Wine with Leslie Williams: Climate change affecting winemakers
There is no doubt our climate is changing and while weather shouldn’t be confused with climate the fires in Australia have focused a lot of minds. Grapes are a particularly sensitive crop so winemakers have been noticing changes in our climate for decades as vintages trend ever earlier and hail and heat become a yearly problem in places like Burgundy.
Most of Australia’s wine regions have not been affected by recent bushfires although some growers in the Adelaide Hills region have had severe crop reductions for the 2020 vintage as have many growers in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney, but the Australian Wine Board says fires only affected around 1% of the country’s grape harvest. Sadly the Tyrrell family in the Hunter were badly affected and will lose at least 80% of the 2020 crop, bad news for lovers of their complex minty Shiraz and legendary long-lived Sémillon.
