Grape Grower & Winemaker January 2025 Freeview

SCALING BACK THE COST

Filtering fish from vineyard irrigation

TAKING STOCK

What’s behind Australia’s wine industry crisis? Naturally speaking MINIMUM INTERVENTION MAXIMUM ANALYSIS

what’s ONLINE

ProWine Shanghai 2024 sees strong crowds, but buyer caution lingers

ProWine Shanghai 2024, held from November 12-14, concluded with robust attendance, with booths bustling as buyers sampled wines and engaged in lively discussions. Despite the event’s popularity, cautious purchasing and a challenging economic environment tempered exhibitors’ optimism about the market’s recovery. One of the most popular wines at the fair without a doubt was Australia. The Australia Pavilion drew steady crowds thanks to the removal of anti-dumping tariffs earlier in the year. “The response has been excellent, especially on the second day,” said Zhang Chenyu, China head of GNT Fine Wines and Spirits. “The buyers are professional, and there’s strong interest in Australian wines.”

Source: Vino Joy News

Australia’s first ‘hard wine’ range launches

Fourth Wave Wine has launched Mullet, Australia’s first brand specialising in “hard wines” featuring an ABV ranging between 13.5% and 17%. The range includes seven wines: Hard Sparkly, Hard Moscato, Hard Chardy, Hard Gris, Hard Pinot, Hard Shiraz and Hard Cab Sav. Utilising big, ripe grapes sourced from leading South Australian and Victorian wine regions, Mullet wines are drafted by two of Australia’s most accomplished winemakers, Nicholas Crampton and Corey Ryan. The wines are designed to deliver a mega mouthfeel up front with a bigger body and super long finish, just like their namesake. Source: Drinks Digest

Canberra winemakers planting new varieties that could become the wines of the future

As Canberra’s cool-climate wine region warms, viticulturalist James Hopper is planting new grape varieties that he hopes will produce the wines of the future. Increasingly warmer weather can affect how grapes grow, when they’re harvested and crucially, how wines taste. So, at Mount Majura Vineyard on the edge of the capital, he’s trialling grapes that can better cope with the effects of a changing climate. “Albariño, we’ve also planted Mencia and Paraletta,” Hopper said. Albariño, also known as Alvarinho, is a white variety, while Menica and Paraletta are both reds. All three come from Spain and parts of Portugal. Source: ABC

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

“It was the worst frost we’ve seen in 21 years. You literally just couldn’t do anything for it. When there’s wind and there’s no inversion layer; no warm air up above—you can’t push it down, there’s nothing you can really do. Unless you’ve got some highpressure water, [then] you could potentially fight it.”

Nina Downer, page 28

“A winery processing five million litres of sparkling wine annually under these conditions would consume around 100 tonnes of CO₂, costing approximately $50,000 at typical historical CO₂ prices, or over $100,000 at the elevated prices experienced during shortages in 2023, when gas suppliers needed to import CO₂ from overseas. Much of this CO₂ use can be avoided, including by connecting headspaces during crossflow filtration and by cleaning filtrate tanks under CO₂ pressure, as discussed in subsequent sections.”

Dr Simon Nordestgaard, page 42

“As often happens with booms, many people along the value chain (including newcomers to the industry) saw short-term income-earning opportunities and thereby contributed to the excessiveness of investor exuberance. The largest wine companies encouraged it by being among the first to plant large new vineyards, including in the inland irrigated regions, some of which they then sold to new investors at what in retrospect were excessive prices by providing buyers with attractive longterm contracts.”

Kym Anderson, page 61

“I’ve always believed that direct-to-consumer wine sales are the cornerstone of a profitable wine business, and repeat wine purchases are a big part of this. Being a small cellar door at the end of a dead-end road means that we can’t rely on high, once-off visitation for revenue generation. We need to be able to continue to sell wine to those people who visit us once they get home. It’s also nice to be able to build personal relationships with our members over time, and they in turn become brand ambassadors for us.”

Rebecca Duffy, page 80

8 Winners hailed at 2024 Wine Communicator Awards

6 What’s

10 Remembering Peter Muscet, a leading figure in the wine industry

11 Record turnout “sends a clear message”: industry shows up for women in wine

12 “Big shoes to fill”: Iain Riggs returns to Bleasdale as board chair retires

13 Australian Chardonnay heralded as best white wine in the world

14 Young Gun finalist brings “fresh perspective” to ASVO board

16 FEATURE Digital maps as a foundation for AgTech adoption –part 2

20 FEATURE Vineyard fish screens: saving fish and funds

24 FEATURE Galvanising change: A new alternative for vineyard posts

27 Australia’s oldest family-owned winery celebrates 175 years

28 Young Gun Nina Downer

36 FEATURE The smart use of biotechnology to lower alcohol in wines: Excellence Celsius

42 Reducing CO₂ use during tank sparkling wine production

48 FEATURE Low intervention and natural winemaking

56 BEHIND THE TOP DROPS Craggy Range Le Sol Syrah

61 Clarifying controversial contributions to Australia’s current wine industry crisis

70 Celebrating the supply chain: Wine Industry IMPACT Awards winners announced

73 Wine, alcohol and cancer: Something to think about now

77 Winemaking innovation seen as the path back to profitability at SIMEI 2024

SALES & MARKETING

80 FEATURE Joining forces: How wine clubs can offer untapped revenue streams to producers

YOUNG GUN

Nina Downer

Meet the young Kiwi viticulturist with a keen interest in people

Nina Downer has already proved her dedication to viticulture, after competing in New Zealand’s Young Viticulturist of the Year competition four times (and making it to nationals on three occasions) and taking out the title late last year. She spoke to journalist Meg Riley about the importance of valuing good people in the industry, and how she would like to see the sector unite even further in times of adversity. With a commitment to collaboration, attentive vineyard practices and not shy of working weekends, Nina is an energetic example of getting out what you put in.

Despite being just 25-years-old, Nina Downer’s history with the wine industry is already extensive, a testament to her eager attitude and commitment to putting in the hard yards.

Growing up on a dairy farm in New Zealand, Nina was accustomed to the nature of agriculture early on, and quickly developed a taste for working in the open air.

“I always knew that I wanted to do something outdoors, working with the land,” said Nina.

Not sold on following the family into a career of dairy farming, viticulture first came across Nina’s radar when it was recommended to her by a high school teacher.

“I did a bit of research into it, and thought, that looks pretty good!”

From there, Nina picked up some summer vineyard experience, and with her first year at Lincoln University under her belt, it all clicked.

“I was like, yep, I really want to do this… I’ve been kind of doing it ever since.”

In the beginning, Nina was drawn to both grapegrowing and winemaking, however the more time she spent growing vines, the more her love for them grew also.

“I still do enjoy the odd winery work, but really, I feel [my] passion is outside, in the vines.”

“I don’t know if it’s the farmer in me—I guess it is farming, in a way, you’re just growing grapes rather than cows.”

“I enjoy the diversity of it. Every season is different, and as you go throughout the year, you’re constantly doing a different job, throughout the year, so every day is different.”

“We’re pretty hands on. We’re organic and biodynamic, so it’s quite important to get a nice open canopy when you’re using organic sprays.”

The first vineyard Nina worked at was also organic—in fact, she has only ever worked in organic vineyards, and this isn’t something she can see changing in the future.

“I think I would stick with organic;” she said, “the whole concept of trying to leave

the land better than we found it; avoiding using chemicals where you can…”

Approaching viticulture organically is a task that is becoming increasingly challenging as the climate warms. Although the winegrowing regions in New Zealand are still comparatively cool climate, Nina said they are beginning to face increasing climactic pressures.

“It is making it harder to be organic these days...the climate is so changeable at the moment, and pretty intense, which then lends on to disease pressure.

“We’re not seeing the impact of climate change too much in our wine...we do get warm in the growing season, but we still have those cold nights, which is really giving us the cool climate Pinot that we like. We’re not getting too jammy or big and powerful like some of the regions are seeing when it’s getting quite hot.”

“Not saying we won’t see it in maybe a few years, but I know that our owner Nigel has tasted through the last five years, and there’s literally no change in vintage, really, for us, so we’re pretty happy. But there’s definitely people in the Central Otago region [that are] starting to look into Gamay and some varietals that are suited to the hotter summers.”

You’ve got to sometimes push the boundaries, because if you don’t try, then you never get the benefits of what could be.

cheers to that!

“That’s just a constant battle every year, trying to fight disease—which is getting trickier with climate change, with more intense rainfall events, and still having that warmer weather as well, it’s really perfect conditions for disease.”

“I think that’s an ongoing challenge for everyone. We’re pretty lucky down in Central [Otago]—we did just get hit with a frost, [in] early Spring this year, so we saw a little bit of damage in places, but other growers in Central Otago got hit pretty hard as well.”

“It was the worst frost we’ve seen in 21 years. You literally just couldn’t do anything for it.”

“When there’s wind and there’s no inversion layer; no warm air up above— you can’t push it down, there’s nothing you can really do.

“Unless you’ve got some high-pressure water you could potentially fight it.”

Thankfully, the climate impact has not yet affected the wine at the end of the process.

Beyond the challenges of an unpredictable climate, the past few years have also presented other unforeseen fluctuations. The pandemic introduced challenges not just with wine sales and tourism, but staffing as well.

Although Nina said she was not in a position to be doing any hiring herself at the time, she noted that the pandemic made it extremely difficult for the wine industry to find staff, and that labour levels were only beginning to return to normal now. This staffing shortage has also been compounded by the rising cost of labour, something which Nina has observed is challenging many in the industry at present.

Acknowledging the importance of good people is something which Nina values highly.

“…You can learn so much from so many people...we’ve got a lot of people [for whom] viticulture wasn’t their first job, and just the life experience of different people—everyone has different viewpoints to look at stuff, I think that’s a really valuable thing. Also, remembering that we’re all not robots, we all have our strengths and weaknesses.”

“It’s quite cool, when you work with a lot of different people, you learn a lot.”

“We’ve got quite a diverse group of people at the moment; we’ve got an ex-postie... we’ve got a girl who is from China, and she was a police officer there, but then she also was a pastry chef in South Africa, and now she’s in the vines here.

“You’ve just got people from all walks of life, and it’s really cool to get to work with people like that.”

Fermentation

Low intervention and natural winemaking

What does it mean and what are some of the analytical consequences?

By Dr Alana Seabrook¹ and Dr Carly Gamble²

Introduction

The terms ‘low intervention’ and ‘natural winemaking’ are widely used throughout the winemaking world. They convey to the customer that the winemaker has done the minimum possible to make the wine and that the wine is a natural expression of the vineyard and terroir (Bazzani et al. 2024).

Debate on the approval of the certification Vin Méthode Nature is ongoing at the European level, a denomination created in France to outline the natural winemaking process. (E. Parga-Dans et al. 2023). It is generally up to the winemaker or marketing team to interpret what this means to them and the message they want to convey to their customer. The

¹ Winechek Operations manager

² Winechek Technical manager/State manager WA

intention from a processing point of view is to use little or no processing aids or additives in the winemaking process as listed in FZANZ 4.5.1 Schedule 18 and 15 respectively. From a qualitative and analytical perspective, the outcomes will be dependent on many factors including grape quality and health, available resources in the winery, processing time and time to bottle. Often one of the crucial factors is the scientific understanding of the winemaker, as minimal intervention winemaking requires that deep level of understanding to give an opportunity to step in and fix a problem should it arise. Analysis at each stage of the process enables the winemaker to intervene if desired. In this article, key stages of the production process will be discussed to identify where low intervention winemaking can potentially create problems and the overall need for more analysis than usual.

Common additives and processing aids which may be removed from the winemaking process when using a low intervention approach:

• Commercial yeast for primary fermentation

• Pectolytic and maceration enzymes used for settling/clarification and colour extraction in the case of maceration enzymes

• Commercial lactic acid bacteria for malolactic fermentation

• Fining agents to remove oxidised and oxidative phenolics

• Sulphur dioxide as a preservative

• Stabilising agents such as bentonite and cream of tartar/CMC

• Tannin additions during fermentation

• Sources of yeast assimilable nitrogen