Wine with Meg + Mel
The fun + frank podcast which helps you navigate the world of wine. Hosted by Australia's first female Master of Wine Meg Brodtmann, and self-titled Master of Sabrage Mel Gilcrist.
Wine with Meg + Mel
A Vintage Under Smoke: What the fires mean for Victorian wine
Bushfire season has arrived with brutal force, impacting Victorian wineries - this extra episode is to answer your questions around what this means.
From Strathbogie Ranges and Yea through to watch zones near the Yarra Valley, we map the fire lines, the shifting winds, and the hard choices facing growers who are only weeks from harvest. It’s not just scorched rows and lost stock; the bigger, quieter threat is in the smoke you can’t taste on the grape but can’t ignore in the glass.
We break down smoke taint in plain language: how guaiacol and m‑cresol bind to sugars in the vine, why reds are at higher risk, and how distance, density, and duration of smoke shape outcomes. You’ll hear how bench ferments and AWRI testing guide go or no‑go calls, why thresholds are so unforgiving, and when it makes sense not to pick at all. Along the way, we talk logistics on the ground—melted dripper lines, charred posts, closed roads, and the heartbreak of not being able to turn on irrigation during a heat spike. Spring frosts have already clipped yields in parts of Yarra and Beechworth, so the supply cushion is thin, and cellar doors are closing to keep roads clear, hitting tourism and cash flow at the worst moment.
Through it all, the wine community is rallying—offering fruit, sharing testing know‑how, and keeping information moving. If you want to help, start with your glass: buy Victorian wine, and where possible buy direct so every dollar lands with the producer. Share this conversation with friends who love Pinot, Shiraz, and the regions behind them. Subscribe for more grounded, no‑nonsense insights, leave a review to boost the signal, and tell us which wineries you’re backing so we can amplify and connect support.
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Hi and welcome to Wine with Meg and Mal. We are here to help you navigate the world of wine. I'm Mel Gil Carey, strength by Master of Wine, Meg Brottman. We are coming to you outside of season at the moment. We are not technically back yet. But it's been a big week and we've had a few questions. So we wanted to have a bit of a chat about what these fires in Victoria are doing, how they're affecting the wine industry. Meg, do you want to kick us off just generally what's been going on?
SPEAKER_01:So the biggest, I guess the biggest fire at the moment is the run through the Strathbogie Rangers, which has a 450-kilometre perimeter. And there are obviously wineries in the Strathbogies. We've had one in around Harcourt near Bendigo, which is a lot of apple cider, but also wineries. And I know a storage facility there's been burnt down, and wineries have lost their stock. It's pushing at the moment sort of up towards the northeast. So, you know, places like Brotherglen, they're all they're all fine at the moment, but it they're all on watch and alert. And then obviously we have the one down at the Otways, which doesn't really impact as many wineries. But we're the main one in Victoria. You've got vineyards in Yeah it's obviously threatening the Yarrow Valley.
SPEAKER_00:So we're talking like north of Melbourne.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, almost directly.
SPEAKER_00:Is the main sort of yeah, it is the main area. Um and sorry, what did you say, Yarra Valley?
SPEAKER_01:So Yeah's um been evacuated. So you've got vineyards up there around Marindindi and Yeah. Um and I suspect that quite a few people that I know have lost their vineyards now. Um yeah, Yarra at this stage is fine. Um because the fortune, well, it's awful, but fortunately for the Yarrow Valley, the winds have shifted, so they're actually pushing the fire for the further north rather than pushing them back down to the Yarrow Valley. But it came pretty close around King Lake to Langey at one stage, I think was that it was watch um you know, be aware and watch out what's going on. So yeah, it's just a terrible time. Um Fowles Vineyard have lost 300 acres, plus Matt Fowles' house. Um I don't know to the winery if there's been any damage to the winery, but they won't have any fruit to crush. I mean, obviously, people in the Yaravali are or in the wine industry are offering Matt fruit at this stage. Um, and the biggest um well, I mean, we just don't know how long it's going to last. They're saying weeks now. So there'd be there's another Elgos Vineyard, I think is another one that I've heard has lost their vineyard. I think they've got about 50 acres of premium fruit. But anyone that's in the Strathbogie's dominion would probably be damaged. I don't know if you've been up through that way, but the the road is it's like goat tracks, you know, they're tiny, tiny roads. It's very hard to get in, very hard to get out. Really hilly, uh, very bushy area. So we just don't know at this stage, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:And there's all kinds of ways that fires can affect wineries. And I guess you've you've touched on like physically burning, like the stock or the salad d'or or the vineyards. What about smoke taint? That's going to be a really big question people have. Can you go into maybe give us a another rundown on what it is, how it occurs, and and is it something we can expect from this vintage?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so smoked taint is it's formed from the smoke. Obviously, that's um a result of burning wood, basically. And there's five basic chemicals. The two really important ones are guacol and cresol or cresol, I don't know how to pronounce it, and they give that really tarry burnt ashtray kind of flavours, and they're the ones with the lowest threshold, so we can detect them more than anything else. But there's five basic chemicals. And what we used to think that it was only after viraison when the grapes had changed colour and their skins are starting to soften that um smoke taint was going to become an issue. We've now realize that it's anytime the leaf basically absorbs the chemicals and it gets translocated, goes through the plant, and carried to every part of the plant. What happens with the chemicals then is they bind to sugar. So when you taste the grapes, they're completely fine. But once you've fermented them, that sugar's disappeared and the chemical is becomes free. And then you can actually taste it. So you can only really taste it in wine. It's more impactful in red wine because we ferment on skins, and obviously they get the most impact. Um, but it can still impact white wine and rose wine. So the factors that influence the degree of smoke taint, uh, how far from the fire you are, yeah, how much smoke is settling where your vineyard is, and how long that smoke lingers around. So at the moment, again, we've got these southwesterly winds that are coming up and pushing the smoke away from the the Yarra Valley, for example, but it's pushing it further north into places like Rutherglen. Um, I mean, I'm in Warrandy, I haven't seen any actual smoke myself, which is surprising. Usually you you do. But um, all through I mean King Valley and Alpine Valley, I'm sure they must they're gonna be impacted by smoke. I just I just don't know. Again, it depends on how long, how thick, and how far away from the fire you actually are.
SPEAKER_00:So, uh what is your kind of prediction? Do you think that we are gonna have some smoke take from this season? Yeah, it's for sure.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, yeah, if anyone through Yay and Strathbogie that are closest to the fire have any fruit left, because don't forget it you also singed vines, damaged vines, damaged rows, um, heat shrivel from the the impact of the heat rather than the fire, um, they'll all be probably smoke tainted. And the others, it's just a wait and see. So, what we do is we tend to wait until about we've got about eight bomay of sugar, and then we go out and pick a sample, do a bench top fermentation, so just ferment it in the in the lab, and then taste the wine, and then you can make a call and you can send that wine, the wine I'm using inverted commas that you've made in the bench, off to the Australian Wine Research Institute, the AWRI, and they can test for the levels of these chemicals in the grapes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so um am I right in saying that back um what was what year was Black Friday? 2009? Nine. Back then, we couldn't test where it could be. Everyone had to ferment their grapes, and it wasn't until all the wine was made that we even knew if there was smoke taint.
SPEAKER_01:We didn't really know what smoke tape was, and we are now the lead leaders in terms of research in smoke tape in California, because they obviously have a lot of wildfires as well. They um use our developed technology that we've we've developed over the years um to measure smoke taint. So, what you can do now in 2019, I think it was in the Yarrow Valley, we had a lot of smoke from those fires around Malacuta. Remember that really awful summer period? Um and so what we did is we used to take the grapes to Domain Shandon. And because we're in a phylloxera region and we were sending them to South Australia, they had to be frozen by Domain Shandon and then shipped off frozen to the AWRI, who would then run the tests to see whether or not there was any smoke tank chemicals in the grapes.
SPEAKER_00:So usually does each region kind of have a representative who well, this was a first.
SPEAKER_01:We'd never really done it. And thankfully, uh we were uh I was just talking to Grove at um Wine Yarrow Valley last week, and I was thinking over the weekend we we may need to discuss having a hub again for the Yarrow Valley um grape growers and surrounding regions to bring their grapes in so they can send them off for if they want to get them done for testing.
SPEAKER_00:So Yarrow Valley is a big established region with people who've been there and known what they're doing. These regions that's currently affecting are smaller, they might not have as much of an association or like is it going to be a lot harder for them or a lot more expensive to get this testing done to see what effects of the smoke tanks will be?
SPEAKER_01:Cost will probably be the same, but um I think the I imagine Department of Primary Industries will probably reach out to them, you know, the Victorian government. And also the wine industry is just a bunch of gorgeous people. So people will be helping each other and saying, hey, get your grapes tested, what do you think? Going in and helping them out. So I think there will be a lot of support for them. As I said, I've I've already heard that fowls have been offered fruit from people. Um but don't forget they've just spent what, 5,000 a hectare, maybe 10,000 a hectare getting their grapes to this point, a few weeks off harvest.
SPEAKER_00:And they had like a really innovative, like um a bat program or something like really cool, sustainable work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the little insects and they'll all be gone. Yeah, yeah, it's it's just it's shocking.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so smoke tane, it's you can't even test for it in-house. Everyone's gonna so it's at some point at the end of this vintage, everyone is going to be sending off to AWRI, and we're all just gonna sit tight and see what happens.
SPEAKER_01:Well, they'll send them off before they pick them because there's no point picking them if they find out, and then afterwards, yeah, they will send them off um for testing to see that they're sub-threshold.
SPEAKER_00:And what would it taste like? Is so is there a threshold? Is there like a little bit of smoke tent that you can go, oh, it's gonna be there, but you won't be able to taste it too much? Go ahead. Or is it just like if there's any, don't bother?
SPEAKER_01:It's Britannomyces all over again, isn't it? Everyone's thresholds differ. The problem is that the two most important ones, guacole and M cresol or Cresol, cresol, uh, they have the lowest thresholds. So we can detect that at really, really, really low levels. So my advice, if it were me, I just wouldn't bother picking them. Um so sensory detection threshold in wine for guacole is 23 micrograms per litre. So that's nothing, and crystal is 20 for M. Crystol.
SPEAKER_00:So it actually tastes like smoke, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01:It tastes like I'm sure you've all been out to pissy parties where people spilt stuff in ashtrays. You know that smell of a wet ashtray? Yes, it is literally like that in your mouth. Yeah, lovely. It is absolutely disgusting. So they vary in in how they are detected. So guacole, which is one of the most important ones, can be really smoky or medicinal, whereas the M cressol can is more sort of tarry and medicinal. And then there's one called syringol, um, which grapes naturally have a level of anyway, believe it or not, which is kind of smoky and charcoal. That's not as bad. And I think from memory, the threshold for that is actually a little bit higher as well. So yeah, it's not as it's not such an important one. But it's the guacole and m-cresol that are really important.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, okay. And so then aside from the smoke tank, what other effects might there be? Like even just this extreme heat has got to be doing something to the vines at this point, yeah?
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, I mean, and also just the infrastructure. Your, you know, with if fires are close and your vines may not go up because they've got quite a lot of water, you may the infrastructure may be damaged. So your dripper lines, because that's made out of a sort of form of plastic, um, posts may be charred. You know, ends of vines may be charred. You may not have access to get into your vineyard because there may be trees down everywhere, burnt buildings, whatever. So there's this whole this logistical nightmare. Um you know, vines going up in flames, obviously, then smoke tape, but just the the logistics of getting in and out of your vineyard, you won't be able to spray. I mean, you're not gonna be able to get in. You you're you're banned from going up there, even if your vine has survived. You can't turn on your irrigation because you're not there. So the vines could have, you know, suffered in that massive heat wave. Fortunately, for Victoria for the next week at least, it's pretty mild. Yeah, but they're saying that around the 18th that it's gonna heat up again.
SPEAKER_00:Does that mean we're gonna be looking at an early vintage potentially?
SPEAKER_01:Um I'd say normal-ish, maybe a little a little bit earlier, but who knows? Um we don't know what the weather's gonna be like between now and at this stage, viraison's just started to happen in the Yarrow Valley in the warmer sort of parts. So it's usually eight weeks post veraison, give or take, very much a rule of thumb. But so you're sort of looking at the first week of March, which is kind of standard-ish, a little bit earlier. But we just don't know. And we've been we've had so many of these cool vintages, you know, we've forgotten about the fire.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We've just become a bit slack, I think.
SPEAKER_00:Um, there was also some frustrated in spring, wasn't there? Yeah. What effect did that have?
SPEAKER_01:Well, some people lost um certainly in the Yara, some people lost fruit. Um and I think Beechworth people lost some fruit as well. So crops were naturally down, and then if people have lost stock through these fires, you know, where's it all gonna come from?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And then um there's another layer, which is uh tourism, which for a lot of people is something that they really rely on in terms of income.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, sell a doors. I know in the Yara was shut on Friday. Um, people made the decision to shut them down. Because what you don't want is you don't want to encourage traffic into fire risk areas. Yeah. Um, so you know, people make the decision, and you know, why in Yarrow Valley, we sent out just an email saying we didn't advise people what they should do because it's their commercial decisions, of course. But just saying, listen, stay safe, you know, make sure you're up to date with what's going on, have your Vic services emergency app going. Because imagine if you had a cellar door full of people and they had no way of getting out. Yeah, which is crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know most of um being chat and uh like northern, gosh, northern, like even um, you know, like Negambi and all those kind of regions as well. Well, that's right.
SPEAKER_01:Because like even Heathcote, because that hardcourt fire wouldn't be that far from Heathcote. I don't know whether Heathcote's had any fires itself.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but Seball, you know. You you almost just can't drive north at the moment. The Hume is sharp. I think the Hume is still sharp, isn't it? It you just can't even get north, even if a fire isn't in the location that you're heading, it's really, really hard to just stay.
SPEAKER_01:And they're just saying stay, stay away, basically.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and we want people to stay away. It's just um that extra layer that's gonna be impacting these businesses. Um, do you have much of an understanding about insurance and how that works? Are most wineries insured for this kind of thing?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, wineries are are insured, but the problem is that in smaller wineries, insurance premiums have got so high now that they just can't afford to do the insurance. And this is the thing that you know impacts people who lived, you know, in 2009 around King Lake, they were sort of some of the not as wealthy people. They had their houses, their land that they owned, um, but they never insured it, and then they just lost absolutely everything. So, yeah, I mean, insurance premiums are just gonna go through the roof. And I mean, you've got the floods in Queensland as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I had Pete say to me yesterday, this is a fuck country. And I said, Well, it isn't it is a land of extremes.
SPEAKER_00:You know, yeah, that that's oh wow. You would have put things really differently between you, don't you?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, you know, we've got the bloody floods all the way up in Queensland, and then you've got this fire, we're just desperate for rain down here. It's just so dry. You would have you driving up around that way just around Christmas time. You see how dry it is. It's just crazy. Yeah, it really is.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, the biggest thing that we're gonna get asked is what can people do to help is the people can do by Victorian wine.
SPEAKER_01:By Victorian wine. By um, preferably direct from the website if you can, because that means every cent goes into the producer's pocket, bearing in mind that they may not have you know infrastructure to deal with that just at the moment because people would will have been evacuated, so they may not be able to get onto their online stores. Um, but yeah, just buy as much Victorian wine as you possibly can. And if you know you can provide any donation or relief to the people that have lost everything, do it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, so what we'll do is um we might make a highlight on our Instagram and we'll start kind of drawing attention to everyone that we hear of. If we hear of relief efforts, um, fundraising places that have been impacted, and if they have their own way to help, we'll put on our story, we'll make a highlight. So just keep checking back there. Um, if you know of any, let us know. Um, and we'll raise some awareness towards that as well. Um we're gonna start the proper season of the podcast back next month. So we're still um a few weeks away, but in the meantime, we just want to send all our love to everyone impacted through these awful fires. They're terrible. Um, they're impacting, of course, a lot of industries, not just wine, but we're definitely feeling livestock.
SPEAKER_01:It's just awful.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. It really is. So big love. Let's try help all the way we can. Hopefully, we've answered a few questions and um feel free to send us any more if if there's anything else that we can do. Uh, thank you, everyone. We'll be back with you in a few weeks and enjoy your next glass of Victorian wine. That's right, and stay safe, everyone.
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