Over-production in the Australian vineyard has been hovering around for several vintages now, with little movement towards a re-balanced grape economy.

The large-listed wine companies did it quite simply at a board level and signed off for large vineyards to be grubbed out (were the worst performing in the assets portfolio) or offered a series of vineyards for sale (Fosters listed over 30).

Today most of those have been sold to interested parties though some remain on the books and have not been moved along. They would be posing as disease bombs because they would be left without any management, and some vines will die.

Several industry commentators have remarked how slowly the Australian wine map is changing: that re-adjustment of the national vineyard is rather slow, and that production has not really declined despite the ever-present glut.

One has to look at the nature of the over-planting from the start.

Better sites-better wines

All sectors are responsible: managed investment schemes, listed companies, private family wineries, private investment growers, traditional growers right through to the 1800 small brand owners who have contributed by “adding a few more hectares of new vines”.

Some regions have simply not re-adjusted. In the 2010 harvest, 13,000 odd hectares of vines out of the total of 160,000 were not harvested due to no demand for the grapes.

These were mainly growers’ grapes. They sat on the vine and were converted into carbon. However those vines are still in the ground and capable of re-igniting the spectre of over-production in 2011.

The first evidence of vineyard adjustment in New South Wales in 2011 emerged late last week with a survey by the Newcastle Herald revealing 46 percent of Hunter Valley vineyards were no longer there. That was 3250 has reduced to 1750 during the past year or so.

The majority of vines have been lost in the Upper Hunter where the larger grower population is found. That’s also where the once famous large Rosemount winery was situated, and that has been gutted for want of a buyer for five years.

Also the Hunter Valley is home to Australia’s major wine tourism market, so despite being buffered by tourists who pay the highest retail prices, this sector of the industry is leading the adjustment phase very well.

Most Hunter Valley proprietors now chase the over USD15 market and varieties that are in demand.

Industry veteran and managing director of Tyrrell’s Wines in the Hunter Valley, Bruce Tyrrell described the market as the toughest he had seen.

Mr Tyrrell said producers who survived the next few years would have no choice but to come out stronger, more focused and making better quality wines.

He predicted a return to practices of 50 years ago with operators selling the majority of wine direct to consumers.

‘‘There were many vines planted in the wrong place, for the wrong reasons and they will all have to come out.’’

By March 2010, 6600 hectares, or 4.3 per cent of Australia’s plantings, had been removed with an additional 13,000 hectares not harvested.

If the industry removal estimate is 20 percent of production, the final amount to uproot is 32,000 hectares. Ouch!

The recent Queensland floods and the flooding by the Brisbane River has caused monumental loss to both personal and business cellars in the River City.

Reports are now coming out that one Milton-based storage facility which went totally under was storing wine worth USD 20 million.

The other puzzling information to hand was that the operator made little effort to move the contract cellar stock to dry ground.

News of such losses emerge when owners are debating how to recover from this muddy dunking. They really question whether the wine is potable while assessing the contamination risk after the floodwaters are known to have high E. coli levels for this developed country.

On the face of it cork loses out. Wines closed with cork which in itself is a highly variable commodity, and terribly unreliable, can be deemed to have taken in water (and bacteria) and would not be a very enjoyable drink.

The older the wine, the more likely the water ingress given that cork has a bad habit of crumbling or going soft with time. One in 10 old bottles that I open would ever stand the test of holding together.

That being said, if the wine in question is Penfolds Grange (and one former Penfolds employee who owned 200 cartons of many vintages of this great red lost all in the Milton submersion), one would tend to overlook the contamination issue and try it.

Of the corks which are questionable closing Bordeaux and Burgundy after the flood, one category which should not have succumbed will be Champagne – due to the internal pressure preventing any liquid ingress.

Then the above discussion is predicated on the assumption that the bottle, label and all, has been sanitised with a solution to kill the hazardous bacteria on surfaces and more likely wedged under capsules and the cork-glass interfaces. This will be some cleaning procedure.

Although I could give a tutorial on flooded wine bottle sanitation, that is best kept until another time.

Wines under screw caps are expected to be fine provided they are sanitised before drinking, as they are totally sealed down to bacteria level.

Just another advantage of the Australian use of screw cap; the only pity is that 80 percent of super-premium red wines remain under cork. But Moss Wood and Cullen cabernets for example, now USD 100, are reliably closed under screw.

Most Brisbane restaurants along the Boardwalk and Eagle Pier in this fair city suffered some water damage; and as a usual practice, wine was stored at lower levels – the ones which get wet first.

Liquor hygiene laws prevent restaurants from selling ex-flood wine in principle, however provided the customer is warned of the wines’ origins, there is an opening for restaurateurs to move it out at a discount. Many will, after a big washing job to clean down bottles.

Unlike the 1974 flood where the main integrity issue was loss of label (the days of gummed labels have gone), this time around the identity is quite plain given the strength of self-adhesive materials used in today’s label products.

However, wines of the ’70s and older will have lost labels if they went under!

Writer Tyson Stelzer took some technical advice on the consumption of wine after flood inundation and that can be found here:

http://www.clearaboutwine.com.au/wp/index.php/how-to-clean-a-wine-bottle-after-a-flood/

Flash Flood Damage-Boireann www.boireannwinery.com.au

By the time the Brisbane River had broken its banks in several places the rain and flood devastation wrung on Queensland’s agricultural crops had been apparent for up to two months.

The Australian Wine Trade Flood Relief Raffle went up on writer Tyson Stelzer’s site www.clearaboutwine.com.au last Thursday, January 13 after a groundswell of Australian wine businesses wished to support flood victims in principle but also their fellow wine producers who had lost crop.

And it became a no-brainer that wine grape crops would be lost after such incessant rain as the grape vines tried to turn off the torrents around their roots and the pelting rain, fog and mist that lashed leaves and developing bunches daily for so long.

Here is an update on the raffle progress from Tyson Stelzer’s site:

The plan is to raise a donation to the Queensland Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal and other similar appeals through a wine raffle in a similar format to the Australian Wine Trade Bushfire Raffle of 2009.

Winemakers, importers, distributors: We would appreciate donations of raffle prizes. Perhaps a case of wine or two, a special bottle, a membership or event ticket? Please send the full name and retail value of your pledge to us by Monday January 31 but do not send wine yet (it will be sent directly to winners later).

Value of pledges to date: Day 1: More than $35,000. Day 2: More than $100,000,Day 5: More than $135,000 (from more than 180 companies); and on day 2 Fosters Ltd donated $500,000 via the Queensland Premier’s Appeal.

Retailers (online and shop front): We would like your help to sell tickets. This is a simple process as tickets will be generated and emailed automatically. Bank and foreign exchange costs will be covered. To date 46 retailers will be selling tickets when they go on sale on February 4 until March 4.

Within the wine industry there is a call to assess the levels of crop loss as there is every possibility of likeminded grape producers in other parts of Australia prepared to donate grapes to assist their Queensland colleagues who have seen the years’ work go down the river.

The flooding of Brisbane last week has been the most devastating in living memory; more particularly as the population and housing growth has doubled since the last memorable flood of 1974 which inundated Brisbane in exactly the same areas. The flood proofing dam-Wivenhoe has failed.

Elsewhere in Southern Queensland it is obvious now that urban development has run rampant in areas which were flood plains before white settlement; and over centuries river courses have changed little despite what is put in their path. In today’s case-housing.

In the suburbs inundated, a veritable volunteer army turned out to assist the clean-up last weekend, so much so that after passing the 25,000 mark, bus transport ran out. So some volunteers went home empty handed but most just turned up in areas heavily affected with gloves, boots, squeeze-gees and water blasters like the writer.

Our group headed for Sherwood Road, adjacent to the Rocklea wholesale fruit markets where a massive clean was under way to get back in business.

Our cleaning property was 36 Melbourne Street, Rocklea, the mid-40s owner Simon was still in shock over this disaster. His double story cottage had flooded one metre over the upper floor and we were in the process of removing everything and water jetting the black mud from walls, and sludge from floors.

The debris from floods take on their own stench. In this case the mud was black as the surrounding paddocks are black soil, although the visuals of the Brisbane River in flood were very much a red, swollen torrent in turmoil.

Ruined Possessions at 36 Melbourne Street-authors IPhone pic

The flood smell is penetrating: and I can still smell it subliminally days later in the back of my nose. It’s a cross of a strange array of country smells; rotting timber, fungus, cow-yard, wet earth, horse urine, dog poo, even decomposing carcass. So for the thousands who aided the clean-up this was their background aroma for several days, and some for weeks.

For the volunteers, meal support was organised on the Twitter hashtag #bakedrelief or www.bakedrelief.org having thousands of hits from day one.

Currently from the website: Baked Relief – ADOPT A FAMILY is now taking registrations from people who are prepared to provide a meal once a week {possibly for up to a year} to a family who has lost their home to the floods.

The groundswell of wine industry support is reaching far and wide. Steve Flamsteed (born in Toowoomba where two residents lost their lives in a flash flood), winemaker at Giant Steps, Yarra Valley tweeted that next Friday’s Pizza and Pint night in the restaurant (21 January) would be fully subscribed.

In Whistler BC, the flood relief function at the Crystal Lounge will be held February 10th at 8:30 pm.

For further donations: http://www.clearaboutwine.com.au/wp/index.php/the-australian-wine-trade-flood-relief-raffle/