Buy Aussie wines to help bushfire relief
Vineyards have suffered ‘devastating damage’ from deadly bushfires, as have wider communities, said government body Wine Australia. However, it warned that a complete picture will take time to assemble.
Understandably, Australia’s wine industry has not been the major focus amid fires that have killed at least 28 people, destroyed homes and caused mass evacuations. More than 10 million hectares of land burned between September 2019 and January 2020, with New South Wales and Victoria hit hardest.
Until full damage assessments can take place, Wine Australia has sought to provide context on the situation for vineyard owners and their customers.
‘We are confident that, as of 6 January
2020, less than 1% of Australian vineyards were potentially impacted,’ a spokesperson for the organisation told Decanter.
Adelaide Hills was one of the worst-affected wine areas, with about 30% of vineyards caught in the fire zone, according to the wine region’s executive officer Kerry Treuel.
‘The fire moved quickly and sporadically throughout the region, jumping roads, vineyards and properties,’ she said.
‘So, while the fire scar is spread across a vast area, the emergency services and local volunteers and growers themselves did a truly amazing job to limit its impact.’
Wine Australia’s chief executive Andreas Clark said that assessing damage is a complex process: ‘It is easy to see when vines are burned, but often it takes much longer to establish the damage caused by heat.’
According to Tony Battaglene, chief executive of Australian Grape & Wine, support for growers must be backed by a campaign to rejuvenate tourism over the medium term.
‘We need donations to the relief funds, support for our emergency services, and we need consumers to buy our wine and visit our regions,’ he commented.
Wine Australia said that donations can be made to the Australian Red Cross, as well as to individual regions. The body also encouraged showing support by buying Australian wines.