The Fire and the Fury Australia’s bushfire impact on our wine

The Fire and the Fury

THIS SUMMER, WE BURNED. THE LATEST VINTAGE FOR THE AUSTRALIAN WINE INDUSTRY WAS UNPRECEDENTED BECAUSE OF THE RELENTLESS BUSHFIRE CRISIS BURNING OUR WINERIES, VINEYARDS AND IS SOME CASES DISTILLERIES. IS THIS A ONE-OFF OR WILL THIS BECOME THE NEW NORMAL? WHAT CAN WE LEARN, AND HOW CAN WE FUTURE-PROOF OUR INDUSTRY FOR SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE FUTURE?

Yes, we have experienced fire before and dealt with smoke taint. According to Wine Australia, since 2003, $400 million worth of grapes and wine has either not been produced or downgraded because of smoke taint. This vintage saw grapes exposed to smoke for an unprecedented length of time. In the Hunter Valley, for example, it was late October 2019 to January 2020. In many cases, the grapes were in the postveraison stage and at their most vulnerable; ready for harvest. Red wines will be the worst affected because of the vinification on skins. Particular varieties such as the thinskinned Sangiovese and late-ripeners such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo are the most sensitive.

The impact has been felt across New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. The worst fire-ravaged areas included Tumbarumba, the South Coast and the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, while in Victoria it was the north-eastern Alpine regions East Gippsland, the Milawa and Rutherglen. Possibly the most profound devastation was in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia where 30 per cent of the area burned with 60 growers and producers impacted.

Firstly, it is not all doom and gloom with reports coming out that this vintage in some of Australia’s wine regions is shaping up to be a good one. Brian Croser told the ABC

You can look at the wine now and say it tastes great but the problem is in twelve months time it can taste like a terrible dirty ashtray - Bruce Tyrrell.

Sources: Esri, HERE, Garmin, Intermap, incrment P Corp., GEBCO, USGS, FAO, NPS, NRCAN, GeoBase, IGN, Kadaster NL, Ordnance Survey, METI, Esri China (Hong Kong, (c) OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS User Community

that some winemakers char their barrels to get a similar effect from smoke taint, implying a small amount could potentially add character to the wine. * Even still at the other end of the spectrum, you can get a taste in wine that is akin to a wet ashtray and undrinkable. There is also debate as to whether these undesirable characters develop in the bottle and worsen with age. The only way to ascertain if the grapes are bad is to produce them and see. The Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) encouraged producers to experiment with small-batch ferments as a way of testing the grapes.

In January, Wine Australia published a fire damage assessment advising that the actual footprint of affected vineyards amounted to 1 per cent or less than 1500 ha of the total 146,000 hectares under vine in Australia. The figure was arrived at by taking National Vineyard Scan data and combining that with fire footprint maps from fire-fighting agencies in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. Wine Australia stated it was doing everything it could to support industry members impacted and is working with the Department of Agriculture, Australian Grape & Wine and state and regional wine organizations and the AWRI. For more information of support visit https://www. wineaustralia.com/fire-recovery

A spokesperson from Wine Australia said was still too early to understand the full impact of the fires and smoke taint on Australian wine production for the 2020 vintage. Wine Australia has estimated that the combination of fire and smoke damage will amount to losses of around 4 per cent of our average national tonnage, or around 60,000 tonnes of grapes.

The reality is that producing smoketainted grapes can potentially harm the long-built reputation of a winery. Many are considering whether producing is worth the risk. Unfortunately there is a price to pay. Such decisions are an economical disaster for producers and growers.

In a bold move to protect the integrity of the Tyrrell’s brand, Bruce Tyrrell decided to discard 80 to 90 per cent of his 2020 Hunter Valley vintage. As far as impacting Tyrrell’s, Bruce explains they will feel the financial pain of this vintage next fiscal year when their direct to consumer releases go out and then about two to four years later when the age releases come out to trade.

“The fruit we are salvaging we are confident will be OK, but we are not making any winemaker selections or single vineyard wines.

“All the single vineyards have been affected, and they are the ones people keep and cellar, so we are not taking the risk. It’s bloody hard. I said to the boys at the end of December that every decision we make is predicated by - will this damage the Tyrrell’s brand? With those top wines, there are no chances to be taken. We just can’t do it.”

In terms of grapes, he said they have been through rigorous smoke taint testing with one of their important single vineyard block’s tested four times. When it went over a limit they didn’t pick the fruit. At the time of speaking to Bruce they had already parted ways with $7000 towards the testing process. The AWRI was inundated with requests for testing in New South Wales and Victoria.

“When this is over it is important people don’t forget about it and walk away,” said Bruce.

“I would like to see a map of where the damage is so when this happens again, and it will happen again, we can have a better handle on how to manage it.”

Bruce is producing 40 to 50 dozen of each block of his smoke-tainted grapes for research purposes. He will donate ten dozen to the AWRI, and with these, they can monitor the effect smoke taint has on wine as it ages.

“One thing I remember from the 1969 vintage (when the Hunter Valley experienced a significant bushfire event) a lot of the reds looked good when they were young, but in two to three years the smoke taint came out.

There’s a lot of goodwill out there – if you want to help us, come and visit us. We are open for business. Second thing is buy our wine… - Angus Barnes.

“You can look at the wine now and say it tastes great, but the problem is in twelve months’ time it can taste like a terrible dirty ashtray.”

Meanwhile, Dr Ian Porter of La Trobe University is fine-tuning smoke detector equipment so nervous grape growers can know sooner rather than later if they are dealing with smoke taint. The work done behind the scenes places Australia at the forefront of global research in its tireless pursuit to develop ways to mitigate damage from fire and smoke in the future. As part of the development project, 16 of the smoke detectors have become available to wineries in Victoria for testing. The detectors will align to app technology that will alert growers early in the ripening period with a reading. If it is too high, then the grower knows not to continue investment in those grapes and can make decisions earlier and plan accordingly, saving costs for the winery. It is a global first but also difficult to finetune considering all the variables so is still a work in progress.

The climate is changing, and winemakers are doing what they can to adapt. Bruce says the way they manage the vineyards fifteen years ago compared to today is very different. He says the game changer has probably been sunscreen. Five years ago they started spraying the neutral kaolin clay-based spray on their Semillon and Chardonnay grapes to prevent grape burn that imparts an unpleasant caramelized flavour to wine. It also acts to cool down the grapes. He said it was just like covering your kids in sunscreen and produces better quality grapes in the heat of the Hunter Valley summer.

For executive officer of the NSW Wine Industry Association, Angus Barnes, the summer’s bushfire crisis in NSW has been all-consuming. He said the issue of smoke had permeated every region in NSW this vintage except for the Riverina.

Most of the physical damage took place in Tumbarumba where the fires destroyed vines and infrastructure including sheds, winery equipment and tractors, yet the smoke did more damage than the fire itself.

“In a normal year NSW will pick about 500,000 tonnes of grapes. My suspicion is we are going to be somewhere between 8o and 150,000 tonnes down on that,” Angus says.

“There are parts of the Hunter and Orange where the tests are clean, but the great bulk of regions have had tests that have come back with higher (taint) than we hoped.”

Sources: Esri, HERE, Garmin, Intermap, incrment P Corp., GEBCO, USGS, FAO, NPS, NRCAN, GeoBase, IGN, Kadaster NL, Ordnance Survey, METI, Esri China (Hong Kong), (c) OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS User Community

Produced by Wine Australia. Vineyard boundaries supplied by GAIA, Fire scar boundary supplied by PIRSA

Hunter Valley with bushfire in background

The AWRI has been assisting by running workshops through the fire-affected wine regions and have pulled together a panel of smoke-sensitive palates and noses for producers to run their first presses and first ferments by. They have run workshops in the Hunter, Orange and Mudgee and about to do one in Canberra. Winemakers can then take their wine as it goes through fermentation and have the panel assess it. With these evaluation processes in place Angus believes there will be less tainted grape produced, and the wines with the smoke taint will be filtered out.

When it comes to general industry support, Angus says the NSW government has been slow and methodical. The Victorian government came out very quickly with a $2.5 million package but according to Angus it was fast, good, but not well thought through, not good. To date the NSW Wine Industry Association has put together an action plan to the NSW government requesting support around the fire and smoke such as the funding for testing and the technical support, for support for the future of the wine industry of NSW and thirdly to boost the tourism to the area.

The association is keen to point out that there has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes to manage the message and get it right. They want to tell the truth about the impact but speak about the positives. For example, the wine on the retail shelf is not smoke-tainted. The last three vintages from the Hunter, for example, have been some of the best in history.

He also wants to emphasize the effect this event has had on tourism to these areas. The NSW Wine Industry Association is working closely with Destination New South Wales, and its recent Learn to Love NSW campaign includes the wine regions and aims to encourage intrastate tourism into these areas that need it.

“There’s a lot of goodwill out there – if you want to help us, come and visit us. We are open for business. Second thing is buy our wine, either online from the winery or at bottle shops or restaurants. We need the trade to tell the general public of the positive story,” Angus stresses.

Now we look forward to the regeneration and the healing that needs to take place.

What we as an industry can do to support those impacted: • Support impacted wineries as much as possible through promotions in-store. • In on-premise support impacted wineries as much as possible by listing them on pour. • Donate to any of the myriad of charities focused on bushfire support. • Visit the areas and the wineries and encourage customers to do the same. • Spread the word to the customers and consumers to support. • Buy the wine.

*Winemakers look to innovate and learn from this year’s bushfire vintage by Rebecca Puddy, abc.net.au