2007 worse vintage ever???

[monkeyboy]

l came across an interesting article on the lazy ballerina website(their latest newsletter) which states that 2007 vintage could be one of the worse in history and these guys are calling it the worse ever!

It seems quite a few wine regions across Australia have suffered a very difficult season, but would it be fair to say that 2007 is the worse vintage in memory or is this just a broad generalisation?

lazyballerina com - (winefightclubMar.pdf)

[Gary W]

Great vintage for Hunter reds and I think Margaret River is pretty optimistic. A good vintage in two of my favourite regions is enough for me.
GW

[Gavin Trott]

If you read it carefully its saying

worst ever for the growers due to the tiny crops etc.

Quality overall should be pretty good, balance may be suspect, but I'm not sure the wines produced will be terrible.

Time will tell of course.

[Wizz]

207 will prove to be a shocker for a lot of growers and makers, thats for sure.

But calling something "worst vintage ever" is akin to scoring wines, ie no one will ever agree, and its the description that matter more.

Will it be worse than 1983 or 1974 (or 1989 even)? How will you compare?

[smithy]

Worse than 89.
Nothing could be worse than 89.

Smithy

[Davo]

8) Worse than 89.
Nothing could be worse than 89.

Smithy

Except for those who will have no crop at all, and I met more than a few of them over the last weekend.

[Craig(NZ)]

looking good in nz at the moment. auckland especially is very hot and dry

[DJ]

8) Worse than 89.
Nothing could be worse than 89.

Smithy

Also that strange one where even in the worst years can normally find something decent - the 89 St Henri was very good for a long time - glad I'm not looking for Australian birth year wines from then though but at least there should be some decent imports.

Now how about 1968 seems to have been terrible internationally - the bette half's birth year.

[707]

"Worst year ever" is a bit misleading. FRom a grower/winery point of view that often has a quantity relation. For us consumers we only worry about quality.

From those I've talked to, crops are small to tiny but in some cases the quality is ok to very good.

Too early to tell but I'd think we'll be treading fairly carefully with purchases if you buy SA or Vic wines.

[smithy]

Having no crop at all is still preferable to having one like 89.
These days I'd walk away from it, harvesting onto the ground.

Ditto to smoke taint.

We had 7 " iin 4 weeks at harvest in 89.
Remember it well! Made a multi trophy winning red for my employers which was gutless muck and it died within a few short years.Noticed the alc was 12.5% the other day. (How i love those lower alc's!!!!)

Actually for us things in 07 look fairly reasonable.
Shiraz was down to 30% in the cellarblock but we'll see what happens with the rest. At least there is no 2nd croppers in there..we dropped that on the ground at veraison. Having said that we're just getting into it.

It does cost money to bunchthin but I hate green charachters and those that don't will make crap.

Ah well, No guts no glory!

Cheers
Smithy

[David]

I have to declare an interest. I produce Winter Creek Wines in the Barossa.

If I was growing fruit and selling the fruit it would be a bad vintage. We are down 60%. But my concern is that this small vintage may seen by consumers as being a bad vintage for quality as our poster seems to say.

Bad news is always eagerly talked about but how can we say it's "the worst vintage in memory". A bad vintage is not a small vintage it is a vintage that produces bad wine.

Our Shiraz has just been pressed - good colour and balance with nice aromatics and the grenache is still fermenting but look really good.

Bad news is always a good talking point but lets give thë facts a chance.

[Craig(NZ)]

looking good in nz at the moment. auckland especially is very hot and dry

looked out the window lately buddy? doesnt look hot and dry to me, its pissing down with rain and forecast for similar all week. May not turn out to be a 2005 after all!

Garden needs it though

[Tim Smith]

Another declaration of interest: My name gives it away in this instance.
Great comments David. Writing off a vintage before wines have even finished sugar and malic ferment is a very brave call. Vintage has been an absolute shocker in terms of quantity, but it seems these calls come from people that aren't intimately involved with the process of winemaking: like David, I've spent the last few months walking up and down vine rows and dealing with all the usual less glamorous aspects of getting grapes off vines and into tanks (and dont get me started about grape price negotiation!!. Mmm, I wonder if grape prices will go down again in a 'bumper crop' year....)
2007? By no means a classic (just yet...) but I can say I've seen stuff that came in early that is green and hard,but anything that has come off in the last couple of weeks is as good as any 'good' Barossa year. All too hard to explain here in text, but those producers that have been pro-active in managing their resource and made diligent harvest decisions will produce wines of more than drink worthy quality...

[707]

Well said David & Tim and thanks for weighing in, just the point I was making.

It is a horror vintage if you're a grapegrower or a winery with orders to fill, this is a tiny crop across much of SA & Vic.

BUT, that doesn't automatically translate into poor quality.

Let's wait and see how they are looking next Spring. I reckon it will be variable but there'll be some gems as well.

[rbinder]

Greetings all,

I love the way the winner of the race has picked and some of the runners are not at the barrier!

It is obvious that many of the scribes making predictions have not seen many vintages. I am in to my twenty something vintage and NO it is not the worst vintage every in the Barossa.

We have some very good whites in ferment and some sound, black well structured shiraz wines.

Please cast back to 2000 or 1983 or 1974, they were not that good but never a worst vintage.

Lets be positive, make the wines and then assess everything. The good makers and good sites will always make the best wines.

Also lests spare a thought for all those poor growers picking sod all or glad to be picking something at all.

~rolf

[Ian S]

I take the point that it's speculation until the wines appear. Not unlike the similar situation whenever the sun appears for more than a day in parts of Europe and everyone seems to talk it up as the vintage of the century, well before the wines appear .

The original post had the ?'s in the title and it struck me as more of an invitation to comment and enlighten, than necessarily to write the vintage off.

Seems to me that MB was asking the question rather than making the assertion and others have given suitable responses, with genuine sorrow for the growers that lost everything.

regards

Ian

[monkeyboy]

Wow, nothing like stirring up a bit of controversy. Sorry if my original posting came across as if I was slating the 2007 vintage, far from it. I was actually interested in hearing from those in the know as to whether the statement from Lazy Ballerina was a fair call or just a generalised, sensationaised headline?

Being new here(and pretty new to the wine world, but by god does she have me in her grasp! My better half thinks I've become obsessive and I need professional help! Any recommendations, support groups, the like, needed) I'm unable to post the direct link to their newsletter, so when I read, "WORSE VINTAGE...EVER!" on their website and a link to their latest newsletter I had to ask those in the know was this a fair call.

It's great to hear from those in the know, especially the growers and wine makers, so thanks once again for all your responses. I'm sorry to hear that the growers have had a very difficult season and do hope that 2008 brings a change to their fortunes.

I felt the title was somewhat misleading and more sensationalist than anything, but like all things wine, time will tell. Thanks once again and I do hope that the 2007 vintage for all involved improves after the difficulties that you have encountered so far this year.

cheers

Anthony

[KMP]

Here is the Lazy Ballerina link. Have not read it, so I won't comment.

But I think it is important to once again note that, in terms of wine its the quality of the fruit that has been harvested that is important, not the size of the harvest. In terms of growers earning a living, well that is going to be a bigger problem, and from what I have heard of frosts and drought effects during 2007 it will carry into the 2008 crop as well.

Mike

[Davo]

8) Having no crop at all is still preferable to having one like 89.

I was actually referring to growers, not winemakers.

I don't think having no crop is preferable to anything for them really.

[Wayno]

From what I understand, 2007 looks like being a fairly decent year for Adelaide Hills. Nothing too disastrous weather-wise besides some patches of frost. Apparently one of the earliest harvests in memory (nearly complete already).

[McLaren Vale Vine Doctor]

Winelovers,

As the author of the article the 'worse vintage ever,' it is meant as a bit of an anti-catchcry. How often have you heard someone trot out 'vintage of the decade/century'?

This article comes from me writing press releases about the McLaren Vale harvest. You have to beat around the bush a little bit and not call a spade a spade. You can't release to the media saying it is a bad year or else they associate a bad vintage, for the those in the industry as equalling bad wine for the consumer.

Please read the article and take it in context. I talk about wine quality and balance, posing the question 'Do low crops always make better wine?'

If that rule of thumb is true then it we will see cracker wine. Unfortunately the weather and time of ripening is an important factor in what you taste.

For the winemakers out there: I pressed the wine from my favourite vineyard on the weekend and got 500lts of usable wine for every tonne of grapes. Normally it would be 650lts from a basket press, or 700-800lts out of a larger winery screw or bag press.

The grapes were very small and contained a low amount of juice. The wine looks OK, very tannic and intense, I just wish their was more of it.

The real message behind 'worse vintage ever' is that it is financially very bad for SA & Vic.

I worry about the effects on my community and my friends. The John Minchella's, the Jock Harvey's quoted are all real people and professional farmers. For grape growers (and wineries that don't have tank stock, and can't afford to buy in bulk wine which has double in price) it is the worst vintage financially.

It will change the face of the wine industry in 'cool climate' vineyards. The big guys will go into more debt holding it over their land, but their is only a so much of that you can do before you are asked to call in the debt. The smaller guys will have to maximise the amount of off farm income they have.

Great to have sparked some debate, let me know what you think.

James Hook

[Chris Robinson]

This vintage is certainly testing the winemaking skills because there wasn't much anyone could do in the vineyard with fruit either not forming correctly or going from veraison to high baume's in days not weeks.
Anyone in Southern Victoria who did not struggle with this is simply telling lies. Unless they are on town water!

We discarded about 50% of our crop which was already down 30%. And yes we were in the vineyard every day. Alcohols again will go too high, low acids, not what we want. Consumers will probably like the stuff - at a low price.

Worst vintage? - yes for the viticulturalist who did not have a hope in hell of adding anything to quality - no water, searing winds, fruit sunburnt, growth all over the place, uncontrollable baume variation. You name it! Drought and excessive temperatures must have effected most of Southern Australia. Personally I think the wines will be at best average everywhere in SA and Vic - and I have spoken to lots of vineyards.

[McLaren Vale Vine Doctor]

"Worst year ever" is a bit misleading. From a grower/winery point of view that often has a quantity relation. For us consumers we only worry about quality.

I find many wine consumers want the whole picture. Not just wine quality, but the story of the grapes, wine and the people who make it. Wine is made from grapes which take 18 months to grow (weather conditions spring 2005 influence the buds that become 2006's flowers, which then set fruit to be 2007 vintage.

I can't consider 2007 anything but a terrible year. Even if the wine I make from it is sensational, it will still be tainted by the effect the year had on those in the wine community.

[SueNZ]

looking good in nz at the moment. auckland especially is very hot and dry

looked out the window lately buddy? doesnt look hot and dry to me, its pissing down with rain and forecast for similar all week. May not turn out to be a 2005 after all!

Garden needs it though

Taken to speaking to yourself, Craig?
We had hail last night. Brrrrr.
Helped to pick grapes in Kumeu last week (Kumeu River's Pinot Noir). The grapes were perfect. They said the chardonnay had about two more weeks to go at that stage. This weather couldn't have come at a worse time.


As for people rating vintages, seems too many early vintage ratings are done on size of vintage and the weather, not on quality, not on what ends up in the bottle.

I imagine it is the worst 'season' on record for some poor sods who had a very trying growing season and very few or perhaps no grapes to pick, but look at last year and the poor sods who had to drop their grapes to the ground because they had no buyers for their grapes.

James, have not read your article. Will do so now. But that's a pretty bold headline for it. It sounds like what people were saying about 2003 in Hawkes Bay, but some pretty good wines, some outstandingly high quality Cabernet Sauvignon wines actually, came out of that year in the end.

[McLaren Vale Vine Doctor]

As the author of the said Lazy Ballerina article I checked what the readership of that issue of the newsletter was. A couple of thousand.

Making a throw away statement like 'worst vintage... ever!' quadrupled the amount of readers I had.

I won't get into the habit of doing sensationalist headlines, and still stand behind the catchcry of 'worst vintage,' but it does show yo the old saying is true there is no such thing as bad publicity.

In my defence check out this article which puts this vintage into perspective. It is like dropping a pipe bomb.

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21370101-5003680,00.html

[True Blue]

Just wondering who the first winemaker will be that will call this year, "vintage of the decade'". At least this year we will know they really are bullshitting!

[Craig(NZ)]

coldest december on record, avg jan, very hot feb, wet march....

you just never can tell in NZ

looks like 2007 will be distinctly average.

[Grey Ghost]

Wine Doctor - your headline surely did catch attention! Perhaps not the attention that you wished! Bad news travels fast - and everyone then shoots the messenger.

I expect some fall-out from this vintange on both sides of the ditch; low crops (however good they may be) do not attract higher payments from wineries already struggling to sell on a crowded market. Much depends on the ability of the banks to carry growers through a bad year.

I'm just off the 'phone to a colleague in Auckland where it is raining heavily. His comments were that the fruit was sound and that it would stand a day's rain - after which - all bets are off.

In the south, we had some rain last night but less than a millitmetre. More damaging are the humidity and warm temperatures. Here too, the fruit is in good condition and botrytis yet to rear its ugly head. However three days of this weather forecast.
My clients' pinots are in (last on Tuesday, phew) and the Sauvignon starting before the Chardonnay. Indeed, Tuesday was a busy day (it ended at 9am on Wednesday, from a 5.20 am Tuesday start). Good fruit flavours all round, but like Aus, crop reductions (cold, wet flowering) in the order of 30% (some in cooler sites, 60%).

Viticulture is Character Building.
GG

[Red Bigot]

A small happy story from Blewitt Springs, John Davis (The Pie King from the TORB Tour Diaries) harvested 24 tonne of shiraz off 8 acres, at 14.7 baume and good flavour profiles. Deep sandy soils to cope with the wet and a good bore licence to cope with the dry.

I didn't ask about prices, but I assume more than last year for such good grapes in a tough vintage, so he should be able to get the house plumbing fixed now.

[Mark G]

Just wondering who the first winemaker will be that will call this year, "vintage of the decade'". At least this year we will know they really are bullshitting!

It may well be in Margaret River ...