaston whisky pleading with us to make further distillations we re-commissioned the still house again in 2011 and 2014. “In 2008 we produced the first Yalumba V de Vie from Viognier and have done subsequent distillations Viognier. “Like the Smiths Angaston whisky the V de Vie sells well, but that’s not the only reason for doing it. The still is fired up to rekindle the distillation skills and also to produce some of our own unique spirits. These are a very small part of what we do at Yalumba, important yes, but will always only remain a small part of what we do.” If anything this suggests La Forgia, while being the youngest and most inexperienced of this group of winemakers, has actually thrown himself further into the deep end than the others. “I use grape-based spirit and being a winemaker, I guess that kind of makes sense,” he said. “And the 12 different botanicals I use are all distilled individually. It actually takes about 12 days of distilling for one batch.” The botanicals list includes: juniper, coriander, orange rind, lemon rind, lime rind, cloves, nutmeg, star anise, black peppercorn, green peppercorn and orris root. “I try to source ingredients as locally as possible, but the main thing is to look at quality. But it’s not as easy as strictly following the same recipe each time, La Forgia said he tinkers with the blend each time to achieve a very consistent style. “I’m pretty much making what I like in a gin and that is appropriate for the money,” he said.

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April 2015 – Issue 615

There is just a whole culture of wanting better… food, wine, beer, cider and now spirits. People are willing to pay a bit more if they know they are getting quality and if they can connect with the story behind the product. And it’s just really cool that people are making those choices. His column and basket still has been assembled specifically for high-quality gin production. This means each one of his botanicals is extracted by the purest alcohol vapours and never subjected to temperatures exceeding 78.1°c. “This gentle extraction allows for the retention of delicate aromas and flavours and results in a complex and structured gin that is cut with pure Adelaide Hills Water.” It’s very early days, but La Forgia has already taken on the Adelaide Hills Crush festival where he teamed up with Lobethal Road to serve G&Ts. This event was also handy for building a direct marketing email list. While he’s happy to maintain his own distribution in his home state, he has already gained one interstate partner with Nip of Courage, a boutique/craft beverage distributor, and he hopes to grow his business to a point where it will be possible to chase export sales. And he’s encouraged by what he’s seen from other Australian gin makers. “I’d say there are probably less than 20 and there’s three I know of in South Australia. But every day there seems to be a distillery pop up. Because I had my phone number on the 78 Degrees Facebook page I’ve been getting phone calls from people looking for help and advice to do their own thing.” In this regard, la Forgia thinks winemakers have a head start. And he points to the success of the Melbourne Gin Company,

the project of winemaker Andrew Marks, as well as Four Pillars, with plenty of wine marketing connections, as proof that experience in the wine industry can benefit a small gin maker. Of course there wouldn’t be success stories if people weren’t buying these products. “There is just a whole culture of wanting better… food, wine, beer, cider and now spirits. People are willing to pay a bit more if they know they are getting quality and if they can connect with the story behind the product,” La Forgia said. “And it’s just really cool that people are making those choices.” The young winemaker attended a craft distilling event in London in 2014 where he said he found himself “in a room full of people who wanted to have a go at distilling, and listening to people who were already doing it.” “There was one point when somebody asked if you could make money and the answer was ‘we’re doing something authentic, and that’s not what it’s all about’ and I sat there thinking ‘hang on’. But, yes, you can make money – you just have to be very smart about what you are doing.” Demand for distillation skills probably won’t see the University of Adelaide extend it’s one semester program (which is combined with fortified and sparkling winemaking as well), but consumer demand for quality Australian spirits and winemaker curiosity might yet see a few more old copper pots dusted off.

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April 2015 – Issue 615

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on the grapevine Villa Maria fourth most-admired wine brand in the world DRINKS International has named Villa Maria as the fourth-most admired wine brand in the world, as one of four New Zealand entries in a top 50 list, but the only one inside the top 10 list. More than 200 of the world’s top masters of wine, sommeliers, educators and journalists took part in the annual poll, which pits wine brands from all regions, styles and qualities against each other. Sir George Fistonich, Villa Maria Estate founder and chief executive officer said he was elated with the accolade. “To be number one in New Zealand and fourth in the world is truly phenomenal, especially considering there is estimated to be over 100,000 wineries globally,” Fistonich said.

“It’s such amazing recognition for Villa Maria as well as New Zealand.” Fistonich said the award represented the changing attitude towards New World wines. “New Zealand is a very young wine producing country so to achieve fourth place, in such a prestigious competition, with Old World leaders such as Torres, Château d’Yquem and Château Margaux is a huge source of pride. I’m incredibly proud,” he said. France had the most entries in the list with 14 wineries, followed by the US with seven, Australia and Spain with six each, Chile with five, New Zealand with four and Italy with two. Argentina, Canada, Hungary, Lebanon, Portugal and South Africa all had one winery on the list.

The Australian wine brands on the list included Penfolds, Yellow Tail, Yalumba, Jacob’s Creek, Lindemans and McGuigan. Judges were tasked with critiquing and recognising the ‘most admired wine brands’ in the world with the aid of a specific set of standards. According to Drinks International, the brands must produce consistent or improving quality, reflect the region, pinpoint target markets while appealing to a wide demographic and have a strong marketing edge. Holly Motion, World’s Most Admired Wine Brands Editor said the Academy was no longer turning to new brands. “We’re now drawing from a pool of established names that have proven themselves to be consistent, respected global leaders,” Motion said.

WA winemakers back rebate reform WINES of Western Australia (WoWA) has joined forces with the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA) to stop any moves to increase wine taxes and argue against a separate tax rebate scheme for New Zealand producers selling wine here. The association joins the Wolf Blass Foundation and a growing number of leading winemakers and regional wine organisations who are taking a stand with WFA against those pushing for wine tax increases such as highly profitable beer and spirits manufacturers and the public health lobby. They also want the Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) rebate retained to support winemakers and their regional

communities but reformed to abolish the separate NZ producer rebate. The organisations believe the savings from abolishing the NZ rebate could free up much needed funds to help promote Australian wine exports in key international markets. Paul Evans, WFA chief executive, welcomed the support from the west. “Support from WoWA shows the Australian Government that industry is united,” Evans said. “WoWA’s support will go towards helping the Federation convince the Australian Government that the WET rebate must be reformed and to build an even stronger evidence base against any moves to increase wine taxation.”

Redmond Sweeny, WoWA chair, said it was important to note their view was the result of an exhaustive consultation process conducted by WFA throughout 2013-2014 with industry. “WA is mostly populated with small winemakers, and we firmly believe our views were listened to and adopted into a balanced and sustainable position for all of industry to take forward,” Sweeny said. WoWA’s support would be used to help fund WFA’s analysis of wine taxation and an advocacy campaign ahead of the 2015 Federal Budget and an expected national review of the tax system. “The campaign is well underway,” Evans said.

What consumers want: premium and local MARKETERS need to take on new consumer trends and adapt to a changing market, according to a new Wine Intelligence study. The Wine Intelligence Global Consumer Trends report has spotted nine trends among alcohol consumers, each with different implications for the drinks industry. “We’re focusing on what’s happening already, sometimes at the fringes of consumer behaviour, sometimes nearer the mainstream,” explained Lulie Halstead, Wine Intelligence chief executive officer. Although the mass market appears to be shifting towards globalisation, Halstead said individuals saw the value in local products. “Perhaps as a reaction to globalisation, we’ve identified a trend we’re calling

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‘localism’,” Halstead said. “Consumers may be citizens of a global village but they’re valuing their physical local communities more and more. This has helped the cause of craft beers, artisanal spirits and even small specialist retailers.” As well as choosing to support local businesses, another trend labelled ‘upgrade’ saw consumers wanting to trade in everyday products for a more premium version in discount stores like Aldi and Lidl. Referring to these as “little luxuries”, the trend indicates that consumers are looking to reward themselves with the occasional treat. ‘Activate’ has also been identified as one of the top trends, whereby consumers and corporations collaborate in a groupthinking sense with the objective of personal gain. www.winebiz.com.au

“Consumers and corporations alike are going beyond making token donations to good causes and instead making more tangible contributions,” Halstead said. The other market trends include convenience, personalisation, physical and mental health improvements, transparency, sensory and fusion. “Consumer behaviour patterns are shifting all the time, and the pace of change is very rapid,” said Halstead. “Drinks marketers are undoubtedly getting better at understanding how their consumers engage with their products. But that’s really just one piece in a much bigger puzzle.” Global Consumer Trends 2015 is published by Wine Intelligence and available for purchase at their online reports shop. April 2015 – Issue 615

Kellermeister winemaker “lucky” after 300k spill

A VANDAL caused thousands of dollars’ worth of damage at a Lyndoch winery in early March, but the owner is breathing a sigh of relief. Mark Pearce, Kellermeister winemaker, said it was “a silly act of wine vandalism” that saw more than $230,000 go down the drain after a man allegedly crept into the winery and opened the taps on four tanks.

More than 25,000 litres of wine was released from the tanks in the early hours of Sunday 22 February. A 57-year-old Barossa man was arrested in relation to the incident and charged with property damage. “The good news is that we were actually really lucky,” Pearce said. “Only two of our Chardonnay wine batches, which were in tank ready for bottling, were impacted.” Pearce said the 2010 and 2011 Chardonnay vintages were fully covered by insurance and he was relieved that Kellermeister’s flagship red wines remained safe. “It could have been a lot worse, we’re very fortunate that all of our other wines in barrel and tank weren’t impacted at all.” Pearce said the winery has an extensive security system which is monitored at all times and CCTV captured “the shenanigans as they unfolded”. “A man was arrested,” Pearce said. “And the matter is now out of our hands.” Due to the ongoing criminal investigation, Pearce was unable to provide further comment.

Winemaker dies while windsurfing THE WINE industry was shocked and saddened by the death of Simon Burnell, Willow Bridge Estate chief winemaker, in late March. Burnell went missing while windsurfing at Prevelly, near Margaret River, on Sunday 22 March. Unfortunately, a search ended when his body was found the next morning. In a statement, Willow Bridge owners Jeff and Vicki Dewar paid tribute to a “highly respected” winemaker and “a valued friend”. “Simon was not only determined to make the best possible wines, his dedication and tireless commitment to what he called his ‘one percenters’ has ensured the Willow Bridge brand continues to be respected worldwide and for that we will be forever grateful. “We are thankful to have had Simon be such an integral part of our team for over five years and he will be missed beyond words. “Our thoughts, love and prayers are with Linda and all of Simon’s family at this tragic and deeply sorrowful time.” Burnell was 44.

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WINE TV ROYALTY: Nathan Earl, Chis Taylor and Josh Tyler from Plonk.

Wine

Nathan Gogoll reports

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BRINGING the stories behind the labels to television screens is set to have an impact on how consumers understand the wine industry. Two separate programs that first went to air in 2014 are shaking up the traditional way wine has usually been presented to TV audiences. Plonk, a light-hearted “show about a wine show” has just finished filming its second season, thanks to funding from the South Australian Tourism Commission, on the back of a first series supported by Destination NSW. While People of the Vines, which follows Tyson Stelzer into wine regions, is close to wrapping up the filming of a second series after it attracted audiences of more than 1.2million viewers to episodes that aired late last year on the Channel Ten network. Nathan Earl is the Plonk creator, director, producer, co-writer and explained the show is a bit of an odd combination of a documentary and a comedy. “So it’s not just a matter of writing a script for a comedy, we were essentially researching and filming a documentary at the same time. And that meant we had a very organic process of a documentary and drama on top of each other,” Earl said. Both Earl and his co-writer Josh Tyler grew up in wine regions, Earl in www.winebiz.com.au

the Hunter, Tyler in the Barossa. But their preparation for each of their first two series has relied heavily on the willingness of people within the wine industry to get involved. “We’d visit the regions and ‘get lost on the trail’, but we made sure we found key people in the industry who we ended up relying on to open up doors for us,” Earl said. “People like Victoria Angove, who was happy to help us out, but in no way inferred she wanted to see Angove on screen in return. She’s smart, so she knows anything that’s good for McLaren Vale will be good for their McLaren Vale cellar door and her brand. And there are a lot of smart people in the industry who share that attitude.” Plonk season two, was all filmed in South Australia “apart from a few little pick-up shots to explain how this dysfunctional group ‘the show within the show’ ended up on the road again”. “The weather was fantastic, which was good because we are beholden to the life-cycle of the industry and you have to be out there at the right time to catch the action in the wineries and the beauty of the vineyards. But what was even better was the support and access we got all the way through the wine industry – from the top down. “We were lucky people trusted us not April 2015 – Issue 615

to make them look foolish, I think that came on the back of the first season. But people were also willing to have some fun with us. “We also ended up having a lot of fun with Jane Ferrari, we were in the Barossa when the Barons did their welcome to vintage thing and we were wondering how to interact with it. Jane became our hook into working with them. We were mindful of showing respect to what the Barons are about, but we’ve had some fun and we hope that will enable their story to reach a new audience. “There’s no point doing a show about the wine industry without getting the support of the industry.” Tyson Stelzer and the People of the Vines team has also been filming in South Australia, specifically the Barossa. This show concentrates on one region during vintage and unearths the characters involved in the process and relies on their real stories to shape it. The stories from the first series, which was filmed in Tasmania during the 2014 vintage, focussed on how the industry has evolved on the Apple Isle through smaller, family-run wine businesses. One of those was Delamere Vineyards, run by husband and wife team Fran Austin and Shane Holloway. Stelzer was able to use their story to show how quickly the winemaking landscape has changed in Tasmania – from the early days at Delamere when Austin and Holloway struggled to find people to work in the industry, through to more recent positive times where people have embraced food and wine tourism across Tasmania. Stelzer found plenty of other interesting angles to take his audience inside the industry during his first series. He’s currently getting toward the end of the filming process for the second series, which looks set to feature hand-picking the 2015 Henschke Hill of Grace grapes and lots more characters. Stelzer, a prolific wine writer and self publisher, said it has not been uncommon to find that an 11 or 12 hour filming day resulted in just six minutes of edited footage. It’s a whole new adventure for him. And an expensive one. The first series was completed on a budget of about $200,000, the second series required double that amount and Stelzer would like to allocate $600,000 to the third series. “If you look at it long-term, to do it really well we would love to have a million dollars for a series, and that would allow us to make post production improvements and to use things like drones,” Stelzer said. “But we don’t want it to be glossy. When we get wineries April 2015 – Issue 615

involved they usually ask us if they should do a clean things up and I always say ‘no, just be natural’. Still, when we first turn up they do put on a show and tell – which is what I’m used to when I arrive to see new release wines or write a magazine article. But for the television series we get to spend a couple of days with people and that’s when the real depths of the personal stories emerge. “I’m seeing a whole different side of the industry. I don’t think many people have a real idea about what it takes to make a bottle of wine, that there’s a crucial time period where people are up before dawn and still working after dark to get it all done.” Stelzer used Ian Hongell, in his first vintage as Peter Lehmann Wines chief winemaker as an example. “You look at what a young winemaker like Ian is doing... at Peter Lehmann Wines they had already crushed 14,000 tonnes of grapes by mid-March. They only crushed about 7,000 last year. He’s doing his first vintage as chief winemaker for the first vintage since the winery was taken over by Casella – that’s a remarkable personal story.” Clearly, the size difference between some of the wineries in the first and second series of People of the Vines will be significant, but Stelzer said there are also differences in how people approach the industry in the Barossa, compared to Tasmania. “There’s a lot more big-picture thinking in the Barossa,” he said. While the a hand-picking finger injury was a big talking point for a winery in Tasmania in the first series, the winemakers are more likely to be focused on things like global warming and business takeovers in the Barossa for the second. Of course, there is also quite a difference between the two shows. “While Plonk is scripted slapstick, we’re unscripted and we’re real,” Stelzer said. “Most people don’t know that wine is almost all about the stories and for me that’s the exciting thing about what we’re doing – bringing out the real stories. And it doesn’t need to be a game show or slapstick to do that.” But then again, there might be similar aims. Stelzer hopes to brings personal stories to the screen and encourage his viewers to better connect with the process they never gave much thought to when opening a bottle of wine. Earl wants his show to inspire people to visit wine regions and make their own stories and memories. “Many people have aspired to take wine to the mainstream,” Stelzer said. And he’s already in a better position than www.winebiz.com.au

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HANDS ON: Tyson Stelzer in the Delamere vineyards at Pipers Brook, Tasmania, after a day of picking and filming for the first series of People of the Vines.

most who have gone before him, having seen significant audiences for first series (even Earl, who has plenty of television experience, was impressed). “You can’t get that sort of coverage anywhere else. It’s a crazy medium and I’m on a steep learning curve.” But will People of the Vines and Plonk become great vehicles for the wine industry? “It all depends on the tone and making sure there’s a distinction from advertising content,” Earl said. “I think there’s an impression of wine being a bit elitist, people get to see a little bit of this fantastic thing which then isn’t available to them. But that’s not what it’s like inside the industry at all. “I grew up in the Hunter Valley, dad’s involved in the industry and I’ve done my time working in cellar door, so I know it’s about the wine… but at the same time it’s not. When people really feel connected to wine is when they share it with friends, when they get out there and explore the dearth of options on the doorsteps of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and even Canberra. “Wine struggle because of a misnomer that it’s not as interesting, or not like food which you can watch on TV and then go and do in your own kitchen. People can’t basket press s Shiraz in their own lounge rooms, but they can have a wine experience, they can pick up awesome stories along the way if they go for a drive. “There are such a diverse range of experiences within the wine industry, and you can see that reflected in the different approaches of Plonk and the Be Consumed campaign for the Barossa.”

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Which means television will be an excellent way for the wine industry to get its message to a big audience. “There’s a hell of a lot of wineries out there, how does each one ‘cut through’? It’s a crowded market place,” Earl said. “I know Australians are drinking a lot more wine than they used to, but it only benefits a few big companies if they buy all their wine from BWS or Dan Murphys. The real question is how do you get people motivated to get in their car and drive to McLaren Vale or Murrumbateman? “I think there’s a huge hunger, people want to know more about wine.” That’s where a television show, or a variety of shows on different platforms, can help. But how much traction a winery can gain will probably have more to do with winery’s own efforts to convert a glimpse on a screen into a customer and eventually into a loyal fan. “I think this has been duplicated on TV, if you look back 10 or 15 years ago everybody was watching Friends. But now someone who’s a fan of a niche series out of the US can hand you the whole series on a thumb drive,” Earl said. “It’s the same for the wine industry; people are interested in the little winery they never heard of that their friends found last weekend while they were away. And then you look at a winery like Alpha Box & Dice and they’ve converted people into their members into their ‘gang’ and they do cool events to keep people interested. You don’t necessarily need to put on a show, but you have to work out how make people feel included in what you’re doing.” www.winebiz.com.au

The other things Plonk and People of the Vines have in common is the time it took to get television networks to sign them up and the all-important search for financial support. Stelzer said it took three years to convince a network to take his show on. “The challenge is to attract sponsorship to make it long-term sustainable. Support from the likes of the Dan Murphys of this world and the state tourism commissions will be essential.” But Stelzer said he won’t hand over editorial control, no matter who the sponsor. The second series of Plonk was made possible through the financial support of the South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC) and Screen Australia. But there was deliberately no approaches made to wineries to become major sponsors according to Earl. “That does get a little murky, if you take some money from a company it can be a very slippery slope that steers the narrative in directions it wouldn’t go organically,” Earl said. “But where we will look for the support of the wine industry is in sharing the programs, we’d love to see them promote it via social media and eventually put links to the episodes up on their Facebook pages. And that show of support is bound to help whatever project comes next in whatever format it happens.” If these two wine shows keep attracting viewers, they won’t just guarantee the production of their next series, they will surely inspire others to copy, and even improve on, what Earl and Stelzer have already achieved. April 2015 – Issue 615

ask the

Copper: friend or foe? IS COPPER REALLY MUCH OF A PROBLEM IN WINEMAKING? It can be. Copper instabilities are one of the most common metal instabilities, mainly because of the low concentrations required to cause instability. Copper is also a catalyst for oxidation and reduction reactions and again, low concentrations can have an impact. Furthermore, copper reacts with thiols, so it can affect the varietal aromas of wines, especially those where thiols play a major role, such as Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon.

WHERE DOES THE COPPER IN GRAPE JUICE COME FROM? A portion of the copper present in grape juice originates from the soil, but it is difficult to know how much given that coppercontaining fungicides are commonly used in viticulture. In fact, copper-based agrochemicals are generally the major source of copper in grape juices.

WHAT IS A HIGH COPPER CONCENTRATION IN MUST OR JUICE? If no copper-based vineyard sprays are used, then the level of copper in the juice is likely to be less than 0.5 mg/L. If copper-based sprays are used, then the level of copper can vary depending on the number of applications, total dose applied and the time between the last application and harvest. The copper content of the juice could therefore range from less than 1 mg/L to higher than 15 mg/L. Tromp and de Klerk (1988) found that 10–15 mg/L of copper inhibited fermentation and the resulting wines were browner than controls due to increased oxidation. Investigations conducted at the AWRI have also shown that must copper concentrations below 10 mg/L have no effect on the rate of fermentation. However, if other inhibitory factors are also present (e.g. agrochemical residues, acetic acid or high ethanol) then it is possible that levels approaching 10 mg/L of copper might have an impact.

WHAT SHOULD I DO IF THE JUICE COPPER CONCENTRATION IS HIGH?

oxidation to disulfides. Using copper during fermentation is generally considered to be ‘safe’ because any residual copper tends to be removed with the yeast lees. However, copper can react with other wine constituents or mediate oxidation reactions that can decrease the intensity of wine aroma. For example, copper can react with the fruity thiols in Sauvignon Blanc leading to a loss of varietal characters. Yeast strain is one of the most important factors in limiting H2S production during fermentation. Choosing a low H2Sproducing yeast strain may reduce or eliminate the need for copper fining during fermentation. The depletion of YAN is a common cause of H2S production, especially during the early stages of fermentation when yeast growth is active. H2S produced during the early to mid-stages of fermentation can often be ameliorated by the addition of DAP or proprietary fermentation nutrient preparations that contain nitrogen. However, DAP additions are usually ineffective against H2S produced during the late stages of fermentation. In this situation, it might be best to perform a copper trial towards the end of fermentation when most of the sugar has been utilised, but when sufficient yeast cells are still present to bind any excess copper.

SHOULD I ADD COPPER BEFORE BOTTLING? The AWRI has always advised against adding copper just before bottling if a wine does not actually exhibit any reductive character. This advice was initially based on the risk of postbottling copper haze formation and the fact that copper is a catalyst for oxidation reactions. Recent studies have also reported increased accumulation of H2S and methane thiol during bottle ageing of wines treated with copper sulfate at bottling (Ugliano et al. 2001, Viviers et al., 2013, 2014), giving another reason to avoid this practice. For more information about copper and winemaking, please contact the AWRI helpdesk. P: 08 8313 6600 E: helpdesk@awri.com.au

References

In general, most of the copper present in juice is removed during fermentation via the formation of sulfides and through binding to yeast and removal with the lees. However, when the copper concentration of a juice is high, steps should be taken to ensure optimal fermentation conditions to minimise the risk of a sluggish or stuck fermentation. This can be done by choosing a robust yeast, ensuring good yeast preparation, measuring yeast assimilable nitrogen (YAN) and adding diammonium phosphate (DAP) if YAN is <150 mg/L for whites or <100 mg/L for reds, adding yeast hulls or proprietary inactivated yeast product, minimising sharp or large temperature fluctuations, and keeping yeast in suspension by warming and/or agitation. Note that in order to minimise the risk of oxidation, the juice should be protected as much as possible from oxygen exposure until fermentation commences.

Tromp, A., de Klerk, C.A. 1988. Effect of copperoxychloride on the fermentation of must and wine quality. S. Afr. J. Enol. Vitic. 9: 31–36. Ugliano, M., Kwiatkowski, M., Vidal, S., Capone, D., Siebert, T., Dieval, J.B. Aagaard, O., Waters, E.J. 2011. Evolution of 3-mercaptohexanol, hydrogen sulfide, and methyl mercaptan during bottle storage of Sauvignon Blanc wines. Effect of glutathione, copper, oxygen exposure, and closure- derived oxygen. J. Agric. Food Chem. 59(6): 2564–2572. Viviers, M.Z., Smith, M.E., Wilkes, E., Smith, P.A. 2014. Effects of metals on the evolution of volatile sulfur compounds in wine during bottle storage. Aust. N.Z. Grapegrower Winemaker. 600: 49–51. Viviers, M. Z., Smith, M. E., Wilkes, E., Smith, P. 2013. Effects of five metals on the evolution of hydrogen sulfide, methanethiol, and dimethyl sulfide during anaerobic storage of Chardonnay and Shiraz Wines. J. Agric. Food Chem. 61(50): 12385–12396.

SHOULD I ADD COPPER DURING FERMENTATION IF THE FERMENT GIVES OFF HYDROGEN SULFIDE? Ferments are typically treated with copper sulfate or aerated (red ferments) to remove hydrogen sulfide (H2S) odour. However, if mercaptans are also present, aeration can lead to their April 2015 – Issue 615

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young gun

Lazy bones: Jo Perry’s ironic nickname Josephine Perry is the real deal. At just 36 years of age the Margaret River local has built a career which spans five countries, 10 regions and dozens of vintages. The award winner, dual business owner and organic wine advocate has been described as ‘so ahead of the curve’ with the release of her own natural wine label ‘Dormilona’. Although the Spanish word translates to ‘lazy bones’, Perry’s impressive career would lend one to believe she is anything but. Emilie Reynolds reports. JOSEPHINE Perry’s journey into winemaking has a heartwarming influence from a grandparent. At just 14 years of age, a young Perry had her working life set for success thanks to the keen interest of a Swan Hill brewer Oliver Hines, who also happened to be her grandfather. While Perry grappled with what she wanted to do when she grew up, her grandfather imparted some wise words of advice. “He sat me down one day and got me to write down the things I liked doing and told me he’d look into it. The next week I visited he told me he had worked it all out, and I should be a winemaker,” Perry recalled. Her grandfather wasted no time in propelling Perry into her future career, organising some hands on experience in a nearby vineyard. “He put my name down with Cape Mentelle to help with vintage as part of my work experience when I was 14,” Perry said. “That was that. I never thought of doing anything else.” Or perhaps she didn’t have time to think of anything else. Since her first stint in the vineyard Perry has been hooked, working back-to-back vintages across the past 12 years, both at home in Margaret River and in some incredible locations abroad. Studying Oenology by correspondence through Charles Sturt University, Perry had the rare opportunity to “travel, study and do vintages” all at the same time. “I’ve lost count of how many Margaret River vintages I’ve completed, but it feels like 1000,” Perry said. Her long list of accomplishments include seven years in Spain, where Perry managed two wineries (Bodegas Vina Nora and Pazos del Rey) and consulted to vineyards in the Canary Islands. Team that with 10 vintages in France and a couple across America, New Zealand and New South Wales, and you would be hard pressed to find a young winemaker who could compete with those numbers. “Most of the vintages have been back-to-back, northern versus southern hemisphere,” Perry said. “Put it simply, I don’t reckon I saw a spring for 12 years straight.” Miraculously finding time between travelling the world for vintages, Perry, together with her husband Jim and on top of their commitments that go with two children, created two wine business – Perryscope and Dormilona. Through Perryscope, Perry shares her extensive knowledge and advice on winemaking, blending, marketing and vineyard development to the wine industry while also operating as a boutique winemaking facility. “Perryscope allows growers with small unique parcels of fruit to create stunning handcrafted wines with flexibility while focusing on quality.”

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AHEAD OF THE GAME: Jo Perry in her boutique Margaret River winery.

Perry took her own advice in 2012, using her boutique winery to start up a natural wine label – Dormilona Wines. Dormilona – which is Spanish slang for ‘lazy bones’ was conceived by Perry in 2011, while she was travelling through Spain. “You say it to someone when they have gone to bed early, or gotten up late,” Perry said. “It was my nickname in Spain because I liked to go to bed around 9pm, so I could get up early and surf. It’s become the name for my style of winemaking, which is no interference, and laid back.” Perry set up Dormilona with the intention of making small batch, natural wines from fruit she and Jim source from organic and biodynamically-managed vineyards across Western Australia. “Jim is a viticulturist and he looks after many vineyards statewide,” Perry said. “He’s my eyes out there and is able to find me the best parcels of fruit. We want something sustainable, which is also expressive of the vineyards where we get the fruit from.” Allowing the fruit to direct the winemaking process is the key to natural wines, according to Perry. “There’s no point in adding anything when you’ve got this amazing fruit coming in,” she said. “It’s easier to see where the fruit wants to go when it’s organic and you’re not doing much to it.” “To put it simply, the wines are pure and beautifully created with loads of love and attention, so no finings nor filtration and only minimal use of sulphur at bottling.”

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Since Dormilona’s conception, Perry has been breaking boundaries in the popular natural wine movement and people are noticing. She was nominated for the 2013 Young Gun of Wine and walked away with the best new act award. Judges acknowledged her natural philosophy towards winemaking, describing it as “thinking outside the box”; “so ahead of the curve” and “the real deal”. Perry said organic, biodynamic and natural wines have always been around but have taken off over the past five years which might be related to the ‘clean-living’ movement. “I think it’s because people are more interested and educated on what is in their food and drink,” Perry said. “I feel natural wines are simplistically made to be the best expression of the site, the vintage and the variety so I reckon the movement will continue to grow in the future.” For those looking to embark on a career in winemaking, Perry said her best advice would be to always remember the basics. “Use your senses; touch, feel, smell, see and taste,” she said. “It’s very important to feel the moisture in soil, hold a bunch

of grapes, see the tops of ferments as well as taste and smell everything in-between.” Practising what she preaches, Perry creates her Dormilona wines with very little influence from equipment. “It can be stressful,” she said. “I don’t have the laboratory equipment to check TA and pH levels, so I have to use my palate as my laboratory. If I think something is wrong, I can send it to the lab to get it checked, but I truly believe winemaking is all about your senses, rather than just the chemistry behind it.” When Perry’s not building her empire, the self-confessed gypsy takes full advantage of the iconic swell at Margaret River naming surfing as one of her favourite hobbies. “I also love hanging out with my two kids at the beach and having a hit of tennis,” she said. Admitting she rarely finds the time to indulge in those activities, Perry said her energy has recently been focused on the current vintage and producing tasty wines for people to enjoy. “We are all about the pursuit of creating amazing quality wines,” Perry said.

Less wine companies THE NUMBER of Australian wine companies has reduced for first time in three decades. There are 90 fewer compared to a year ago, according to the 33rd edition of The Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Directory. The latest edition of the directory lists 2,481 commercial Australian wine companies, down from peak numbers in 2014. Although more than 100 new wine businesses emerged in the past 12 months, almost 200 went out of business, were absorbed into another existing company, dropped wine production to focus on grapegrowing or requested that their details were not listed. The directory shows a net loss of 92 companies. “The net loss in the number of wine companies isn’t entirely indicative of the overall health of the Australian wine industry, which saw an increase in domestic sales of wine the past year,” said Michael Major, Wine Industry Directory editor. “Prior to this year the number of companies listed had been doubling every decade. The 620 companies in 1990 had almost doubled by 2000 (to 1,197) and in the next decade more than doubled to 2,420 in 2010,” Major said. “While the rate of growth has slowed, in the past 10 years the Directory has seen an average net gain of 58 wine producers per year. “We did see a number of companies go out of business, others merged with larger companies while some companies dropped their wine production and focussed only on grapegrowing.” In 2015 Victoria has the greatest number of wine producers with 745 listed, compared with 703 in South Australia, 469 in NSW/ACT, 366 in WA, 113 in Tasmania and 85 in Queensland. Australian wine producers used 153 grape varieties were used to produce straight varietal or blended wines. The 2015 directory is celebrating 33 years in print, dating back to 1983 when industry statistics, winery contact details and industry suppliers were compiled for the first time. The 596-page 2015 directory includes a comprehensive listing of wine producers, grapegrowers, suppliers, distributors, retailers, universities and education facilities, writers, wine publications, organisations, events and wine shows and industry personnel. The directory is available from Winetitles for A$113.85 in Australia/New Zealand and A$175.00 overseas. (All April 2015 – Issue 615

prices include postage and include a subscription to the online search engine). Copies can be ordered online at www.winebiz.com.au, via email orders@winetitles.com.au, or with a phone call to +61 8 8369 9509.

For further information, please contact Kauri AUS Tel: 1800 127 611 AUS Fax: 1800 127 609 Email: winery@kauri.co.nz

www.winebiz.com.au

NZ Tel: 0800 KAURIWINE NZ Fax: 04 910 7415 Website: www.kauriwine.com

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10 questions with... Stuart Barclay AS WINE Australia’s general manager, market development, Stuart Barclay has a wealth of experience behind him spanning 17 years. Although based in Sydney, Stuart began working in the UK trade with Wine Rack before moving to Australia where he has spent the past 12 years. Barclay was recently in the UK and Ireland for the Australia Day tasting and annual trade tasting in Ireland.

Before joining Wine Australia, Barclay was the Woolworths Liquor Group’s head buyer for direct wine businesses. An accomplished wine professional, he has more than 16 years’ experience in the UK and Australian wine industries and a strong background in wine product management having 10 years’ senior management experience at the Cellarmasters Group.

When he was appointed to his Wine Australia position in late 2014, Barclay said he was looking forward to “supporting the Australian grape and wine sector on a path to sustained prosperity”. These 10 questions were first published by Wine Australia (the marketing branch of the Australian Grape and Wine Authority) on its UK and Europe corporate website.

Q What attracted you to the industry? SB I started working in Wine Rack and onwards and upwards from there. Q Sum up Australian wine in three words? SB Stunning, value and quality. Q If you were a wine variety, what would you be and why? SB Riesling - Cold, steely with a roundness to the body. Q How do you unwind after a working day? SB I unwind after a working day by relaxing with my wife and or friends and having a glass of Australian Riesling or Chardonnay. Q What’s your proudest moment in the wine industry? SB Getting the call to lead the MD team for Wine Australia. Q Complete the sentence…. “Australian wine is …” SB ...a very special place in winemaking globally, producing some of the world’s most exceptional wines while having the ability to cater for many different consumer styles and price points. Q Where is your favourite place to drink wine? SB Sitting in my backyard on the northern beaches of Sydney hearing the crashing waves of Whale Beach. Q What is the best thing you’ve toasted a glass of Australian wine over? SB At the recent Tourism Australia function at the Violin Factory where we toasted the quality and depth of expression of Australian Wine in the presence of Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall. Q What will people be surprised to learn about you? SB I am a Pom. Q What edge does Australian wine have over other categories? SB Australia benefits from having 65 different regions all producing very unique wines and styles. It has 24 regions cooler than Bordeaux so Australia is incredibly rich in its ability to produce cool climate wines of extremely high calibre that equals and exceeds the wines from many other fine wine regions of the world. GET TO KNOW: Stuart Barclay, Wine Australia’s general manager for market development.

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sales & marketing

The Yellow Tail story: How two families turned an Australia product into America’s biggest wine brand

CASELLA FAMILY: Joe, John and Daniel Casella at the family’s Yenda winery, in the NSW Riverina.

Adam Teeter is the co-founder of VinePair and has spent the past nine years of his life obsessed with wine and trying to remove the elitism often associated with the industry. Adam is a winner of the Left Bank Bordeaux Cup American Wine-Tasting Championship. And when not obsessing over wine, he has served in marketing strategy roles for startups including Shutterstock, Tablet Magazine, and JDub Records. In this article, Teeter provides a look back at the rise of Yellow Tail, as seen from his viewpoint in the US. IN 1992, Australian wine accounted for only around three per cent of all imported wine to the United States, with Italy and France continuing to hold a tight grip on the market at 30 and 50 per cent respectively. Wine from Australia was a relative novelty. Collectors knew of the country’s top-tier wines, but besides this, little Australian wine was on the shelves, and awareness from consumers was next to nothing. But only 10 years later, Australian wine was on its way to capturing 20 per cent of the US import market, and the entire reason for this was the emergence of the wine brand Yellow Tail. The fact that Yellow Tail has only been on the market for about 14 years is probably very surprising to US consumers who came of drinking age in the early 2000s. In only a short amount of time, the wine became synonymous with affordable consumption. For most individuals who started to drink during this time, Yellow Tail was probably one of, if not the first, wine they consumed. Displays dominated wine sections – big-box retailers like Sam’s Club and Costco had massive shelf talkers with images April 2015 – Issue 615

of the yellow wallaby that were hard to miss – the bottle’s bright colours and bold marketing standing out against a sea of traditional labels. And once the cork was popped, it was insanely accessible, almost too easy to drink. If you were new to wine and didn’t yet feel a bottle warranted more than a Hamilton, there was a good chance you bought Yellow Tail and you were probably pretty pleased.

YELLOW TAIL BROUGHT AUSTRALIAN WINE TO AMERICAN BIG-BOX RETAILERS All of this was completely by design… the accessibility, the flavour profile, and of course, the market dominance. Yellow Tail’s success was based on appealing to a consumer who was new to wine, and delivering a flavour profile they immediately enjoyed. Whether that flavour profile was indicative of the natural tastes of wine, or was engineered to suit the CocaCola tastes of the American consumer is up for debate, but it certainly allowed the brand to achieve the title of one of the fastest-growing brands in history.

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But while that growth made a lot of money for a lot of people and exposed millions of people to Australian wine, there are critics who argue this same brand ultimately undermined Australian wine sales abroad – an accusation Yellow Tail’s winemaker has fired back at – and that the industry is only now beginning to recover.

AN AUSTRALIAN AMERICAN COLLABORATION Deutsch Family Wine and Spirits – a company that has annual revenues of over $450 million – has introduced and marketed a range of wine brands to the US consumer – they’re the same company that made the Beaujolais brand Georges Duboeuf a massive hit in the US – and in the late 90s, they were looking for their next big thing. “We’d been selling French wine in America for 20 years, and we were looking for a place to play in the sub $10 market,” said Peter Deutsch, CEO of DFWS. “At this price level we realised consumers were looking for a wine that was extremely ripe in flavour, fruit forward, with very easy to no tannins and a pleasant finish. We couldn’t generate this kind of wine at the sub $10 price level out of France, so we decided to look to Australia.”

DELIVERING MAXIMUM FLAVOR IN EVERY SIP Australia in 2001 was just beginning to have a larger profile on the American market, especially when it came to bargain wines. On the lower end, the market leader was Lindeman’s, and that is against whom Deutsch wanted to directly compete. “We determined wine at this price point from Australia just tasted better than from other regions,” said Deutsch. “So we decided we wanted to get involved in the Aussie business and deliver the best bottle of wine on the market for six bucks.” To do so, they reached out to the Australian Trade Commission

78 Grapegrower & Winemaker

and let them know they were looking to develop an Australian wine for the American market, if there were any winemakers interested, let them know. Halfway around the world, a family of Italian immigrants from Sicily, the Casellas, had been working a small 16-hectare (39.5-acre) vineyard in Australia since the 1960s, mostly operating as bulk grape suppliers to other wineries. John Casella had recently taken the business over from his parents and he too wanted to get involved in the American market – very little Yellow Tail is actually consumed in Australia – but not as a bulk grape seller, with his own brand. Casella reached out to the Australian Trade Commission and was connected to Deutsch. What the families worked out was a 50/50 joint venture and together they would create a new brand which would ultimately be called Yellow Tail. The Casella family brought their desirable Australian wine, and the partners had a penchant for marketing, not to mention their incredible US distribution network, one that most start-up brands could never dream of having access to.

GIVING CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY ACTUALLY WANT In order to succeed in the US, Yellow Tail had to be easy to understand. “The thinking was to create a certain level of simplicity. We wanted to give the consumers what they wanted,” said Deutsch. This meant creating a wine that went down as easily as grape juice. According to Deutsch, “when a wine is under $10 most consumers don’t want to fight with it”. “They want something fruit forward, that’s ripe, delicious and soft on the palate. So many wines from established regions tell the consumer what they should like, but we just wanted to give them what they wanted.” There have been reports that to achieve this desired taste,

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April 2015 – Issue 615

We did some testing and the label came back with mixed results, people didn’t like the animal on it. But we took the risk because it was completely different. That risk turned out to be a home run. Yellow Tail actually engineers the wine to appeal to a broad cross section of American wine drinkers. Whether or not this is the case, this sort of flavour profile engineering is extremely common throughout the wine industry, from bargain wines all the way up to $100-plus cult wines – though no one likes to talk about it at the high end. The claim by some is that Yellow Tail removes the aspects of wine many people can find off-putting – tannins and acidity. Deutsch didn’t directly address this claim, but he reiterated Yellow Tail’s desire to deliver the flavour profile their consumer is looking for, which is more candid than many wine brands are willing to be. “There is no question that the American consumer is locked in to very fruit forward styles of wines. It’s in concert with people growing up drinking juice and Coke. Look at Starbucks, it is all about delivering maximum flavour in every sip.” In addition to delivering maximum flavour, the brand also sought to distinguish itself in packaging. Prior to Yellow Tail’s debut, most wine packaging was fairly traditional and many consumers mentioned it was hard to remember the exact bottle they had enjoyed after drinking it. To solve this problem and stand out, Yellow Tail created packaging with a bright yellow wallaby in the centre of the label and neon coloured bars to distinguish different grape varietals. If you enjoyed Cabernet Sauvignon, you bought the bottle with the red label, yellow if you liked Shiraz and orange if you were in the mood for Merlot. “We did some testing and the label came back with mixed results, people didn’t like the animal on it,” said Deutsch. “But we took the risk because it was completely different. That risk turned out to be a home run.” The brand built on the Aussie stereotype of being laid back and carefree, and the messaging worked.

COPYCAT CRITTERS With Yellow Tail’s massive success came copycats. “In 2001 you couldn’t find an animal on a bottle of wine, now you walk in to a wine shop and it looks like the Bronx Zoo,” says Deutsch. But all of these new animal wines meant many other Australian producers also rushed to make a play for the sub $10 wine category that Yellow Tail had ignited, and in many ways that began to impact the impression many people had for the country’s wines. By 2005, the country had become known as a massive producer of cheap wine – plonk – and its import percentage began to slip. In 2012 only 10 per cent of the wine America imported came from Australia, a loss of half the country’s market share in only seven years. Currently Yellow Tail sits as the second largest wine brand in the US having lost the first position to Barefoot a few years ago, but the brand continues to think of ways to grow and expand. “The future for Yellow Tail is finding ways to expand user experiences,” said Deutsch. “Today we don’t have a portable format, and we need to identify one in order to allow our consumers to take our product more places.” It’s not crazy to think that a canned wine might be in the brand’s future.

YELLOW TAIL OPERATIONS In 2001, when Yellow Tail debuted, the wine sold 200,000 cases. The following year, it sold 2.2 million. Currently the brand sells eight million cases a year in the US alone. The reason for this success, Deutsch says, isn’t just nailing the specific flavour profile American consumers are after, or creating what turned out to be dynamic packaging. In his mind, it all has to do with the six P’s he and his father Bill have always believed in when it comes to building great brands. People; Product; Price; Packaging; Promotion; and Potential. Potential here was the key, although the brand clearly delivered on the other five P’s – if it couldn’t scale fast, and deliver the same product at eight million cases as it did at 200,000, the brand may never have become as influential as it did. April 2015 – Issue 615

For further information, please contact Kauri AUS Tel: 1800 127 611 AUS Fax: 1800 127 609 Email: winery@kauri.co.nz

www.winebiz.com.au

NZ Tel: 0800 KAURIWINE NZ Fax: 04 910 7415 Website: www.kauriwine.com

Grapegrower & Winemaker

sales & marketing

Reducing injuries during changeovers Everybody recognises there are OHS risks associated with lifting heavy change parts – it can be dangerous. There is a responsibility to keep personnel safe. And one way to reduce these risks may be the manufacture of lightweight change parts. Reducing the weight involves alternative materials and design changes, determined through many hours of research and development. “It is not unusual for us to be able to reduce the weight of scrolls, guides or star wheels, from between 30 and 50 per cent which is remarkable really,” said Peter Hetherington, from Alternative Engineering. Star wheels, guides and feed screws are all key components of wine bottle filling, capping and labelling line equipment. And lighter weight parts means that reduced numbers of people required to carry out a changeover; one person can safely and easily manage the role. “Some of our clients are changing perfectly functioning machine parts for lightweight change parts purely and simply from an OHS point of view. They recognise how much safer it is and how easy it is for them to reduce the risks for their staff,” said Hetherington. Because the change parts are designed and produced in a 3D format, it is possible to determine how much the new change part will weigh prior to manufacture. The added bonus is that changeovers can be quicker and keep machinery operating to higher efficiencies and capacity. Carts for parts can also be sourced, which allows change parts to be stored in an organised and easy to access place. This

helps to further reduce the danger of accidents and damage by ensuring the change parts are stored safely. If OHS and the wellbeing of your personnel is something that concerns you then maybe a bit of a closer look at lightweight change parts would be recommended? For more information, contact Alternative Engineering P: 1300 558 220 E: sales@alternativeengineering.com.au

Bedford Phoenix is a major supplier of services to the Wine Industry in South Australia. » » » » » » » » »

Precise Labelling and De-Labelling Over Labelling Medal Application Neck Tagging Hooding Clean Skin Precision Labelling Gift and Promotional Packing Short-Term Storage Tax Bonded Facilities

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April 2015 – Issue 615

calendar Australia & New Zealand

looking back

April 15-19 Barossa Vintage Festival Various Barossa venues, SA. www. barossavintagefestival.com.au 15 Yalumba Festival Garden Angaston, SA. www.yalumbafestivalgarden.com 16 The Barossa Grand Cellar Dinner Chateau Tanunda, Tanunda, SA. www.baronsofbarossa.com

25 April-3 May Daylesford Macedon Produce Harvest Week Festival 2015 Daylesford & surrounds, VIC. www.dmproduce.com.au 28-29 (JD) Langhorne Creek Wine Show Langhorne Creek, SA. www.langhornecreek.com

16 Climate, Soil & Topography & their Influence on Wine Flavour. Barossa Valley & Eden Valley, SA. www.barossa.com

May 1-31 Aussie Wine Month 2015 Australia Wide. www.wineaustralia.com 1-3 Food Show Christchurch Christchurch, NZ. www.foodshow.co.nz 2-3 Bickley Harvest Festival Bickley Valley, WA. www.bickleyharvestfestival.com 2 Campbells Bobbie Burns Dinner Rutherglen, VIC. www.campbellswines.com.au 2-3 Grampians Grape Escape - The Food & Wine Festival. Halls Gap, VIC. www.grampiansgrapeescape.com.au

2-3 Kellybrook Cider Festival Wonga Park, VIC. www.kellybrookwinery.com.au 2-3 YarraFest Healesville, VIC. www.wineyarravalley.com.au 7-9 Agfest Field Days Carrick, TAS. www.agfest.com.au 8-9 Riverina Field Days Griffith, NSW. www.riverinafielddays.com 14-17 Noosa International Food & Wine Festival. Noosa Heads, QLD. www. noosafoodandwine.com.au

International April 15-20 Arvinis 2015 Morges, Switzerland. www.arvinis.ch 15-18 Food & Hotel Indonesia 2015 Jakarta, Indonesia. www.pamerindo.com

15-18 Vietfood & Beverage Vietnam Exhibition & Fair Centre, Vietnam. www.foodexvietnam.com 15-17 Wine and Gourmet Japan Tokyo, Japan. www.wineinternationalltd.com

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. April 1985 The price of personal or micro-computers has fallen dramatically in recent years, enabling the benefits of electronic dataprocessing to be available to small wineries. Computer hobbyists (“hackers”) can now purchase a simple computer system for seven hundred dollars and begin programming it for their needs. Of particular relevance, however, is the fact that some software winery programs are now available, and can be operated by personal with only minimal training. This allows the small wineries to have for the first time, a wide range of information available for use from the one source.

April 1995 Grapegrowers and winemakers in McLaren Vale, South Australia have agreed to the introduction of a voluntary levy on the local industry to help pay for a major promotional push of the region. The levy was totally supported at a meeting of over 100 local growers and winemakers in February. It will raise between $30,000 and $60,000 annually over the next two vintages, with the option for its continued collection after two years should other worthwhile promotional projects be identified. David Dean, the McLaren Vale wine industry development manager for the Southern Development board said the money raised will go towards a broad promotion of the region with particular emphasis on Wine Australia ’96.

April 2005

May 1-3 (JD) Concours Mondial de Bruxelles Jesolo, Italy. www.concoursmondial.com

3-6 TUTTOFOOD Milan, Italy. www.tuttofood.it

1-3 Eat! Vancouver Food & Cooking Festival. Vancouver, Canada. www.eatvancouver.com

5-7 Salón de la Alimentación Spain. www.feriavalladolid.com

1-3 Niagara Food & Wine Expo Ontario, Canada. www.niagarafoodandwine.ca

12-15 Seoul Food 2015 Seoul, South Korea. www.seoulfood.or.kr JD = judging date

The Australian wine industry has expressed extreme disappointment to an announcement by the Australian Government to discontinue the countervailing duty on bulk imported brandy. Chair of the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia Brandy Committee, John Angove, said the decision put at risk the $108million Australian brandy industry and that the continuation of the countervailing duty on bulk brandy from France is critical to the existence of a viable Australian brandy industry.

For a comprehensive list of events, visit www.winebiz.com.au/calendar April 2015 – Issue 615

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FIND YOUR SUPPLIER QUICKLY WITH OUR April 2015 Advertiser List Supplier

Page

Supplier

Page

Agnova

Mait Industries

A P John Coopers

MEP Instruments

AIRAH

MGA Insurance Brokers

Alternative Engineering

New Holland

AMSL Scientific

New Zealand Frost Fans

Aust Wine Industry Technical Conference 2016

New Zealand Tube Mills

BA Group Australia

Ocloc

Braud Australia

Omnia Specialities Australia

Bruce Gilbert Vine Grafting

Phoenix Society of South Australia

Cableties

Rapidfil

CASE IH

Rola Engineering

Charta Packaging New Zealand

Rowe Scientific

Coonawarra properties For Sale (Takali)

Ryset (Aust)

Crop Care

Spagnolo Engineering

Crown Sheet Metal New Zealand

Stoller Australia

Della Toffola Pacific

Streamline Cartons

Drummuster

Suber Lefort Group

Eclipse Enterprises Australia

Taylors Engineering (Blenheim) NZ

Fischer Australis

Thorn-Clarke Wines - Labelling machine for sale

FMR Group

Tuckaway Engineering

Graphic Language Design

Vine Industry Nursery Association (VINA)

Groguard Australia

Vinewright

IMCD Australia

Whitlands Engineering

JMA Engineering

WineTech 2015

65, 75, 79

Wood-Shield

Kriesl & Co

Yale Forklifts

Ledgard Pruning

Kauri Australia

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AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND GRAPEGROWER & WINEMAKER *Australia's largest circulation wine industry trade magazine celebrating more than 50 years of publication. *Now available online to all subscribers. *All Marketplace adverts also appear on Winebiz Classifieds * For advertising enquiries please call Chas Barter on 08 8369 9513, c.barter@winetitles.com.au

Winebiz Calendar

Australia’s most comprehensive list of wine industry related local and international events and courses – available online FREE! Search for conferences, trade shows, competitions, courses, festivals & Australian & international wine shows.

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This could be your Classy and Convenient part of Coonawarra!! This Bed and breakfast property consists of 2 mirror imaged homes that are First Class and very convenient to the main street of the Popular Penola and Coonawarra Winery Region and is a popular tourist and stop off town in the South East. These two properties have 2 Queen size bedrooms downstairs, with the main King mezzanine bedroom, with ensuite and walk-in robe, upstairs. Open living area incorporating lounge and dining and a very upmarket kitchen. No one will want to leave the spacious bathroom with a spa bath. Ducted air conditioning and paved area out back for the sunny BBQ’s. Plenty of options here, use both as bed and breakfast properties, or live in one and utilise the other as a B & B or private rental.

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Bruce Gilbert 0428 233 544 Brian Phillips 0417 131 764 fax 03 5025 2321

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Marketplace

Chas Barter on (08) 8369 9513 or

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April 2015 – Issue 615

Grapegrower & Winemaker

POWERFUL. 95% reduction processing time* 83% reduction in power consumption* 23% reduction in wine losses* 21% reduction in labour requirements* *Roget, W. Benchmarking a continuous tartrate stabilisation system. Australian & New Zealand Grapegrower & Winemaker (585): p. 106; 2012.

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