General News
8 April, 2026
Latest harvest start Peter can remember
WINEMAKER Peter Cumming stareted harvesting his vines only three weeks ago.
It’s the latest start in his 50 years in the industry but says “on paper, late picking should make for beautiful wines”.
Peter, who owns Water Wheel with vineyards at Bridgewater and Barhingup, said harvest had traditionally started at the end of January.
“This year it wasn’t until March 6. Back in the 2000s during the drought we were picking red varieties in March though,” he said. “However, the trend has been for earlier picking of red grapes and in a quarter of the last 20 years, we have been finished by mid-March.”
This year Peter says the end to harvest will be a month later.
“The quality should be good, the yield perhaps not as strong,” he said.
Mr Cumming said the vintage had been an unusual year. “It was a dry spring but we didn’t have to water until around Christmas.
“Since then we saw three inches of rain and more.”
He said a frost on November 15 had also impacted some vines and does not expect to pick many cabernet grapes.
“That seems to be across the board as I have been fielding a few calls from other makers looking for cabernet grapes.”
Newbridge Wines’ Andrew Simpson said irrigation had kept vines going at his vineyard.
“It was a very unsual year, cold initially and the vines late flowering, rain on December 21 and then nothing throughout January,” he said.
“Then the season turned on a coinm at the end of February and our harvest has seen good yield of the fiano variety.
“The hot conditions also meant the grapes were clean - no insects - and later ripening compared with last year when everything was several weeks earlier.”
Mr Simpson said his harvest had started mid-March and yield across the vineyard was only fractionally down.
“We were lucky not to have any frosts and the fiano looked fantastic,” he said.
Newbridge Wines was awarded the trophy for best in the aromatic class for its Fiano 2025 at last year’s Heathcote Wine Show and Mr Simpson hopes the latest vintage will be equal or better.
Mr Cumming said storage could be a challenge for wineries this year as demand continued to hit the industry.
Wine production exceeded sales in 2024–25, leading to a rise of 5 per cent in national stock levels, according to the Australian Wine Production, Sales and Inventory Report 2025.
Australian wine exports fell eight per cent in value to $2.34 billion and six per cent in volume to 613 million litres in 2025.
Wine Australia says the overall weakened export performance is consistent with the long-term trend of declining wine consumption in major markets around the world.