The 2008 Australian wine crush began this week in dramatic fashion with flood rains threatening to wipe out millions of dollars worth of grapes and exasperated winemakers declaring war on birds and animals raiding their fruit. The bitter irony is that this year’s harvest in Queensland will be well down as vineyards recover from last year’s drought. As rain hammered the Granite Belt, fruit from far-flung Riversands Vineyard at St George was believed to be the first crushed in Australia this year. It took only two hours on Monday for talented young Ballandean Estate winemaker Dylan Rhymer to put 10.7 tonnes of Riversands white muscats through a shiny new crushing machine imported from Italy. Riversands later discovered it was not the first. It had to take second place to Blind Man’s Bluff from Kenilworth, which had crushed fruit the day before at Marburg’s Warrego Winery. There, three tonnes of chardonnay grapes were pressed. By Wednesday Luke Fitzpatrick from Clovely Estate had joined the race, crushing his first fruit of the season—Verdelho—at the company’s Murgon headquarters. The Courier Mail, January 12.
Jan 13
