Vine growers in the Canberra region of Australia have taken the decision to harvest their grapes early due to extremely heavy rainfall over the last few weeks.

Their aim is to try and avoid problems caused by the torrential rain, compounded by cooler temperatures, that could easily affect the 2012 vintage grapes. Their primary concern is that the rain could split the grapes and increase their vulnerability to diseases. To the northwest of the region, in the Riverina area, a 280,000-ton wine grape harvest is deteriorating by the day in flood water.

The chairman of the Riverina Winegrape Growers said that he expects losses to total up to 30,000 tons in the region as many grape varieties were infected with Botrytis, rendering them useless for wine making. He said growers in the Yenda district, had lost entire crops in the midst of harvest.

This is the second growing season during which the region has undergone heavy rainfall and cooler temperatures.

A grower who lost six tons of Merlot out of a potential crop of eight tons last year, said “this year we’re hoping to avoid that. We’ve learnt a lot of lessons from last year and hopefully this early picking will pay off”.

Another estate winery says that so far things have gone well; despite the earlier than usual start to picking.

But warm conditions will be needed over the next few weeks to help balance the acid and sugar levels for the late harvest varieties.