Liam Phillips
WITH coronavirus scares gripping much of Asia, the ripple effects are being felt all the way into the Barossa Valley.
Spokeswoman for Tanunda’s Greenock Estate, Erica Babbage, said that the Asian market, specifically China, has been the winery’s main market stream since its establishment in 2000.
“We felt the impact almost immediately,” Ms Babbage said.
“We were in China for around eight weeks in October and November dealing with distributors and attending a couple of really successful trade shows.
“We’ve really had to put everything on hold… instead of me going to China in three weeks’ time, I’m going to be in Australia looking at how we can actually get our wine into those markets with tighter restrictions on ports.”
As well as exports being affected, the business had to cancel plans earlier last week that would have seen 50 international visitors in Tanunda, and now has to deal with an unexpected lack of Chinese students available to work in the approach to vintage.
With the winery being Chinese-owned, the business is lucky to have such strong connections to the Asian market and still be able to operate in the region despite the circumstances, despite many hoops to jump through.
“We’ve got some shipments going out, and we hope that when they get to port they’ll be cleared as quickly as possible, but we really don’t know until they get there,” Ms Babbage said.
“That’s the thing about dealing with wine, or any food produce, it just can’t sit in a container for an extended period of time, so there’s real risk.”
With no end in sight for the crisis, combined with tough weather conditions, Greenock Estate is expecting “a lot lower yields” than its average vintage, requiring some uncomfortable guesswork going forward.
“We’ll still look at the volume that we do with trying to plan for what we’re going to sell for export for the next 12 months,” Ms Babbage said.
“We don’t want to make too much that we aren’t able to sell it.
“If this lasts longer than a sort of six month period, by then our whites and the previous vintage reds will be ready for release.
“I think everyone in the wine industry, and food industries have been impacted.”