Wimmera wineries enjoy 'unicorn' year as industry rebounds

Norton Estate owner Chris Spence said a cool summer had helped his vineyard to produce a bumper harvest.

"(We've had) one of the best we've ever had quality and quantity wise," he said.

"It's like anything in agriculture, when all your stars align, you have a good year and this was a great year."

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The signs were there early, according to the veteran winemaker of over 24 years.

"It started last spring. We had excellent rainfall, and that's when the vines started to become active."

"It was a very cool summer, one of the coolest summers we've ever experienced. This meant managing the foliage and fruit was quite easy, in regards to having no real extremes of weather.

"We had only two days that touched 40 degrees, which is unusual for us. It was just one of those years where everything worked really well."

A lack of extremes is something that many Australia's wineries experienced, with Wine Australia calling it a "unicorn" year.

In the organisation's National Vintage Report, Wine Australia said 2021's vintage would be characterised by "near-perfect growing and ripening conditions across most states and regions".

Wine Australia general manager, Rachel Triggs, said the weather was undoubtedly a factor.

"Good fruit set, plenty of water at the right time, lack of heatwaves, low disease pressure, and favorable harvest conditions have resulted in a high-yielding, high quality vintage," Ms Triggs said.

Mountainside Winery owner Jane Goninon noted that a cool summer and great harvest were only the culmination of a streak of good weather.

"It was the culmination of having plenty of rain in the lead up. So from bud burst in September through to Christmas, which gives you a good foundation," she said.

"We prune in such a way that we get wind and sunshine through the canopy. That means the grapes ripen at pretty much the same rate and the wind dries out any moisture."

"It was really great that we would easily have doubled our crop."

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However, it wasn't all clear sailing.

"Close to harvest, we started to get more rain than we wanted. That's a real risk to getting things like Botrytis," Ms Goninon said.

A wetter March across the eastern side of the Grampians also impacted Seppelt's harvests.

Seppelt senior winemaker Clare Dry said although she was thrilled with this year's vintage, the season was more nuanced.

"We had a pretty high rainfall in March across the Grampians central region and Heathcote, which really delayed the ripening for us, but Drumborg had a blinder of a year," Dry said.

"It's been an interesting vintage. There was almost a tale of two vintages, from my perspective."

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