THE FIRST of the early-release 2008 vintage wines started to appear on Winestate's tasting benches in June. There were elegant, flinty rieslings, crisp and flavoursome sauvignon blancs, spicy, perfumed viogniers, gorgeously showy roses and semillons with great futures. All good, and not one of them giving the slightest indication that 2008 had been what Wine Grape Growers Australia (WGGA) executive director Mark McKenzie had described as "a bastard of a vintage".
Mark was severely criticised for that comment but, as he explained to Winestate, he was referring to the conditions that growers, pickers and winemakers had to put up with - not the quality of the resulting wine. The Winemakers' Federation of Australia (WFA) was far more restrained in its overall vintage summary: "The season was a season of contrasts - across the continent and through the season - with significant impact from climatic factors in some regions."
The vintage also turned out to be bigger than the most optimistic predictions. Before the season the WGGA predicted there would be a similar vintage tonnage to 2007 - around 1.4 million. Less optimistic, the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation (AWBC) estimated 1.22 million. But many of the major wineries said the vintage would come in at around 1.6 million, to which the WGGA suggested they were being fanciful and accused them of using overestimated vintage figures to talk down grape prices.
Not one to be afraid to stick his neck out, Mark McKenzie posed this question: "Why is it that when wineries talk about oversupply - which they do quite regularly - that's okay, but when growers do it they are the devil incarnate?"
Anyway, they were all wrong. A total of 1.83 million tonnes of grapes were processed into wine. In essence, the 2008 vintage could be described as warm, dry and virtually disease-free, with the exception of the Hunter and Mudgee regions, where rains fell smack-bang in the middle of harvest. Overall quality? Between good and exceptional.
So what was it that changed those pre-vintage projections? Water.
The model the WGGA and AWBC were working on was apparently based on whether growers would be able to afford to buy water based on the low prices they had been receiving for their grapes. But as the season progressed, Mark McKenzie said, "Piggy banks were raided and spent." An estimated $75 million worth of water was bought by grapegrowers in the Murray Valley and Riverland alone - most of it with borrowed money.
What had encouraged growers to go out on a wonky limb? Grape prices.
Many growers were about to enter into their third year of prices that didn't even cover the costs of growing them. Some faced the real possibility that they may have to pack up and walk away. A recent survey by the WGGA showed 58 per cent of Riverland growers - about 700 - would like to get out of the industry for good. Take those growers out of the supply equation, add 2007's low yields and the anticipated low-yielding 2008 vintage and you would have had a national crop insufficient to meet Australia's annual wine production demands. Not good for our lucrative export market. Evidently Fosters stopped advertising in the US because they thought they wouldn't have enough product to sell from the 2008 vintage.
With all this in mind, the WGGA encouraged growers to dispute the ridiculously low pre-season grape prices set by wineries. And they did. The wineries, alarmed by the thought of insufficient fruit to meet demands, reviewed prices and raised them. They grumbled, in hindsight, that the prices were higher than they should have been. But those higher prices meant growers could afford to buy much-needed water. More water - more grapes. "None of us predicted this," said Mark. "On top of water issues we had also thought there would be a carry-over effect from the widespread frosts experienced in 2007, but the vines bounced back as good as ever."
A total of 964,000 tonnes of red grapes were processed by the end of the vintage, a 45 per cent increase on last year's crop, and 864,000 tonnes of white, a mere 18 per cent up on 2007. Of those white grapes, 444,000 tonnes were chardonnay and, of the red, 436,000 were shiraz. Quantities of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and pinot noir were up on previous years as were sauvignon blanc and riesling.
One variety galloping ahead in popularity is pinot gris/grigio. In just eight years, plantings of this white grape have increased by over 700 per cent. There seems to be confusion about these wines. It is in fact just one variety (pinot gris) and two styles (pinot gris and pinot grigio). Pinot grigio is associated with north-eastern Italy, is picked earlier and makes a light, crisp, dry style. Pinot gris, on the other hand, is picked when the fruit has a much higher level of ripeness, and in Germany, Alsace and France produces full-bodied, flavoursome wines.
So what did the major wine regions experience this year and what can we expect from 2008 wines?
Queensland's cooler Granite Belt region was very lucky, weather-wise, compared with regions to their south. They experienced a long and relatively cool vintage with just enough rain and not too much sun, allowing flavours to develop, which they did beautifully, and with high acid levels maintained. The wineries are happy and one enthusiastic spokesperson for the Granite Belt said, "The reds in particular are looking fantastic."
Travelling down into New South Wales, "challenging" would be one description of 2008 for the Hunter. In June 2007 the region recorded 330mm of rain in just 36 hours - great for topping up the subsoil moisture levels in the vineyards. Another series of downpours in November and December, combined with mild temperatures, was a great start to the vintage. Generous crops of quality fruit were predicted.
Things changed. The whites all ripened together in the same week. It poured with rain. Harvesting was delayed. The humidity built up and the fungi began to grow. Fortunately, most growers had got their fruit off in the nick of time, indicating 2008 will be a great year for Hunter whites. But it is a different story for the region's reds. Everyone got caught as more rain bands hit the area when the red grapes were ready for harvesting. Fruit split, rot set in. But small parcels of premium fruit were rescued. There could still be some excellent Hunter shiraz; you'll just have to be quick to grab them.
They are "happy chappies" in Canberra, where everything slotted in just right. And this year's harvest was so impressive that parcels of the very best riesling and shiraz have been selected to create wines with which to celebrate Canberra's 100th birthday in 2013. These wines will be served at all the official functions, with a limited supply available to the public.
Down in Victoria, the autumn heatwave spoilt an otherwise perfect growing season and created an exceptionally abbreviated one. It was one of the earliest starts ever experienced and one of the earliest finishes, with the natural order of grape ripening going by the wayside. Trucks laden with grapes of all varieties were gridlocked in queues outside wineries, waiting to offload their fruit. Some regions reported vintage starting up to six weeks earlier than what had once been considered "normal". But, according to winemakers, quality hasn't been compromised.
Across in South Australia, particularly in the wine regions close to Adelaide, they say there were two distinct seasons: before heatwave and after heatwave! Before heatwave conditions were conducive to very high quality fruit. The after conditions presented logistic challenges for wineries, accelerated ripening of the fruit and quickly raised baume levels of later-ripening varieties, causing tonnage loss in some areas.
The heatwave was particularly vicious. It hit on March 2 and Adelaide sweltered through 15 consecutive days above 35C - the longest heatwave recorded in any Australian capital city. Grape varieties ripened together like synchronised swimmers (but without the water). In many regions, a 12-week vintage was compressed into seven. It was bedlam in the wineries and many grapes had to bide their time on the vines. Sadly for some it ended up being too late and they were left to wither and die where they hung.
But again, quality is there in abundance. McLaren Vale are talking up its reds, saying they are looking the best for 10 years. Clare Valley is excited about its Rieslings, hailing them as exceptional. It was Coonawarra's earliest vintage for 17 years and its cabernets, they say, are outstanding. Barossa's riesling, chardonnay, semillon and viognier are said to be looking fantastic. Langhorne Creek was left vulnerable to the heatwave because it's at the bottom end of a water system in its death throes. Guy Adams of Brothers in Arms said, "Our normal vintage usually runs between 5-8 weeks. This year we stopped after 16 days of intensive picking, leaving 25 per cent of our crop on the vine." The upside was that quality was there, even if the parcels of fruit were smaller than growers had planned for.
In the warm inland wine regions such as South Australia's Riverland, it was one of the most difficult vintages ever, with extreme growing conditions and drought-driven water allocations. But that also meant a dry season with no disease issues. And despite the extreme conditions, one winemaker from a major winery reported he was seeing "the best fruit out of the Riverland in 25 years". The Riverland plays a crucial role in supplying fruit for Australia's most popular wine brands and is developing an interesting market in wines made from minor Spanish and Italian varieties.
Tasmania and the majority of the wine regions in Western Australia experienced their best vintage for years. Expectations for Tasmania's sparkling wines are very high because of the quality of fruit produced there this season.
Western Australia's nine regions experienced none of the vintage "nasties" the rest of the country put up with. Warm to hot and generally dry weather provided a perfect finish to the vintage. "2008 has the potential to be one of the classic vintages," enthused Houghton winemaker Rob Bowen. The highlights seem to be cabernet sauvignon and shiraz. Yields were generally down as, unfortunately, were prices for some growers of premium varieties such as chardonnay and shiraz.
Life is certainly not getting any easier for the growers of our foodstuffs. Grapegrowers have faced adverse climatic conditions, water shortages and prices that don't cover costs. But in the future it is water that will be the most crucial element of all. The trading of water will become a permanent part of the way business is done in the wine industry of the future, which in turn will create additional costs.
I have been writing the national vintage reports for eight years now and the possibility that there might be a shortage of adequate water supplies for the nation's vineyards surfaced as a potential problem only in the 2003 vintage report. What a lot has happened in the ensuing five years.
Here's how the WGGA's Mark McKenzie, normally a cheerful and optimistic man, sees the reality for the industry: "This past vintage will be kindergarten stuff compared to what some growers will face in the next one. Really, it doesn't matter if we are experiencing the worst drought in recent history or the leading edge of climate change - it is here and we have to deal with it."
Let's hope they've all got it wrong again - but somehow I don't think so.