Crap'n'fuck

God you just have to love a Conutry with a fucked up weather pattern like ours.
My connections have told me that in our prime red grape growing district The Hunter Valley has recived too much rain just as the meger harvest was ripening.
For some reason "bunch rot" has affected the red grapes more than the white.
It seems that it will be very hard for the Vintners to produce a decent red out of the crop.
Time will tell, I guess, as in all things.

Good luck to the Vitner's who make a living from grapers. It is a tough career.

I've yet to find out if the other regions are affected

Don't worry, the Yarra Valley is heaving with good red harvests. Roll on grape grazing!!

Margaret River is meant to be coming alng nicely although it might be another dodgy vintage from the Barossa. Although the Barossa reds will have smallish yields, the quality should be outstanding due to the hot temps they've been having.

Oh no! Has the Barossa been affected? If there's a small yield I wonder how much we will get here in the US. I got to do a nice tour when I was there in 2006.

Sugar

Will have to look out for the Barossa reds.
Yeilds might be down, which will be bad from a commerical point of view, but I always feel that, when it comes to red grape varieties, dry land (or sparsely irrigated) vineyards produce the better wines.
The reason behind this is that the bunches are smaller and so are the berries within the bunch.
You have a greater ratio of skin to juice, which means a bigger, bolder flavour, a more intense colour and a greater viscosity to the wine.
The only thing that the vintage will lack is volume.

I still have so much to learn about wine, LOL. I love to drink it, but I clearly don't know enough!

Sugar

Yeah, unlike 2004/5 they've had enough rain at the right time but the last couple of months of extra heat has condensed them.