The size of the Australian 2011 has given the industry an unwelcome surprise.
Disease ravaged the country’s vineyards with rains encouraging botrytis, and powdery and downy mildew, yet the crop still surpassed the 2010 harvest, coming in at 1.63 million tonnes.
Stephen Strachan, the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia chief executive, admitted: ‘The vintage is too big. It may seem harsh, given the year many people have had, to focus on the longer term rather than the demands of the present, but a harvest in excess of 1.6 million tonnes (despite the rejections) is out of step with the realities of sustainable production and the market opportunity for premium Australian wine.’
Producers are equally surprised by the figures. Peter Gambetta, senior winemaker for Yalumba told rebeccagibb.com: ‘We thought it would be up to 1.5 but not 1.63m tonnes. Some people may have made wine that they shouldn’t have.’
‘We have made some really good wines; we have created some surprising wines that we thought may not come out well but we also left a fair bit of fruit out. We pride ourselves in Merlot but we may not release a Merlot this year,’ he added.
Malcolm Stopp, PR manager for Peter Lehmann, admitted: ‘It will go down as tough year but we are trying to focus on what we harvested . Our yields will be down 30% we have crushed around 10,500 tonnes as opposed to 20,000 in 2004.’
Biodynamic producer Henschke has some theories about the 2010/11 vintage. Stephen Henschke, said: ‘It rained non stop this year. The last time it did that was 1974. It comes in lunar cycles 1974 and 1992 were wet years and 2010/11.’ To find out more about this lunar idea, read Plimer’s Heaven on Earth, advises Henschke.
He was clearly surprised by the size of the vintage: ‘I was seriously thinking it was going to be about 1.3million tonnes.’
‘I’m amazed it’s that big but there was potentially a big crop at flowering so if we had not had those rains it could have been an even bigger crop, so perhaps those rains were a blessing in disguise,’ added Henschke.
