MAPPING THE FUTURE
Adopting viticulture AgTech WORLD CUP
what’s ONLINE
NZ’s Robotics Plus showcases autonomous vehicle in the US
A New Zealand-based agritech company has showcased its autonomous, multi-use, hybrid vehicle in the United States. Robotics Plus was at FIRA USA, a three-day event for autonomous farming and agricultural robotics solutions, held in Woodland - Sacramento, California. The agritech company was there to promote Prospr, a vehicle designed to carry out a variety of vineyard and orchard crop tasks more efficiently and sustainably while reducing reliance on labour. Prospr was launched last year at FIRA and Robotics Plus said it was already transforming vineyard and orchard operations in the US, Australia and New Zealand.
Source: NZ Herald
The ups and downs of Salena’s sale
A 5c on the dollar return for unsecured creditors of Salena Estate, in the wake of the winery’s sale, is “another devastating blow” for the Riverland wine industry, according to senior local politicians. In late October, Salena Estate creditors approved a sale of the vineyards, winery properties and equipment to an entity associated with China’s Tianyu Wool. However, Chaffey MP Tim Whetstone said a reported return of 5c on the dollar for unsecured creditors would have negative economic effects on the surrounding community.
“It’s a changing of the guard for what has been a good Riverland business,” Whetstone said. “But I want to make sure the new ownership does provide some certainty for the area… we’ve got to make sure that asset can be used to the benefit of the region.” Source: Murray Pioneer
Betting on white wine, Misha’s Vineyard returns to Hong Kong
Riding on the growth wave of white wine, Misha’s Vineyard from New Zealand has made a strategic return to Hong Kong. Misha Wilkinson, one of the founders and leaders of this family business, highlights the rising trend of white wine consumption in Hong Kong – and China more broadly. “If you look at the statistics across China and Hong Kong, more people are choosing white wine,” Misha said, noting that local food preferences influence the growing trend. “A lot of seafood is eaten, and white wine is a better wine match.” Source: Vino Joy News
Daily Wine News is a snapshot of wine business, research and marketing content gleaned from local and international wine media sources, with a focus on Australian news and content.
In this issue
“The results of these studies have been quite consistent and clearly indicate that high intakes of alcohol are detrimental to health. This is not disputed. However, at low levels of intake alcohol appears to have both positive and negative effects on health. The risk for coronary heart disease is lowered while the risk for cancer is increased and this is where the controversy lies.”
Bill Shrapnel, page 19
“Anything that we’ve planted in the past 50 years is on rootstock. There’s no reason not to, and lots of reasons to. If you have a good match of rootstock and vinifera variety, the grapes will be as good as own roots and often better, with more reliable and consistent crops and more resilient in the face of our changing climate.”
Louisa Rose, page 28
“The end of year party provides an opportunity to reward employees, strengthen team bonds, and reflect on the year’s successes. However, these celebrations can sometimes lead to business headaches if not properly managed. When there is a party atmosphere and especially when alcohol is involved, people lose their inhibitions and common sense. They behave in a way they never would when in their regular work environment, whether they have been drinking or not.”
Linda Blackett, page 64
“While the export figures to mainland China are very positive, the impact on total export value is much larger than volume due to the premium price point of most wine entering the market. As such, this increase is unlikely to reduce the oversupply of red winegrapes in the warm inland regions.
Peter Bailey, page 8
& Winemaker looks
WINEMAKING
REGULARS
6 What’s online
6 In this issue
7 Winetitles Insights
International briefs 20 R&D @ Work
44 Ask the AWRI
82 Producer Profile: Rob Diletti
83 Looking Back
83 Calendar
85 Marketplace classifieds
8 FEATURE Shipments to mainland China boost Australian wine export volume and value to three-year high
11 Global wine trade unites in Adelaide to build international success
12 Henschke lauded as ‘Best Fine Wine Producer in the Rest of the World’ at Golden Vines awards in Spain
14 Halliday Wine Companion reveals Australia’s top 100 wineries
15 ACCC decision paves the way for Accolade Wines-Pernod Ricard merger
16 Reinforcing reds: WA wine wins best in show at Great Australian Shiraz Challenge
18 MY VIEW Alcohol and cancer risk: it’s complicated GRAPEGROWING
24 125 years for Vinehealth Australia
30 FEATURE Digital viticulture in the Canberra District
32 Blaufränkisch heritage with style and substance
38 Young Guns Ben Mullen and Ben Hine
46 FEATURE Wine analytical services –options for control
48 BEHIND THE TOP DROPS Giant Steps Applejack Vineyard Pinot Noir 2023
50 One Sector – a suggested paradigm shift
54 McLaren Vale winemakers royally rewarded for “benchmark” Grenache
56 Wine community ‘lynchpin’ awarded Legend of the Vine status
BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
60 Special Feature: AWRI Annual Report
64 FEATURE Staying jolly: A guide to managing work party risks
67 Top wine industry accolades announced
69 FEATURE Empowering success through market diversification
72 Trade minister visits TWE office in China to discuss collaboration SALES & MARKETING
73 Evolution in grape and wine production in Argentina vs Australia
81 Architecture sets SA winery apart at international awards
Cover: The December Grapegrower
at preparing for the coming vintage. Our cover features Applejack Vineyard in the Yarra Valley, the focus of this month’s Behind the Top Drops.
Blaufränkisch heritage with style and substance
Austria is the home country of Blaufränkisch, a complex and idiosyncratic winegrape variety with deep roots in the central European landscape. Mark Smith recently visited several producers of the variety to learn how a combination of tradition and innovation are shaping its future.
US writer and intellectual Gore Vidal was once asked to explain his success as an award-winning novelist.
“It’s all a matter of style,” he asserted.
“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”
It’s good advice if you dare to take it. The reality is most of us follow the herd, suggests Austrian winemaker and PR executive Dorli Muhr.
How else do you explain the wine culture that developed in Austria in the wake of the diethyline glycol scandal¹ of the 1980s?
“People believed you could only have red wine success with international varieties;
with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah,” Muhr says.
“Copy Bordeaux. No-one trod their own path to turn pure Blaufränkisch into a top wine.
Okay, it would have had a different colour and different aroma; high acidity and lots of tannins. Never easy drinking; never ever Bordeaux.”
Yet it could be world-class: aromatic, vibrant, stylish. Muhr has proved that over 20 years of winemaking. The heritage variety accounts for 80 percent of her vines.
“I’m passionate about Blaufränkisch’s freshness and intensity,” she muses.
Less appealing are its viticultural challenges: early budbreak; late-ripening;
Burgenland holds 90 percent of Austria’s Blaufränkisch. Image courtesy of Burgenland Tourismus GmbH/Andreas Hafenscher
Blaufränkisch wine producer, Dorli Muhr. Image courtesy Anna Söcher
There were big differences in flavour, too. I didn’t know it at the time but that was my introduction to vineyard terroir.
Dorli Muhr
susceptibility to spring frosts; coulure or poor fruit set at flowering. Botrytis seldom runs rampant but powdery and downy mildew risks are ever-present.
Soft pruning, shoot removal, bunch thinning and hand-picking are all tested by Blaufränkisch’s capacity to set big crops and retain high levels of natural acidity.
Muhr’s base is the village of Prellenkirchen in Carnuntum, 60km southeast of Vienna. She was born and raised in the region, one of Austria’s 18 specified DAC wine appellations².
“My family were hard-working farmers,” Muhr notes.
“Wine was just a beverage, often mixed with water when my parents went into the field.”
In the late ’80s, Muhr travelled, then took up work and study as a translator and interpreter. She returned home a victim of the wine bug.
Inheriting a 0.17ha plot of land in 1996 turned interest into engagement. The small-holding overlooked Prellenkichen on a modest, southerly slope called the Spitzerberg.
In earlier times, it held a vineyard, gifted to her grandmother Katharina Muhr on the occasion of her marriage in 1918.
Vines struggled in the harsh conditions: incessant wind; meagre rainfall; shallow soils over limestone. Muhr remembers childhood visits there.
“The site became badly eroded over the years,” she recalls.
“When the vineyard was first planted, its vines – and the wires that supported them – were about about 60cm from ground. Within five or six decades, there was so much erosion that the grapes lay on the ground at one end of the slope. Meanwhile, 200 metres away in the same row, the bunches were well out of the reach of an 8 year-old.
“There were big differences in flavour, too. I didn’t know it at the time but that was my introduction to vineyard terroir.”
While still building her communications and marketing business (Wine & Partners), Muhr made plans to rejuvenate the vineyard ‘for melancholic reasons.’ Winemaking followed five years of repair, re-planting and negotiation of long-term leases among neighbouring vineyards.
Her inaugural 2002 harvest was shared with then-husband Dirk van der Niepoort. Part of a Port-producing family from Portugal, he was a maverick winemaker, keen to add fresh, elegant whites and reds to Duoro Valley fortified wine production.
Blaufränkisch encourages free spirits.
Roland Velich (Weingut Moric) and Uwe Schiefer (Weinbau Schiefer) followed their noses and palates to heritage vineyards in Burgenland, south of Carnuntum. Burgenland holds 90 percent of Austria’s Blaufränkisch.
The variety’s long history of cultivation across central Europe ensured nearby Hungary was also investigated. Tracking it down could be elusive. Blaufränkisch has 109 recognised synonyms³. Hungarians use Kékfrankos, but Nagyburgundi (‘big Burgundy’) works too.
“I didn’t know Roland and Uwe early on but we had a lot in common,” Muhr says.
Agriculture and viticulture sit side-by-side. Jois in the Leithaberg DAC produces Blaufränkisch with elegance and finesse. Image courtesy Burgenland Tourismus GmbH/Peter Podpera
Giant Steps Applejack Vineyard
Pinot Noir 2023
Earlier this year, Giant Steps was named Winery of the Year by the Halliday Wine Companion, marking the second time running that the winery collected the title. Garnering an ever-growing reputation for its coolclimate wines produced in the Yarra Valley, the winery has received much praise for its tipples in recent months, most notably its 2023 Applejack Vineyard Pinot Noir, which raked in an astonishing 98 points from the Halliday Wine Companion, and which winemaker Melanie Chester tells us is her mum’s favourite, which she describes as “the best accolade I can hope for”.
Tell us about your Pinot vines, how much of your production is focused on this variety?
Pinot is about 45% of our total production, but at Applejack vineyard the site is predominantly planted to Pinot Noir with only 15% planted to Chardy.
Now to the Applejack Vineyard specifically, what defines this site?
They key things to the Applejack vineyard is elevation, aspect and how sheltered it is. This site sits at 300m above sea level at the highest point tucked into the eastern facing hillside in the Upper Yarra district of Gladysdale. It faces the morning sun, for gentle early exposure but we are protected to the south and west by the temperate rainforest, which also has a cooling affect in the arvo. The little valley its in is also very still – statistically one of the least windy places in Victoria - warm and gentle conditions for Pinot.
Do these vines present any particular challenges?
The Upper Yarra is a pretty tough place during spring – we can get gnarly storms and tough conditions for flowering and disease pressure. You have to be diligent with your spray programs, but our clay soils aren’t always easy and forgiving on tractors after heavy rainfall and storms! A resilient and dedicated team in the vineyard is the only way through it!
When was the first Applejack Vineyard Pinot Noir made and released?
Our first release was in 2010 and released in early 2011 before we owned the site when we bought the grapes from the Guerin family. We purchased the vineyard in 2012.
Has there been much adjustment to the winemaking inputs since then?
Our winemaking is simple and doesn’t require many inputs – we add sulphur always and in some cases some acid but otherwise its not a lot of trickery. I think the biggest change since then has been
Crafted
continual improvement in viticultural management and vine and soil health resulting in better fruit as the vines age.
What was the original intention for the wine from a style perspective?
The Giant Steps wines have always been a perfumed and textured style. But our main aim is to express vineyard sites through the wine – we don’t wrestle with the site characters but instead work with them to express the best of the vineyard. This vineyard naturally lends itself to a high proportion of whole bunch and its super aromatic and savoury, so we’re mindful of that when we put the final blend together each year. But the personality and voice of the vineyard is pretty strong – it just falls together.
Describe the current winemaking process that brings the wine to fruition, from picking through to bottling:
From grape to bottle is obviously only half of the process and honestly is the least important half. The viticulture is the hardest piece to get right. Our spray program is tight and well thought out. We are doing three to four wire lifts a year, managing the undervine and midrow organically where possible, doing two shoot thinning passes and at least one crop thinning passes (sometimes 3 in the Abel clone!). We leaf pluck eastern facing side of the canopy heading into Christmas. Every row is netted as soon as
Melanie Chester
Behind the Top Drops
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Evolution in grape and wine production in Argentina vs Australia
By Germán Pugaᵃ and Kym Andersonᵇ
Introduction
Australia and Argentina are two of the major non-European wine-producing and exporting countries – together with Chile, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States. In recent years Argentina has been the world’s seventh-largest in terms of both vineyard area and wine production; Australia ranks lower in vineyard area but has been the world’s fifth largest wine producer, well behind the US and just slightly ahead of Chile and Argentina (OIV, 2024).
This article reports results drawn from two new annual databases focused on viticultural developments this century in Australia (Anderson and Puga, 2023a) and Argentina (Anderson and Puga, 2024a), plus the latest update of the global wine markets database by Anderson and Pinilla (2024). The first two include detailed annual data from the start of this century and provide several indicators based on winegrape area, production, and price data by variety for all Australian regions and all Argentinian grape-producing counties.¹ The article compares and contrasts both viticultural developments in the two countries as well as their evolving roles in global wine markets and international trade.
An overview of the past two decades
Figure 1 compares the evolution of winegrape area and production over the past two decades for Australia and Argentina. Areas rose in both countries in the 2000s, peaking in 2008 in Australia and a little later in Argentina before both declined in the 2010s. Throughout,
¹ Argentina’s grape price data are available only for the counties of the province of Mendoza, but they account for more than 70% of Argentina’s winegrape area.
AUS area ('000 ha) ARG area ('000 ha) AUS crush (kt, RHS) ARG crush (kt, RHS)
Figure 1: Vineyard area (000 ha) and winegrape production (kt), Australia and Argentina
Note: The area corresponds to bearing area for Australia and total area for Argentina. Both countries yielded an average over these two decades of 11 t/ha, over the range 8 to 13 t/ha.
Sources: Anderson and Puga (2023a, 2024a).
ARG (Mendoza) AUS Hot (Riverland) AUS Temperate AUS Warm
Figure 2: Winegrape prices, Australia and Argentina (AUD/t)
Note: After 2011 the inflation rate in Argentina rose rapidly and the official exchange rate greatly overstated the value of the currency. An unofficial market emerged and its much lower value is used to convert to AUD (the blue (parallel) rate from 2011, using data from Estudio del Alamo).
Sources: Anderson and Puga (2023a, 2024a).
Australia’s winegrape area was about onethird (70,000 ha) below that of Argentina’s.
The bearing area expansion in Australia continued to 2008 despite its average winegrape price peaking in 2001. Apart from a blip after the drought in 2007 that price continued to fall until 2011, during which time Argentina’s price
(when converted to AUD) was rising from a low level (Figure 2). Australia’s prices rose thereafter but least so in hot inland regions, before falling again after 2020 when China imposed prohibitive tariffs on imports of Australian wine (Anderson 2023). During most of this time Mendoza’s average price was below that for Australia’s hot inland regions,
ᵃ Puga was (at the time of drafting this article) a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wine Economics Research Centre, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, and is now a Research Fellow at the Centre for Agricultural Economics and Development, University of Western Australia, Perth. E-mail: german.puga@uwa.edu.au
ᵇ Anderson is the Executive Director of the Wine Economics Research Centre and George Gollin Professor Emeritus of Economics at the School of Economics and Public Policy, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, and Honorary Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra. E-mail: kym. anderson@adelaide.edu.au