Grape Grower & Winemaker April 2024 Freeview

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AUSTRALIA’S LARGEST WINE COMPANIES AND THE BEST OF NEW ZEALAND

Spotlight on the Riverina

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State of the Industry: an overview

It took one particularly gruesome car crash 27 years ago to prompt the late Queen Elizabth II to define her annus horribilis. With the wreckage of faded exports to China strewn across the landscape of Australia’s grape and wine sector in 2023, it is easy to label it – along with those couple of years that preceded it – as one that many industry operators might prefer to forget.

While the re-opening of that once lucrative market may breathe renewed life into many battered wine businesses, any broader revitalisation of the Australian

wine industry will, inevitably, take time to fully emerge from the shadow of these past few years of setbacks.

Looking back over the last year, the steady decline in export sales led to challenging and far-reaching repercussions for growers, winemakers, suppliers and, really, any and all wine professionals across the sector.

The bleak numbers for 2023 speak for themselves.

The annual national winegrape crush ending in June of last year was estimated

to be 1.32 million tonnes, which was more than 465,000 tonnes (or 26 per cent) below the decade average of 1.78 million tonnes. The volume of the most commonly crushed variety, Shiraz, decreased by 20% on the previous year, while second-placed Chardonnay dipped by 29%. It didn’t help that growing conditions were widely reported to be among the most challenging in at least 20 years. Although one bright spot was that exceptionally cool conditions were conducive to producing high quality

Australia's largest wine companies

Microbat study could save growers millions in moth control

A University of New England study on microbat activity in vineyards could reveal whether the animals are an effective method of pest control, with the potential to save grapegrowers millions, as Meg Riley writes.

In October last year, Strathbogie Ranges winery Fowles Wine joined the “Bats and Wine” study, which is investigating whether microbats are consuming pests in vineyards at the same rate as they are in cotton farms.

“In this region, it’s not uncommon to have bats fly into the house,” explained Fowles Wines owner Matt Fowles.

“There are 16 species of insect-eating bats in Victoria, including four endangered species, but we don’t know how many of them are living and foraging in the vineyards.”

Fowles has a theory about the correlation between the suspected microbat activity in his vineyard and moth pressure on certain blocks, but says he will have

to wait for the results of the study to know for sure.

“What we do know is that where the bats populate and can echolocate is where the vines and fruit thrive most.”

Dr Heidi Kolkert and Dr Zenon Czenze from the University of New England (UNE) have installed sound recording devices in the Fowles vineyards to better

understand the different bat species living there, their insect feeding habits, and the role they play to maintain biodiversity in the local ecosystem.

“In the first year of the ‘Bats and Wine’ initiative our preliminary results suggest that bats play a vital role in controlling agricultural pests within NSW vineyard ecosystems,” Dr Czenze said.

“This current project with Fowles represents a leap forward — the most comprehensive study yet –

aimed at unravelling bat diversity and their ecosystem contributions within vineyards.”

Often nesting in tree hollows or similarly sheltered woodland areas, bats may be more present in the vineyard than they appear. After reading an article on the Bats and Wine study, Fowles was immediately intrigued about the bat activity in his own vineyard.

“I literally just picked up the phone and started talking to them [the researchers],”

A colony of 100 bats, weighing 10 grams each, could remove up to one kilo of insects every night.

Matt Fowles

recalls Fowles. “We talked for ages, and then decided to have a crack here.”

The end of the study at Fowles is due to coincide with the end of their 2024 vintage.

“In nature’s image”

Working with nature rather than against it, Fowles said he is always interested in discovering the natural assets of the environment and using them to his advantage.

“My goal in what we do on the farm, is to farm in nature’s image,” he said.

“A lot of the time traditional farming practices tend to ‘manage nature’ – try to bring the chaos under control for whatever benefit they’re seeking. But if we can let the chaos rule, what does that mean? Can we approach it from the other viewpoint?”

For Fowles, the hope is that the Bats and Wine study will confirm his theory about the benefits of microbats in his vineyard. There is a pattern that Fowles has observed in one particular block of Chardonnay, which he suspects may be evidence of the advantages of microbats. The Chardonnay block is notorious for pressure from light brown apple moth (LBAM), a common vineyard pest whose larvae feed on grapevines, which in turn can cause a heightened risk of Botrytis.

Luckily for Fowles, or so is the hope, the moth has a natural predator: the microbat.

“Every day, the bats can consume 30%-100% of their body mass,” explained Fowles.

“A colony of 100 bats, weighing 10 grams each, could remove up to one kilo of insects every night.”

Riverina

It’s no secret that producers in inland wine regions have been doing it especially tough over the past year. The Riverina in New South Wales has been no exception. Centered on the city of Griffith on the south-western plains of New South Wales, the region is home to as many as 20,000 hectares of vines. After a year of hard decisions and very difficult operating conditions, Riverina Winegrape Growers CEO Jeremy Cass recounts the challenges that have been faced and outlines how a positive way forward may be achieved.

The start of the growing season showed promise over the previous season with the arrival of El Niňo, however, the continued oversupply did not bode well for a positive financial return to growers. Up until November growers were able to minimize chemical inputs as the weather remained favourable; this was a very welcome change on the previous growing season where Griffith received over twice its average annual rainfall. This all changed in November with the departing of El Niňo and the return of above average rainfall for November, December and January, and as with most summer storms, some areas received more than others. Some of the larger rainfall events during this period caused some splitting of berries for growers that that were unlucky enough to get the full

Some growers took the stand not to deliver grapes at $150 per tonne, others didn’t have a choice as a negative cash flow is still a cash flow and a way or recouping some of the cost of growing the crop.

Jeremy Cass

brunt of the storm, these split berries led to disease pressure from Botrytis and sour rot especially in January as growers

prepared for vintage. Unfortunately, some blocks were rejected by wineries due to the presence of Botrytis or sour rot above the specified minimal levels, this coupled with prices well below the cost of production cast a somber pall across the region as vintage was about to begin. Prices ranged from $150 to $320 per tonne for red varieties like Shiraz, and $300 to $400 per tonne for Chardonnay, these were some of the lowest prices on offer in over 40 years. Some growers took the stand not to deliver grapes at $150 per tonne, others didn’t have a choice as a negative cash flow is still a cash flow and a way or recouping some of the cost of growing the crop.

A far cry from last year’s late vintage 2024 saw an early start with most wineries accepting grapes by mid-January, by the

Riverina

Harvesting grapes to the ground during Vintage 2023

Beauty brand partnership boosts sales with younger consumers “Our biggest engagement campaign to date”

Branding experts for Brown Brothers teamed up with Australia’s largest online beauty retailer to create a branding campaign so successful that it has now run for a second year. Now a third year for the campaign is already being planned. Monique Brougham, brand manager for Brown Brothers spoke to journalist Meg Riley about the choice to team up with Adore Beauty, and the data that drove the decision.

In 2022, Brown Brothers launched a campaign in partnership with online beauty retailer Adore Beauty, which offered customers who purchased a bottle of Brown Brothers Prosecco a $20 voucher to spend with the beauty brand. The collaboration seemed too good to be true for customers, and the campaign was so successful that Brown Brothers have brought it back for a second year, this time running the promotion over a different time period to test the strength of the campaign itself.

Linking wine and beauty

Brown Brothers’ target market is predominantly females in their late 20s,

explained brand manager Monique Brougham. Not shy of isolating other potential consumers, Brown Brothers decided to hone-in on this demographic and dig deeper into their interests and passions to better understand and relate to them.

“A key insight for us, is that there is a really strong link between liquor and beauty,” explained Brougham. “Through data, we can see that Millennials have purchased from both categories – from both liquor and beauty within the last three months.”

“We know our consumers love wine, but we also know through our data insights

that they love beauty and self-care, so it really made Adore Beauty the perfect match for us.”

One of the wine brand’s main concerns was around recruitment into wine, as the industry is experiencing a global slowdown in wine consumption. The partnership with Adore Beauty provided the perfect opportunity to reach new consumers and tempt them to try the brand.

The initial campaign was rolled out in September 2022, and ran until January 2023, over the brand’s key festive sales period, where they knew consumers