Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Tai Nelson: Soljans Estate vineyard manager on the struggle with grape overproduction

Transcript

Tai Nelson: Soljans Estate vineyard manager on the struggle with grape overproduction · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right. The wine industry is nursing a bit of an
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: oversupply hangover at the moment, around one hundred thousand tons
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: of grapes. This is a fifth of the crop we're
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: left on the vine last year, after exports just couldn't
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: keep up. Growers are hoping this season's a lot more balanced.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Ty Nelson is a vineyard manager at Soljian's winery, joins
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: us this morning, Tie, good morning.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: So what was behind the huge boost and crops last year.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Well, we've had a couple of years of just really
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: good seasons. I mean we're still catching up from COVID
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: and we've just had bumper crops over the last couple
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: of years. That I mean with exports drying up, I
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: mean we just have me amble to sell it.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: And is that because people aren't drinking as much? Or
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: have we got more competition? Why are the export what's
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: happening with the exports?
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: It's all those things, for sure. Yeah, people globally aren't
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: drinking as much. The demand has dropped off overseas for
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: for all of our wines, and I mean even locally,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: people aren't drinking as much. So you know, it's hard
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: to keep up with production when we don't know what
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: what people are going to be drinking.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Ty, what can you do about that as a as
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: a wine maker, is you know, because people are going
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to lower calorie options, they're going to lower alcohol options.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Can you do anything with wine to accommodate that.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's heaps of options you can. You can
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: approach it with you can. I mean yeah, it's it's
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: really hard to predict what the market's going to do
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: year to year, especially when when people are drinking less
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: and it's you know, with with lower alcohol options. The
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: equipment to be able to produce something like that, especially
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: for someone small like Solgions, is a really hard call
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: to make. I mean, the best that we can do
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: is keep making good wine and hope that people, you know,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: just keep buying it and keep drinking it and keep
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: supporting us. But for for bigger companies, you know, those
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: lower alcohol options are different definitely on the on the books,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: there's lots of investment into that.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: What happens with leaving grapes on the vines? What I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: mean what does that do to your business?
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Well, it's it's money left sitting out, really, I mean yeah,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: especially for the bigger vineyards in Marlborough. It's literally just
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: money sitting on the vines that that they can't do
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: anything with. And it's yeah, it's really disappointing, especially as
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: a grower to see, you know, all that hard work
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: you've worked for a year to get to get these
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: you know, to get these grapes, you know, really healthy
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: and really good quality, and then you're just going to
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: leave them sitting here because no.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Awesome, Right, I appreciate your time this morning, Thanks for
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: following us and Ty Nelson, vineyard manager at Soljian's Winery.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to news Talks. It'd be from five am weekdays, or
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio