Cover: This July issue of Grapegrower & Winemaker includes your detailed guide for the upcoming WineTech exhibition and Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference, with a sneak peak of what’s instore for later this month. Between these pages Brendan Black explores the cognitive and emotional influence of wine labels, whilst Dr Chris Bourke dives deep into the anomalies behind two Pinot Noir clones, and we celebrate 70 years of the AWRI with a look back on where it all began. Also in this issue (would you believe it) is part one of our Vintage Report.
REGULARS
6 What’s online
6 In this issue
10 International briefs
120 Looking Back
120 Calendar
121 Marketplace classifieds
NEWS
7 Successful participants announced for wine industry mentorship program
7 Canada a growth opportunity for SA wine as other exports climb
8 Future of two Vinarchy wineries in doubt
8 Duxton Vineyards sells two properties in NSW
9 TWE loses major California distributor
SPECIAL FEATURE
12 AWITC & WineTech preview guide
15 AWITC program outline
17 Meet the speakers
30 WineTech exhibitor list
GRAPEGROWING
44 FEATURE Vintage Report Part 1 –Warm Regions
68 Pinot Noir clonal genotyping has detected anomalies with both Abel and Pommard
74 Henschke achieves gold membership in recognition of its climate action
75 Smart strategies show sustainable profit promise in Yarra and King Valleys
76 The frost factor: integrated strategies for protecting vineyards
WINEMAKING
86 FEATURE Sulphur as an additive: is it really the culprit for health issues?
88 TWE files patents for its NoLo technology, opens $15 million Barossa facility
90 YOUNG GUN Emily Glover on the grace of growing slowly
BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
98 AWRI: Celebrating 70 years and innovating for the future
102 De-mystifying voluntary administration
SALES & MARKETING
107 FEATURE Quickly estimate grape growing costs with new online calculator
111 Robert Hill-Smith on the longevity of family legacy
112 FEATURE Beyond branding: the cognitive and emotional influence of wine label design
115 Barossa brand bucks tradition with “bagnum” Tempranillo
116 Creating a moment for Australian wine
118 Japanese trade professionals welcomed to Australian wine regions
Welcome to the 19th AWITC
On behalf of the Planning Committee of the 19th Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference (AWITC) and WineTech Trade Exhibition, I look forward to welcoming you to Kaurna Country and the Adelaide Convention Centre on 20-23 July for this mustattend wine industry extravaganza.
We are looking forward to coming together face-to-face once again in Adelaide for this one-stop-shop event. Held every three years, delegates are registering from across Australia and internationally to attend the well-loved AWITC. The WineTech Trade Exhibition will be full of keen exhibitors ready to share the latest and greatest in nextgen technology, data-driven production, sustainable practices and smart business solutions. There’s also been a very strong field of poster abstracts submitted, evidence of the importance placed on this forum by grape and wine researchers. After the challenges of the past few years, our industry is keen to reconnect and look forward, and the AWITC is just the place for that.
This year, the AWITC is again partnering with Australian Grape & Wine to present the business and market-focused Outlook Conference within the plenary program on Monday, 21 July. The
Outlook sessions feature high-profile presenters including Yvette Van Der Merwe, President of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine discussing global wine trade through supply and demand, and Alex Beckett, Global Director of Food and Drink at Mintel, discussing global consumer trends and what they mean for wine.
The AWITC has a strong tradition of delivering thought-provoking presentations, grounded in robust science and offering highly adoptable technical information, tools and technologies. This year’s conference features eleven plenary sessions exploring timely and impactful themes such as climate resilience, sustainability, innovation in wine quality, vineyard health and biosecurity, and the evolving landscape of wine marketing and consumer trends. The program continues to highlight the latest scientific discoveries through two “Fresh Science” sessions. The well-loved student forum “In the Wine Light” also returns to spotlight emerging researchers in a dynamic and engaging format.
The AWITC workshop program will again span across two days – Sunday, 20 July and Tuesday, 22 July. Workshops at the AWITC are renowned for delivering topic-focused technical and business content in an interactive, practical and engaging format. This year’s program features 33 workshops covering a broad spectrum of themes from wine stability, fermentation management and filtration, to sustainable packaging, grapevine virus management and adapting to climate challenges in the vineyard and winery. Other themes include export readiness, brand strategy, legal essentials and workplace wellbeing and mental health. Three bus tours are on offer this cycle, taking attendees on tours of the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills. With something for every part of the value chain, the workshop program offers a unique opportunity for hands-on learning
and direct interaction with industry experts.
It has been a pleasure to work with Gary Fitzroy and the team at Expertise Events and Tim Stead and Liz Schoen at Wine Industry Suppliers Australia to coordinate the WineTech trade exhibition. This year’s exhibition promises to be a fantastic showcase of the latest in vineyard, winery and business technologies. Significant effort has again been put into integration between the conference and the trade exhibition, with dedicated times for delegates to explore the exhibition, including the “WineTech After Hours” networking event on Monday, 21 July.
Once again, the Calabria and Medich families will host the Australian Wine Industry Innovation Awards on Sunday, 20 July, in recognition of the Maurice O’Shea Award and the new McWilliam’s Excellence in Action Award. This event marks the 35th anniversary since the founding of the Maurice O’Shea Award in 1990.
The opportunity to catch up with colleagues from across our industry is a key reason for many delegates to attend the AWITC. In addition to the networking function, social activities will include pop-up bars, a buzzing media hub and a performance from the legendary Yeastie Boys at a nearby venue on the Tuesday night. Join Fat Farmers on the Tuesday morning walk or run around the Torrens and soak up all that the beautiful city of Adelaide has to offer. I encourage delegates to leave time in their schedule for some exercise or a trip to the famous Adelaide Central Market.
To keep up to date, follow the AWITC on Instagram, LinkedIn and X and use the hashtag #19AWITC.
See you there!
Mark Krstic Chair, Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference Inc.
Clare Valley
The 2025 vintage in Clare Valley was shaped by a warm, very dry season that brought both challenges and rewards for growers and winemakers. Despite reduced yields across many sites, the quality of fruit harvested has been met with strong optimism across the region.
Winter and early spring were marked by rainfall that was well below-average, resulting in low soil moisture levels at the start of the growing season. Budburst and flowering occurred earlier than usual, setting the tone for an accelerated season. The absence of significant rain through summer and autumn required careful vineyard management,
particularly in terms of irrigation and canopy maintenance.
Harvest commenced very early, in fact the earliest start on record, with many blocks picked in rapid succession due to the quick accumulation of sugar and flavour. While yields were generally down—particularly for dryland blocks
Riesling displays lifted aromatics, bright natural acidity, and fine structure, promising wines of elegance and longevity.
and younger vines—the fruit that was harvested showed excellent flavour concentration and varietal definition.
Riesling displays lifted aromatics, bright natural acidity and fine structure, promising wines of elegance and longevity. Red varieties, including Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, show deep colour, generous flavour and balanced tannins, reflecting the benefits of a warm, dry ripening window with low disease pressure.
Overall, 2025 will be remembered as a vintage of quality over quantity. Early indicators suggest wines of depth, vibrancy and regional typicity. Growers now look ahead to winter rainfall to replenish the soils and support strong growth into the 2026 season.
- Report preapred by Clare Valley Wine & Grape Association
Picking Riesling at Pikes Wines. Credit Jarred Walker Photography and Pikes Wines
South Australia
Pinot Noir clonal genotyping has detected anomalies with both Abel and Pommard
By Dr Chris Bourke¹
The article by Henschke and Borneman in Grapegrower & Winemaker in December of 2022 presented detailed genotyping of all the Pinot Noir clones in use in Australia. Their conclusion was that Adelaide Hills Vine Improvement clone D4V2 (Pommard) was not D4V2, but rather a mixed selection originating from the McWilliams Mount Pleasant vineyard in the NSW Hunter region. What they did not comment on was the genotyping result for the NZ Able clone. This surprisingly placed it in the same subgroup as three clones that originated in Wadenswil, Switzerland, namely Mariafeld, D2V5 and D2V6. Both genotyping anomalies become more meaningful when the histories of the Mount Pleasant, Pommard, and Abel clones are explained. These historical details are the focus of
this article. My interest in the matter was sparked by being one of the many lucky (or unlucky), recipients of SA Pinot Noir rootlings propagated from AHVI-D4V2 sourced material, over the last 15 years.
Using the genotyping of Dr Anthony Borneman, Australian Pinot Noir clones can be organised into seven broad groups:
1. The Mount Pleasant selections (MV6, Mt Pleasant, AHVI-D4V2) and the genuine Pommard selections (D4V2, UCD05).
2. Clones 115, 667, and 114.
3. Clone D5V12.
4. Clone 777.
5. The Wadenswil Swiss clones, including Mariafeld, D2V5, D2V6, and the Abel clone.
6. Clones G8V7, G8V3, 386, and 521.
7. Clone 167
What follows is a detailed look into the provenance of the Mount Pleasant clones, the Pommard clones, and the NZ Abel clone. The first two have Domaine Romanee-Conti connections, but the third does not.
The Mount Pleasant clones
Mount Pleasant is an old vineyard that continues to exist in the lower Hunter Valley of NSW. Most are familiar with the Mount Pleasant Pinot Noir selection known as MV6. Many are probably not aware that 50 years ago there was also an MV4 and an MV5 in commercial circulation. It seems likely that the Adelaide Hills Vine Improvement D4V2 variant is a mix of MV4 and MV5, and the so-called Mt Pleasant clone is either MV4 or MV5. The back story for these three clones is as follows. Maurice O’Shea returned from France in December of 1920. The O’Shea wine
¹ Vigneron and winemaker, Sons & Brothers Vineyard, Orange, NSW
Dr Chris Bourke at the fabled Romanee-Conti vineyard in Burgundy
Wine Labels
Beyond branding The cognitive and emotional influence of wine label design
Peeking out from the bottle shop shelf or fridge, the humble wine label acts as the bottle’s ‘window to the soul’, its gaze inviting consumers to indulge in the drink inside. What design elements catch the eye—and the wallet—of customers is complex. Writer Brandan Black explores the psychology of wine labels.
While the saying to not judge a book by its cover might be most relevant in the world of literature, for wine, a bottle’s label can have enormous influence on one’s decision to purchase it. Knowing how to best market your wine can therefore require not only choosing the best design, typeface, colour scheme and paper stock but also knowing how to tap into the intricacies of human psychology.
Much research has been undertaken over the previous decades on the factors which can affect a consumer’s decision to purchase a particular bottle of wine, even down to the minutiae such as the style of typeface or the kind of graphic on a wine label.
Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and their meanings, which came to prominence in the work of 20th-century Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and 19th-century American
philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce. They distinguished between the ‘signifier’, the physical manifestation of the sign in a visual form, and the ‘signifier’, the meaning that is attached to the signifier. The relationship between the signifier and the signified is known as ‘semiosis’. An example would be a red, octagonal road sign which we associate with stopping, even if the word ‘stop’ isn’t written.
Semiotics has been used to illustrate how consumers interpret wine labels based on their layout, composition and colour and then attach meaning to these characteristics. In a 2018 paper by Celhay and Remaud, they presented 932 subjects in France with four fake labels that had been designed to appear as if they belonged to wine brands based in Bordeaux. Each of the four labels had different fonts, font sizes, paper stock, graphics and levels of embellishment,
which the researchers believed would convey different meanings to the subjects. No vintage was written and the brand was indicated by the words ‘nom du château’ (name of château).
They found that, for example, a label with Gothic script typeface, strongly yellowed paper stock, an etching of a grand château and an overly complex and embellished design was seen as representing aged wine or an old brand and was thus classified as ‘ancient’, ‘traditional’ and ‘dowdy’. Conversely, the label with script typeface, white paper stock, black and red-letter colouring and a fairly basic depiction of a château and lots of negative space was seen as ‘simple’, ‘modest’ and ‘elegant’.
Interestingly, the label with no etching, a small use of gold (in a crown monogram), white paper stock, nonscript serif typeface and lots of negative space was judged as ‘premium’, ‘elegant’
