Winery owners may lose one-third of their grapes

WINERY owners David and Shirley Zanatta had a sleepless night when they heard the sound of a hailstorm a week before Christmas.

As a result, the couple who own the Old Caves Winery in Stanthorpe fear they may lose an estimated one-third of their grapes heading into the wine-making season. "I'm keeping a positive outlook on things because Mother Nature cannot be controlled, although it is still disappointing what we have put so much time into has been damaged like this," Mr Zanatta said.

He said the storm which swept through the vineyard damaged about 40 per cent of the grapes.

"It is hard to tell at this stage how much of the grapes will be able to be used for wine making as many grapes which are damaged can still be used," Mr Zanatta said.

He said it was just the bruised ones which were the problem because if they did not dry up they would cause rot and disease.

"The bruised grapes can spread rot through a grape vine hopefully we will be able to stop this by spraying the vines with sulphur and copper spray which will prevent it spreading any further," Mr Zanatta said.

The leaves of the trees also copped a beating by the Christmas hailstorm.

"The leaves are responsible for photosynthesis which produces sugar in the grapes hopefully many will grow back in the next few weeks," Mr Zanatta said.

Mrs Zanatta said it was just bad luck which caused their crops to be hit quite hard.

"It was very unlucky we were in the line of the storm although many wineries got hailed upon, most did not get the kind of wind which came through our vineyard," she said.

Other wineries who were not directly in the line of the storm reported minimal damage to their grapes.

Ballandean Estate Wines business manager Robyn Henderson said their winery received very a little amount of damage from the hailstorm.