Like most people, Coghill's Creek winemaker Owen Latta is pleased 2020 is drawing to a close. The man behind the Eastern Peake and Latta Vino labels says a combination of uncertainty caused by weather fluctuations during vintage and the COVID-19 pandemic made the year a trying one.
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Mr Latta says the wine's he's made for 2020 are looking good in the cellar, but the year itself has "taken us all on a wild ride."
"We got early an indication of what we were in for with the season in November 2019 when the vineyard was starting to take shape for the season," he said.
"We had these terrible north winds come through at flowering, and blew all the flowers around and knocked the potential crop for a six.
The rough start to the vintage for 2020 forced fruit yields down for winemakers across the region, but the extent to which it was reduced exactly didn't become apparent until later in the season.
"As we went further into the season and started picking, it was down by, like 70 per cent, which was pretty devastating," Mr Latta says.
"So yes, the wines are great - it's just not as much as we'd hoped for with the amount of work we put in."
The reduced yield has meant output was drastically cut, with Eastern Peake producing just 20 per cent of its projection, and around 50 per cent of usual vintage. It was roughly the same for Latta Vino wines.
"I could see it coming on," Mr Latta says of the grape shortage.
"I went out scouting around to some (grower) friends as well, and I was asking, 'What have you got that I can buy?' And there were a few vineyards that I couldn't get fruit from anymore. But those guys often recommended me to other people they knew.
"So our tonnage was the same overall, but the process was... a little intimidating. I'm not 20 anymore, I've got two full-time people working for me and I've got to pay myself a wage. I've got bills to pay, and growers.
"But we've made some really interesting wines, new wines, from other vineyards around us."
The impact of the pandemic was as initially stressful for winemakers as it was for the rest of the community, says Mr Latta, but he found an opportunity to refocus his business through booming online sales - something he hadn't really given much thought or time to before.
"We'd been growing the business a little bit more, not too much, and hitting a few targets when COVID-19 came along," Mr Latta said.
"I had a few lifelines thrown at me from some friends in Melbourne who are doing things a bit differently with their businesses. We all worked in this way: 'How can we all help each other out?' And that's what happened.
"We adjusted a few prices, online sales had just ticked along and then... we'd never seen anything like that. And they've kept going: people are really happy to buy online. So I do all that myself, all the technical stuff as well. I don't really get a day off.
"Somehow we're still doing OK out of it. But I wonder about the smaller producers out there, how they're coping. It's not easy."
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