John Barker: International Organisation of Vine and Wine Director-General on the 20 year low forecast

It’s a bleak outlook for domestic wine production, with a two-decade low forecast. 

Estimates suggest New Zealand's output will be down 21% this year. 

Director-General of International Organisation of Vine and Wine, John Barker says it's largely due to frost damage in Marlborough. 

He told Heather du Plessis-Allan other climate issues contributed to a low wine output from the Southern Hemisphere. 

Barker says the Northern Hemisphere will be likely worse because of a small harvest from France. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Key.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
We John Barker runs the International Organization of Vine and
Wine and is with us. Now, Hey, John, hi Ella,
Now our problem appears to be a frost and Marlboro.
Is that right?

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, that seems to be the case.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yeah, and what about the rest of the southern hemisphere?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Well, really the case to the rest of the world.
I think we've seen a whole bunch of different climatic
impacts around the world. So we've had we've had frost,
we've had flooding, we've had heat, we've had disease pressure
in various different places. In fact, the southern hemisphere is

(00:38):
a bit down, but the northern hemispheres is probably down
even more. That in fact has a lot to do
with France having a very small harvest this year. I
think there were twenty three percent down in total.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
What happened to them.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
A combination Again, it's reasonably I know that there was
a reasonably cool year in some places, well cool where
I was, but in south very hot, and some places
had disease pressure as well, caused by rains.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So John, is this just is this a function of
climate change? We're just going to have the climate's going
to change, and wine production is going to be up
and down as it does that.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, well, wine production's always up and down, and what
we've seen historically you should be very up and down
before we had better techniques and that variation has kind
of narrowed off. But in the last fifteen years we've
seen the variation between global harvests kind of get bigger
and bigger, and that's definitely due to climate change.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hey, do you know what? I was reading something fascinating
last night? Do you see the Scandies are growing wine
now in really really cold parts of their countries?

Speaker 1 (01:47):
I know, I know, it's quite extraordinary. In fact, the
other day I received a letter from the Norwegian grape
growers wanting to become members of our organization.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Did you say, absolutely not with your weird kind of.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
I haven't actually tried their wine, but I think if
if they can do it, good on them.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
It's made from a grape called Solaris, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah? Yeah, well, the great Solaris is one of these
grapes that are made by combining two great varieties, and
that they can be a bit more hardy to the
colder conditions.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
But what do you expect to taste like John I
imagine if you're growing grapes in a really cold place,
it's going to be quite sharp.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
You'll definitely have a more acidity in the taste profile.
It probably depends a bit on the nature of the
rightening season, but yeah, some of these varieties will will,
you know, accumulate a bit more sugar so they won't
too sharp.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, interesting stuff, John, Thanks very much, appreciate it. Joon Barker,
International Organization of Vine and Wine Director General.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
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