2002 – The Vintage We Had to Have?
If the Australian wine industry had a kindly godfather able to give it the sort of vintage it really needed – as opposed to the vintage it really wanted – then it’s highly likely that the godfather in question would have dialled up a small vintage of exceptional quality. The country doesn’t need to add to its lake of surplus wine, and it desperately needs high quality to maintain its cutting edge on the export front.
It seems the individual in charge of the dials appears to have more in common with former PM Paul Keating than most people’s impression of the perfect godfather. There’s no question that the 2002 vintage was very much cooler than anyone anticipated, which meant that a significant proportion of vineyards outside the hot inland riverland areas vineyards have struggled to ripen even some of their smallest crop loads in history.
Depending on whom you talk to, crops in affected regions are between 15-100 below last year’s figures. Some vineyards in cool areas like the Mornington Peninsula will not even harvest a grape. Most growers in cooler regions are dramatically readjusting their very conservative crop estimates, once the picking starts. Keeping a brave face on the situation is the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia, which has declared 2002 a ‘five-star’ vintage ‘universally as producing exceptional quality fruit’. That’s a big call, even if riverland quality is higher than usual.
While some makers and some regions appear to have done well to exceptionally well with certain varieties, 2002 is hardly five-star. River regions aside, present indications are that it will actually produce a whole heap of ordinary wine. Furthermore, the WFA also anticipates a crop around last year’s level of 1.42 million tonnes, just 5 below estimates of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resouce Economics ABARE. In itself this would be a minor miracle.
The non-arrival of summer in most of Australia’s wine regions has meant that even after one of the wettest periods of flowering and fruit set on record, crops are up to a month and more late in some regions. The small crops can be attributed to a number of factors. Some of the poorest spring weather in living memory meant that flowers were poorly fertilised, and that a substantially higher proportion of grapes showed effects of millerandage, or the development of tiny seedless ‘shot’ berries. The intense flavours they develop are usually unable to compensate for the lack of yield their presence represents.
A grapevine’s metabolic activity is generally at its highest around 25?C, smack in the middle of the range experienced all over grape-growing regions this summer. So, despite its lack of heat, this summer actually caused significant water stress in vineyards, as evaporation from fast-metabolising vines was higher than normal. This didn’t help fill out developing bunches.
Bunch weights are typically around half of normal in 2002. Some cooler climate vineyards are producing bunches of just 30 grams, and yields significantly below one tonne per acre will be common. So, even if some of the top vineyards have been able to adequately ripen crops, their wines will simply evaporate, since there won’t be much of them. Other vineyards will struggle to achieve adequate ripeness against the dual threats of cooler weather and the onset of disease.
On the positive side of the ledger, the slow and extended period of cellaring has produced excellent colours in reds and high levels of natural acidity. While wineries were scrambling all over each other to get hold of tartaric acid in 2001, the chemical companies won’t be making anything like the same money from acid sales in 2002. Flavours in the better managed vineyards are promising, but cooler years habitually produce lingering herbaceous influences throughout red wines that tend to diminish quality.
Nevertheless, Southcorp’s chief winemaker Philip Shaw is enjoying what he describes as ‘an exciting’ vintage. He’s waiting until malolactic fermentations are through before he makes a final assessment, since the higher than usual levels of malic acid in most wines resulting from the cooler conditions are able to mask weight and richness of fruit. Shaw is pleased with the perfume and colour of many of the red wines he has seen, and says that 2002 could well be the best overall vintage for chardonnay in his experience. Rieslings from both Eden Valley and Clare are ‘amazing’, he says, with ‘really intense flavours and bright characters’.
Although the crop levels are tiny, the Yarra Valley could come to the forefront in 2002 with excellent cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir. While Shaw concedes that few of the reds from the warmer regions of the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale pack their customary mid palate weight and richness, he says some of the cabernet sauvignons from these regions also look first-class. The shirazes are lively, fresh and peppery, occasionally vibrant in their floral characters, but lack their usual meatiness. It’s also interesting to Shaw that in several cool regions, cabernet is actually being harvested before shiraz.
While warm areas to have performed well in 2002 include the Riverland, Murray Valley and MIA, Langhorne Creek, central Victoria and the Clare Valley have also reported fine, if smaller crops. Inland NSW has done well, although the Hunter experienced an interrupted and rain-affected vintage. There remains a very profound question mark over the Adelaide Hills and Coonawarra, and much of the rest of southeast South Australia. While Padthaway’s whites look to have performed well, reds might be another issue entirely.
While Western Australia is facing small yields, this very fact might have helped recover a marginally better than average vintage. Droughts around Mount Barker have made life difficult there. Roped in with the same problems as cool climate Victoria’s but several times worse, Tasmania’s vintage will be small. One hopes the best-managed vineyards might yet produce quality crops brought home by the late Indian summer of fine weather.
Robert Hirst, managing director of national wine and spirit distributor Tucker Seabrook, says it’s important that Australians make the most of the small vintage. ‘Fortunately in a lot of the more commercial areas the growers have seen the writing on the wall and are sacrificing quantity for quality’, he says. ‘Most riverland growers are now on quality bonuses, so they’re achieving what nature has dictated in the quality areas. Although just about every premium region is also down, what’s happening with this vintage is fantastic. The quality of the wines and the intensity of the fruit from the tiny bunches is extraordinary. This vintage will blow people away for those reasons.’
Like everyone else, I certainly hope so.
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