By Renee Wood
The 2022 vintage is underway for Yarra Valley grape growers and wine producers, with picking and pressing starting from last week.
Lucy Etheridge from Yarrawalla Vineyards started harvesting their Pinot Noir and Chardonnay varieties last week and said the crop is down this year due to the weather conditions we’ve experienced over the past 12 months.
Ms Etheridge said a really wet season created an unusually high pressure season in the vineyard.
“We had adverse weather events, while a number of our varieties were flowering, which means our yields get dropped when we don’t have fruit set as a result of that poor flowering,” Ms Etheridge said.
“It’s been a challenging season in that we’ve had a lot of managing the fruit to make sure it stays intact, healthy and well to get us through to the harvest.”
On average Yarrawalla producers up to 400 ton of fruit a year from it’s 100 acre Gruyere vineyard for contracts servicing large Australian wineries based in the Yarra Valley.
Ms Etheridge said having challenging seasons comes with the farming territory as each year produces its own complexities and is grateful the season is ending in excellent ripening conditions.
“Fortunately, we’ve been able to see it over the finish line in good condition, and it’ll be really great quality fruit – just not heaps of it,” she said.
Machine harvesters are being used on the vineyard during the night shift picking programs which start at 11pm, due to cool nights below 21 degrees being prime harvesting time for many grape growers.
“Last night, we picked several bins at midnight and they would have been in a press by 2am.
“The machines are really advanced technology now, they’re actually providing fully de-stemmed fruit which is great, and when your close by to the winery, that’s a really ideal scenario now.
“They’re [machine harvesters] a much more sound, consistent way to harvest grapes, and it’s certainly a much more economical way to manage grapes, particularly for those that aren’t able to handpick.”
Ms Etheridge said Yarrawalla hasn’t face staff shortage issues but the agriculture rich land of the Yarra Valley being placed under metro lockdowns has posed some difficulties.
Accessing contractors and maintenance on machinery has been troublesome this past year, more so than in previous years.
“I think the Yarra Valley is a really interesting one in that we’ve been considered Metro Melbourne through a lot of the pandemic, which has made it very difficult for us to access rural assistance, which ultimately as farmers we are operating as rural farmers, but looking at government grants for assistance with labour or shop out with funding for things when you can’t fill gaps has not been available unfortunately.”
All in all, Ms Etheridge is happy the vintage has arrived and the nice sunny weather has helped to plump up the fruit and top off the season.
“It’s a great vintage, it’s looking good… It’s small quantities, but excellent quality again, which is great and I think that’s going to be important for the Valley after a tricky couple of Metro lockdown years.
“It’s nice to have a bit of movement again, with industry feeling vaguely normal with pickers out again in paddocks, machines harvesting and wineries operational. So I think that’s been a nice little morale booster for everyone to see.”
