Australia Weather News

Delving into his vines, Michael Kies reveals bunches of Riesling grapes.

They are the glimmer of hope the fifth-generation Barossa Valley vigneron needed, after a devastating start to the season.

"Everything was burnt off, we had 100 per cent burn-off," he said.

That burn was caused not by fire, but by frost, with swathes of vines devastated by freezing temperatures which Mr Kies previously likened to a "blowtorch".

The multi-day frost event wiped out vineyards across south-eastern parts of the country.

Four months later, however, some growers are feeling buoyed by how their crops have responded since September.

"It was the worst frost I'd ever seen. What I was concerned about was that we wouldn't get secondary bud-shoot," Mr Kies said.

"But [that] has happened and it's very, very good.

"I'm feeling a lot better, a lot more optimistic now than I was a few months ago."

Nevertheless, not all growers are necessarily raising their glasses just yet.

The state government ruled out financial support to farmers impacted by the frost, and while Mr Kies said he "never expected" such support, recovery had not come without costs.

"Time, money, diesel, everything. It's all extra but we don't have a choice, we have to do it," he said.

"Every variety we'll get something off this year, even though it might be 20 to 30 per cent, or 40 per cent of a normal crop.

"We will still be picking and we will still be able to survive and get through OK."

Flow-on effect on local business

In the Riverland, grower Eric Semmler considers himself one of the lucky ones, despite losing about 90 per cent of his Berri vineyard.

"I know of other growers who have been harder hit by the frost events this last spring," he said.

"Because we're a winery we still have product to sell so our business can go on, but we've been pretty lucky [in] suffering less damage than, perhaps, other growers and owners.

"In saying that, we don't have the need to make as much wine because of the oversupply."

Mr Semmler said he was mostly concerned about the flow-on effects of the frost, and the damage it would end up doing to the local economy.

"That's one of the biggest impacts we'll see … because the local economy just isn't benefiting from the growers making money," he said.

"It has a huge impact on regional business and I suspect it'll be two or three years before that starts to recover or turn around."

While financial aid to frost-hit farmers has not been made available, the state government hopes satellite imagery will capture the extent of the damage and help growers prepare for future events.

From Mr Kies's perspective, his vineyard isn't "out of the woods" just yet — any hail storms on the eve of vintage could do disproportionate damage to his grapes.

But that is part and parcel of the life of the vigneron.

"We have all sorts of challenges all the time," he said.

"I'm just really proud of my vineyard because it's resilient, it just keeps bouncing back."