This year’s wine vintage has shaped up as the best in decades, after bushfires pummelled the sector last year

The wine sector is celebrating a superb vintage across all of the major growing regions - a welcome relief after bushfires and smoke cut a swath through the sector last year.

The Lane Vineyard chief executive Jared Stringer, who is also president of the Adelaide Hills wine region, says winemakers couldn’t be happier with this year’s vintage. Picture: Mark Brake.

The 2021 wine vintage is shaping up to be a banner year for the industry, with superb quality and good yields coming as a blessing following a harvest last year blighted by bushfires and smoke taint in many regions.

A mild, even Summer across the wine regions of South Australia and the eastern states presented perfect conditions for grape growing, industry figures say, with a lack of heatwaves and good rain at the right time allowing grapes to ripen at the right pace.

This has been in contrast to recent vintages during which heat events and generally hot weather have in some regions severely compressed harvest times, leading to bottlenecks at wineries and a need to closely manage grape quality.

Jared Stringer, who is chief executive of The Lane Vineyard, and president of the Adelaide Hills wine region, said it was the best vintage in perhaps 20-30 years.

This is in stark contrast to last year when bushfires swept through the region, destroying vineyards and damaging other crops with smoke taint.

“It’s been a phenomenal vintage,’’ Mr Stringer said.

“Coming off the back of two horrendous years, we had the bushfires last year wiping out a third of our crop and a really low-yielding, 50 per cent down, on 2019.

“(This year) both quality and quantity has been phenomenal.

“There are definitely still vineyards in recovery mode but we have had a year now to rejuvenate some of those vines and so a lot of those guys that were affected have managed to get a crop off this year.

“As far as the Adelaide Hills is concerned it’s a vintage which will go down in the ages, we’re incredibly happy and it’s exactly what we needed.’’

The Lane Vineyard chief executive Jared Stringer with a glass of this years vintage 2021 pinot noir rosé in their Vineyards near Hahndorf. Picture Mark Brake

Mr Stringer said the chardonnay this year was looking superb and the winemakers in the region were very excited about what was going into bottles.

Randall Wine Group managing director Steven Trigg said across their vineyards, which stretch across the Barossa, Clare Valley, McLaren Vale, Fleurieu Peninsula, the Coonawarra and the Riverland, the vintage had been outstanding overall.

“Everyone who you speak to across the state seems to be of the same mind that’s it’s been an outstanding vintage,’’ he said.

“Across all of our areas I’ll generalise by saying yields were up 40-50 per cent on the year prior.

“That doesn’t mean that it’s 40-50 per cent above average, it’s been marginally above average based on long term yields, but the last couple of years have been so poor that it’s 40-50 [per cent up.

“More than that, we had such an extraordinary finishing season, it was mild to warm, right through January, February and March so it allowed a nice, even ripening and what the winemaking team are calling one of the best vintages in the past 20 years, so it’s been a good result.’’

The Randall Wine Group includes the Seppeltsfield winery in the Barossa Valley, as well as significant vineyard holdings across South Australia.

Randall Wine Group managing director Steven Trigg pictured with executive chairman Warren Randall. Picture: Tom Huntley

Angove Family Winemakers joint managing director Richard Angove said the white wines being produced in their Riverland operations were excellent.

“In our certified organic vineyards we had a very good year,’’ Mr Angove said.

“It was a cool and mild season so fruit could be harvested at optimum ripeness and flavour. Very cool nights meant that natural acidity was excellent.

Angove Family Winemakers’ John and Richard Angove, together with master distiller, Ben Horley from the St Agnes Distillery.

“The white wines are some of the best in recent memory, aromatic and fresh, whilst the reds have good flavour and lovely ripe tannins, colour is exceptional.

“It is hard to remember such a fantastic year with low disease pressure, very few, if no heat spikes during the growing season. Healthy canopies delivering grapes of very good quality with yields about average.’’

Mr Angove said the vintage in their McLaren Vale operations was “simply exceptional, the best in 20 years...A vintage for the ages’’.

Primo Estate Winery general manager Matteo Grilli said their winemakers could hardly stop smiling.

“A big smile on our faces, it’s been a record year for yields and quality. If you walk into the winery while the reds were fermenting you could just tell from the smell of the ferment that it was going to be a cracker,’’ he said.

“We’re thinking it might be the best vintage since 2014, a really classic year for a number of reasons.

“We had a wet winter last year which put some good water into the ground and as we were going into picking we had those really cool days, mid-20s days with hardly a cloud in the sky, long slow ripening which is the stuff that winemakers dream of really.

“And the other thing worth saying is just, no heatwave. For quality that means everything.’’

NSW Wine Industry Association president Mark Bourne said the 2020 vintage had been challenging, with many of the premium regions affected by smoke from the bushfires.

This caused he loss of about 40,000 tonnes of grapes. But 2021 was a stark contrast.

“It’s been a very pleasing turnaround in 2021 with some reasonable yields. Still I must admit there seems to be a hangover from the multi-year drought before that.

“The vines’ reserves are a bit depleted. The yields are only on average, not spectacular, but the quality is very high.

“A nice, even growing season where there was rainfall at the right times in most of the regions and some people are reporting the best vintage in a decade.’’

Mr Bourne said winemakers in the Hunter Valley were “very excited” about their 2021 releases.

“And also regions like Canberra, Orange and Mudgee are very excited to put the 21s out very quickly.’’

Wine Victoria chair Angie Bradbury said in 2020, it seemed that everything which could go wrong, did go wrong. But this year was the polar opposite.

“Pretty much across the board all of the regions are reporting really good quality and actually really good yields which is great after 2020 being quite a low-yielding vintage.’’

Wine Victoria chair Angie Bradbury.

Ms Bradbury said the 2020 vintage in Victoria was also smoke affected, particularly in northeastern regions such as King Valley, Alpine Valley, Beechworth, and Rutherglen.

“Even down into some parts of central Victoria.

“There were also poor fruit-set conditions in Spring 2019 so we were already staring down the barrel of a fairly low vintage before we even got to bushfires.

“So 2020 was one of those years where everything that could happen, did happen.

“(In 2021) It’s been quite a long vintage because we had a very cool Spring and early parts of Summer.’’

Ms Bradbury said quite a lot of producers had actually been running out of wine because of the poor preceding vintage so 2021 was a wonderful turnaround.