By Andy Young
As South Australia reels from the massive storms and flooding to hit the region, there is at least some good news coming for many of the region’s winemakers.
The general message is that while there has been some vineyard flooding the vines are still in good shape and things are still looking good for vintage. In the Barossa Valley’s wine region the North Para River broke its banks leading to some vineyard flooding, but many of the vines were spared spring-time bud damaging hail.
Treasury Wine Estates has seen a lot of water across its properties in the area, but has suffered no damage to its vines or its infrastructure in the vineyards.
It is a similar story at Taylors where there has been little to no damage to the vines or its winery. The main concern is the timing of the rainfall to budburst, particularly for the family’s Chardonnay fruit on the property, but as long as some sun comes along soon it is looking fine for the upcoming vintage.
To give some idea regarding the strength of these storms, Bill Taylor said it is the most rain that he has seen on the property, ever, in the history of Taylors.
The flooding has not been as drastic in the McLaren Vale with d’Arenberg’s Chester Osborn telling TheShout that there has been no flood damage to his vines.
“In McLaren Vale it’s pretty much the same, we like the rain,” Osborn said. “We’ve got to flush the soil out as much as we can and fill up the geology down deep, so that’s all really good.
“Disease pressure is obviously on the rise quite a bit and you can’t spray your low lying vineyards, which can be risky. But on the whole I can’t say that it’s too much of a problem. We haven’t had any flood damage, there’s a little bit of flooding in the vineyards but it will disappear pretty quickly.”
TheShout has also contacted several other wineries in the region.