A MURRUMBATEMAN winery is looking forward to producing its full complement of wine varieties after weather setbacks over recent  seasons.

Shaw Wines was hard hit by smoke and wet weather, which left its wine crops decimated.

The well-established family winery was unable to produce 15 varieties of wine including its shiraz, merlot, riesling and semillon sauvignon blanc.

Shaw Wines director Tanya Olinder said it’s been a challenging few years in which to produce wine, given the prevailing weather conditions.

“We lost two out of the last three vintages,” she said.

“It was just the weather, we didn’t have the sun to ripen, and there was so much rain.

“The other one was the smoke taint in 2020, so two out of three vintages were pretty bad.”

Shaw Wines was just one of the vineyards in the area that were similarly affected by weather events that impacted on their wine production.

“I don’t think there was one winery that had a full pick,” Olinder said.

“Four Winds lost their grapes during the January hail storms, I think Ken Helm Wines and Dionysus Winery did, too.

“We were going to give the other wineries some of our grapes, but when it came to harvest time, there was too much rain and we got disease for the whites, and later on when the reds were meant to ripen we didn’t get the sun.

“We missed the hail this year, but we didn’t get the good weather to ripen anyway.”

The wet weather did have one positive side effect, Olinder said.

It allowed them to produce a good batch of rose, with the grapes used to produce the wine thriving in those conditions.

“We only got one pick, which was the rose,” said Olinder.

“The reason we got that was when we make a rose, because it’s a red grape, we don’t want it to be fully ripening like a red, so it was good weather for rose, but that was it.

“Everything on our list, about 15 different wines, our sparkling, sparkling semillon, riesling, reserve semillon, shiraz, merlot, semillon sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon, and our dessert wine we didn’t get to do.

“We also do some blends of cabernet shiraz, and cabernet merlot and we couldn’t do any of those as well.”

Olinder said dealing with weather events is part of what they do, and you just have to roll with the punches.

“There’s no point being negative, that’s a farmer’s life,” she said.

“The wine industry is the same as the farmers, you have to keep your chin up and hope Mother Nature is not too cranky… although she certainly has been in the last few years.”

During the period of poor production, the winery was forced to import grapes from other regions to compensate for the loss of its own vintage.

“We have had to buy grapes in, that’s what a lot of wineries have to do,” Olinder said.

“You have to find areas that have had a good vintage and hopefully you can buy grapes from them.

“This year there’s a lot of wineries with grapes from lots of different regions, it’s kind of become the norm now.”

Olinder said she is putting this time to good use, preparing for what she hopes to be a good grape crop next year for harvest.

“Because it’s so wet everything is growing quickly, so it’s keeping it all maintained, and keeping the disease factor down if the rain picks up,” she said.

Olinder’s is a family run business, which started more than 20 years ago, with both her parents and husband involved in its operation.

They have reflected on how unkind the weather has been, but they have to deal with it, she said, and hope there’s better days ahead.

“It was just a terrible year this year,” Olinder said.

“We are not hoping for another of the same.”