Canowindra wine grape growers have faced a challenging vintage, with oversupply and poor weather making a tough year even tougher.
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At Sam Statham's vineyard the usual stability of the region has brought its peaks and troughs.
"The great thing about (the region) against the high country, is we're guaranteed to have a ripe crop, it's not always guaranteed in the cooler climates. Our Vermentino is looking as good as it's ever been," he said.
The owner of Rosnay Organic Wines, Statham suffered a setback with a young crop damaged by an early frost. "We were hoping to get a Saperavi," he said. "We'll get some next year."
Unpredictable weather conditions have affected wine grape growers across the country. Chief Executive of Australian Wine and Grape, Lee McLean, told the Canowindra News conditions were not as dire as previous years.
"It's a challenging vintage... with a cool and wet summer, then you have quite wet and humid weather you start to run the risk of things like disease pressure coming into play," he said.
The 2024 vintage comes in the wake of an international oversupply of wine, with Australian wine estimated to have a 2.1 billion bottle excess. McLean said the impact had been felt across the industry.
"There's a bigger trend happening, people tend to be drinking less," he said. "We're seeing volumes of consumption decline across the world, this isn't just Australian, it's European, it's American, everywhere else."
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