Wine Industry Newsletter

Emerging variety trial wraps up

Emerging wine grape varieties planted at a trial site at the Harvey Agriculture College

2019 marks the end of three years spent evaluating and demonstrating the potential of 22 emerging wine grape varieties that were planted at a trail site at the Harvey Agriculture College.

Key phenological stages with viticultural measurements such as berry weights, bunch weights, bunch compaction and yield taken, were observed during this time. In addition, small-lot wines were made from the varieties (when there was a sufficient volume of fruit) and then assessed at the Geographe Wine Show.

The 22 varieties include Pinot Gris (clone: D1V7), which has not been included in the evaluation due to the variety no longer being classified as ‘alternative’, and Sangiovese (clone: Brunello di Montalcino), a late addition to the block with the vines yet to reach maturity. The remaining varieties have had one to three seasons of observations and winemaking except Kadarka (clone: F1), which failed to produce a sound crop in all years.

A summary of the phenological stages averaged across the three years is shown in Table 1. Surprisingly the red variety Brachetto was the earliest to maturing variety while most of the other reds ripened in late March. The harvest dates for the whites ranged from mid to late February with a variation of approximately 10 days.

Table 1 : Average phenological stages over three seasons

Table 2 summarises the viticultural measurements averaged over the three seasons. There was a large spread of average berry weights (1.1g to 3.2), with the largest berries from Vermentino, Sciacarello and Alicante Bouschet, while the varieties with the smallest berries were Fiano and Fer. Similarly, Alicante Bouschet produced the largest averaged sized bunches at 311g followed by Tannat (272.1g) and Vermentino (267g).

Fiano produced the smallest bunches at only 73.7g and Montepulciano at 84.1g, which can be attributed to the vines still establishing. Yields varied greatly between varieties and in some seasons, thinning was necessary to keep the vines balanced. Alicante Bouschet, Durif and Tannat yielded the highest at 13.3, 12.8 and 12.5t/ha respectively. The lowest yields were seen on Fiano (1.2t/ha), Montepulciano (2.7t/ha) and Fer (2.8t/ha). All the varieties were spurred pruned and it is expected cane pruning Fiano and Fer might improve yields.

Table 2 : Average measurements over three seasons

The wine assessment results from the Geographe Wine Show are listed in Table 3, with the varieties listed in order of the quality of medals received. Scheurebe almost enjoyed a clean sweep of gold medals across all three shows, missing out in 2017 with a silver. Saperavi, Harslevelu, Arneis, Fer and Lagrein all received gold at one of the shows. All other varieties except Brachetto and Kadarka received at least a bronze medal at one of the shows.

Geographe Wine Show Chairman Jim Campbell-Clause (left) congratulates DPIRD research officer Richard Fennessy on the department’s haul of medals, which included a gold for its Scheurebe (pictured), an emerging variety sourced from Germany.

Table 3 :Wine show results by variety

NE - not entered, NA - not awarded, * - blend

Even through this trial is completed, the Harvey Agriculture College continues to manage the block as a Western Australian Vine Improvement Association (WAVIA) source block which will be utilised to supply future propagation orders.

Over the last three years, researcher Richard Fennessy has held three field walks at the block to allow producers to inspect the vines and taste the wines, organising 11 separate workshops across the regions to present information collected from the previous season and the resultant wines. Producers interested in any of these varieties can contact Richard on +61 (0)8 9780 6219 for further information.