Quality wine grape harvest boosts spirits in SA vineyards amid China tariff woes

SA wine producers are battling to fill the gap left by the Chinese market’s closure, but good quality harvests are helping lift spirits in a challenging year.

Beach Road Wines owner Tony Hoare says this year’s will be an excellent vintage. Picture: Matt Turner.

Wine producers are declaring this vintage one of the best they’ve experienced, thanks to the state’s mild summer gifting them perfect growing conditions.

It’s a welcome boost for producers across the state, who have struggled through a year marred by the pandemic – which significantly slowed down sales to restaurants and bars – and China’s crippling new tariffs on bottled wine from Australia.

The impacts of the country’s shutdown of exports has sent shockwaves through the industry, and producers and wine associations are working hard to find other markets in Australia and overseas.

In the meantime, Tony Hoare, of Beach Road Wines in McLaren Vale, posted on LinkedIn asking his network if they thought this year’s was the “vintage of a century”.

He said he wanted to share some good news after a challenging period.

“What we’re seeing is just spectacular really – it’s a year when mother nature has been kind to us and we’re getting the rewards for it,” the viticulturist told The Advertiser.

“We haven’t really had the heat spikes that can really knock the fruit around.

“It gives us makers and growers the opportunity to wait until it’s in really good condition to harvest and there’s no real panic harvesting or picking decisions being made.”

Simon and Narelle Tolley, pictured in November, with their new cellar door under construction in Woodside. Picture Matt Turner.

McLaren Vale producers are about half way through their harvest.

This year’s tonnage won’t set any records, Mr Hoare said, but it will be up compared with the last few years.

Mr Hoare said wines were likely to be on par with the quality brought by the 2002 vintage, which was “off the charts”.

Reds won’t be ready until 12-18 months after harvest, he said, hoping trade to China would return by then.

“Fingers crossed, they can appreciate what a great year we’re in,” he said.

Wine Australia figures show in 2019, South Australia exported $753m worth of bottled wine to China. In 2020, that figure dropped to $728m, after the tariffs came in during November.

This year, producers are working to expand sales to other countries including the US, Canada, Hong Kong, the UK, Japan and other parts of Asia, but they’ve acknowledged that filling the hole left by China will be an uphill battle.

The strong vintage is extra special for growers in the Adelaide Hills, who suffered a huge blow during the 2019/20 bushfires that ripped through vineyards and left smoke taint in their wake.

Simon Tolley, of Simon Tolley Wines in Woodside, said this year’s was a “textbook vintage” in the Adelaide Hills, including good February rains that helped plump up the grapes.

This is one of the strongest vintages he has seen since beginning work in the industry in 1998.

“But time will tell – we can’t get too ahead of ourselves because we still need to make the wine,” he said.

About a third of the vines in the Adelaide Hills burned or were affected by smoke taint during the 2019/20 bushfire season, including some of those owned by Simon Tolley Wines.

He had to rip out about 15 per cent of his vines due to fire damage.

SA Wine Industry Association chief executive Brian Smedley said the crop sizes seen so far were “about average”.

“That’s probably a good thing in terms of what’s ahead of us. There will be some grapes that will be unprocessed this year, that don’t make it to a home because of the China market, but it will probably be more apparent in the vintage coming up,” he said.

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