Vintage challenges

With 20 Tasmanian vintages behind her, Delamere Vineyard co-owner and co-winemaker Fran Austin thought she'd seen it all – the bumper years and the lean years; the early harvests and the late ones, and even the downright contrary ones like 2004.

But talk of vintage 2020 and she'll tell you she's never seen a year quite like it. It seems whenever she and partner Shane Holloway overcame one grower challenge, the couple didn't have to wait long for another.

"It's been an interesting year," Austin says in typically laid-back manner. 

"It's not been one of the easier vintages."

Austin's first vintage in the State came in 1997, when she arrived for a six-month stint as assistant winemaker at Heemskerk and Rochecombe Wines, then owned by industry newcomer Josef Chromy. In 2002, Austin returned to Pipers River as winemaker/manager at Hardys' Bay of Fires winery.

With a handful of Tasmanian vintages under their belts, Austin and Holloway and families purchased the 6ha Delamere Vineyard from Dallas and Richard Richardson in 2007. Four years later, Austin took on shared winemaking duties there.

A former Young Winemaker of the Year, Austin says she and Holloway can't recall a vintage where so many events conspired to make life so difficult for producers.

Back in September, all looked set for a great start to a new season at the 12ha vineyard on Bridport Road. Spring began with slightly warmer and drier conditions than normal. However, persistent strong winds and unseasonably low rainfall soon combined to retard vine development on the site established in 1983. Cooler weather and even gustier winds in November added weeks to vineyard flowering.

"We had some incredible winds blow in from Bass Strait," Austin recalls.

"Everything in the vineyard became so stunted-looking, especially while it was so dry through the early part of summer."

Late January brought a portent of more challenging times to come – rain and overcast skies.

"Around then, we started to think we were heading into another 2011," Austin observed.

"That was a particularly difficult ripening season due to the really cool weather and the lack of summer sunshine."

With the benefit of hindsight – and Bureau of Meteorology data – this year's vintage proved even tougher than anticipated for the couple who've made sparkling wine production the core focus of their thriving Delamere portfolio.

Figures obtained from BoM's Bay of Fires weather station reveal January in the Pipers River region recorded the lowest average global solar radiation since data collection began there in 1990. Put bluntly, January's sunlight intensity was around 15 percent lower this year than in an average January. Indeed, it was not far off that of January 1995, the month that provided a precursor to an outstanding sparkling wine vintage in northern Tasmania.

February 2020 saw the lowest average global solar radiation for the month since February 1994. More recent figures show the region received less sunlight in March 2020 than in March 2011.

"The rainfall we've had since late summer has been relentless," Holloway adds.

"We had such a slow ripening period, but there was nothing to stop us waiting it out. Our leaf canopies and fruit remained healthy. That said, vintage always brings with it a fantastic sense of excitement and anticipation. Every new vintage is a new opportunity to see what we can make from what Mother Nature provided.

"Now we've finished harvesting, we're really pleased with the quality we have in the winery. For the first time ever, we will have only sparkling wine from Delamere in 2020. It seems strange, but I know we've made the right decision. We really couldn't make top quality table wine from our property this year.

"That's still a good outcome. We'd been so nervous, waiting to begin harvest. At one point, we didn't even know whether the coronavirus shutdown was going to allow us to bring in pickers."

Passionate supporters of their local community, the Delamere couple put out a call for retrenched hospitality workers in the district to join their vineyard crew.

Present for vintage once again was close friend and renowned winemaker, Loïc Le Calvez. The former Taltarni/Clover Hill Group sparkling winemaker is now resident in Victoria, but has become a regular participant in recent Delamere vintages, a rare phenomenon in an industry often plagued by big costs and equally big egos.

"We really work well together," Austin says.

"Loïc loves Tasmanian sparkling wine. He always looks forward to being involved in vintage. He is a huge Lego fanatic, too, so our kids really enjoyed spending time with him while we waited to begin harvest."

You can bet Delamere's talented trio worked out a good many other creative solutions to their vintage puzzles. This is without doubt one of Australia's best small sparkling wine operations.

First published 14 April 2020: tasmaniantimes.com