Don't talk down the latest vintage, says winemaker

A Western Australian viticulturalist is concerned Australia will tarnish its international wine reputation by focusing too much on regions with high grape losses from this year's heavy summer rains.

Australia's wine grape harvest could be down 20 per cent on last year, due to the wet summer across the southern part of the country.

Most producing areas outside of Western Australia have been affected, with north-west Victoria hardest hit.

Colin Bell, from WA's Margaret River region, says for the sake of Australia's standing on the wine export market, it needs to promote the successes of this year instead of dwelling on the areas in hardship.

"There's still going to be some great quality wines produced, and I just think we need to be careful with the way we portray Australian wine to the rest of the world, to talk up and celebrate our wins as well as our losses," he said.

"For instance, we're really sort of running towards a fantastic Margaret River vintage...I talked to a friend in McLaren Vale yesterday and look he was very positive with how they were tracking, another friend in the Hunter Valley...seems to think it's the best vintage they've had for years.

"Where we get a little bit concerned is when we portray Australia as 'a vintage' and we can lose our market traction by not getting out to the market that...there's also a lot of successes in these seasons, where there is some hardship in some areas.

"I think if there's a cloud of doubt that we portray through the media and we portray through our industry and say 'oh we had a really tough time in the 2011 vintage', it just gives a reason to say, 'well' I might grab that Chilean wine or I might try that South African wine'."