‘IT’S LIKE LICKING AN ASHTRAY’: FIRES FOUL 2020 AUSTRALIA WINE

The hills are lush and green, the grapes plump and ripe. But one bite of this famed valley’s most prized product reveals a winemaker’s worst nightmare.

“It’s like licking an ashtray,” said Iain Riggs, a vintner here. “It’s really rank and bitter.”

The bush fires that raged for eight months in southeastern Australia inflicted widespread damage on the vineyards of the Hunter Valley, not directly from flames, but through the invisible taint of smoke.

Winemakers such as Riggs have abandoned hopes for some 2020 vintages. Grapes that were closest to the fires are being left on the vine. Those farther away are being tested for smoke contamination, though it is an inexact science, and in some cases producers won’t know whether a wine can be sold until it has fermented in tanks.

Millions of dollars, and the good names of venerable wineries, are on the line.

“You can’t put out a bad product,” said Chris Tyrell, a fifth-generation winemaker in the valley. “Your reputation, that’s all you’ve got, and we’re not willing to risk it.”

The Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, is synonymous with wine, which has been produced there for nearly 200 years. Today, the region, which is best known for its sémillon and shiraz varietals, is home to more than 150 wineries.

The valley is a crucial part of an Australian wine industry that has become the fourth-largest exporter of wine by value in the world.

It contributes hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the country’s economy, not only through domestic and international sales, but also through tourism — another part of the wine business that was hurt by the fires, as vacationers evacuated areas near wine country or abandoned plans to take to the road for tastings.

Even before the blazes, the wineries of the Hunter Valley had contended with years of drought. Now, after a record-dry 2019 helped produce bush fires larger than any the country had ever seen, winemakers are suffering an even greater blow to production.

Nationwide, the industry is expecting losses in sales of about $110 million.

On the surface, many wineries appear unharmed. At the Tyrell winery, rich green orchards surround the simple shed that Tyrell’s ancestor Edward Tyrell constructed after arriving from England in the mid-1800s. But 80 percent of the grapes cannot be used, and the financial loss amounts to about $5 million, Tyrell said.

The winery must err on the side of discarding any fruit that might be tainted, he said. “To have 60 families that work for us and a very old name, we’ve been here too long and done too much hard work” to take any chances, he added.

Down the road at Brokenwood Wines, where Riggs is the chief winemaker, the smell of crushed grapes and fermented alcohol seeps from empty crates and tanks that are normally bursting with fruit that produces the vineyard’s shiraz, chardonnay and sémillon blends.

The winemakers there have become chemists as they try to determine which grapes can be salvaged. Labeled glass beakers cover desks and shelves in the main office, and sheets with lists of numbers and ingredients are entered into computers.

Testing grape sugars for compounds confirming smoke taint is a tricky business. Riggs calls it the “dark arts”; even with all the numbers in front of him, it’s a guessing game.

The grapes themselves “look terrific,” he said, and “that’s why it’s so insidious.”