While the drought that has gripped much of eastern Australia is far from over, the past 24hrs has finally seen some decent rainfall in drought-stricken areas.
Witness the cautious excitement:
And this is what 17mm of rain looks like in an empty dam … at least the ducks are happy for a few days pic.twitter.com/aLOX6LKA0S
— Brian P Schmidt (@cosmicpinot) January 16, 2020
With the Hunter Valley, Mudgee, Orange & Canberra (amongst others) all in for decent rainfalls over the weekend, along with much-needed rain in parched Queensland it’s all good news. Importantly, the predicted rain is falling on bushfire areas, which the NSW RFS are pretty excited about:
If this @BOM_NSW rainfall forecast comes to fruition then this will be all of our Christmas, birthday, engagement, anniversary, wedding and graduation presents rolled into one. Fingers crossed. #NSWRFS #nswfires pic.twitter.com/R9VfD0bqu2
— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) January 12, 2020
The bushfire-extinguishing rain has come too late for some producers in the Hunter though. Remember the samples that the region sent en masse to the AWRI? Plenty of bad news from the early sampling apparently. I’ve heard of one famous producer who may not make much premium Chardonnay and Semillon at all this year, looking to declassify wine produced from vineyards that sat closer to the Brokenback Range (and hence closest to the fireground). Backburning around Broke has been singled out as causing smoke taint issues too, which has been borne out in testing.
That said, it’s not uniform, and others have apparently escaped with no smoke issues at all. And it’s still early days for red grapes, with Chardonnay most affected at this stage.
For another perspective on bushfires and vineyards, this update from the Knappstein family (Riposte) about the Cudlee Creek fire is well worth a read.
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