Gunns barrelling along

With Tasmania's embryonic wine industry now going from strength to strength, it's become clear that one of the biggest problems it still faces is its lack of a critical mass. The State's 200 or so vineyards are not just small, they account for less than one percent of Australia's total vineyard area. 

Moreover, Tasmania has a disproportionate share of small, family-owned operations when compared with regions of similar scale on the mainland. Many industry commentators believe that's why the industry has failed to marshal the resources it needed to keep pace with recent expansions into cool climate viticulture elsewhere in Australia.

So it's hardly surprising the island's 130 licensed wine producers welcomed forestry giant Gunns Ltd with open arms when it bought Tamar Ridge Wines back in April 2003. Many regarded the move as a vote of confidence in the long-term future of their industry.

Australia's largest timber operation wasted no time carving out its new vineyard territory. Within three months, it announced that in addition to funding the $14.8m purchase of its 75-hectare home base at Kayena in the Tamar Valley, it intended spending $16m to develop company infrastructure and 300 hectares of new vineyards.

By December 2003, the plans had snowballed. Gunns' consultant viticulturist Dr Richard Smart explained that expansions of 200 hectares each year for a total of five years were on the drawing board, effectively doubling the industry's current production capacity.

"The company has a state of the art nursery at Somerset in northwest Tasmania, and the guys there are keen to develop their existing technologies for grapevine propagation," he declared.

Barely six years old, the $6.5m operation was already churning out forestry seedlings at an annual rate of almost 13 million. In early 2004, Gunns funded a $300,000 makeover on the 3.5ha site to allow grapevine production to take place there too. Included were the provision of a warm and cool room, as well as building extensions for cutting hydration and the potting up of new plants.

The nursery is now an accredited member of VINA, the Vine Industry Nursery Association. Its first vineyard material – a mere 3,000 vines – provided a useful dummy run in 2003. In 2004, production leapt to half a million callused cuttings and potted vines. This year will see its output exceed 600,000 vines, solely for use by Gunns' vineyard operations. A further 1,000 vines will be produced by the mist propagation of green tip cuttings at the company's Ridgley facility, not far from Somerset.

"With just a handful of employees, this is a capital intensive operation," says Gunns' Plantation Division NW Manager, Ian Ravenwood.

"The more throughput it sees, the more it starts to hum in a financial sense, so there's a real incentive for us to maximize the facility for vine material as well. The nursery is really only a factory that takes a set of inputs like seeds and potting mix and transforms them into living plants. It's moving the materials around that makes the factory. Instead of using a green thumb like a hobbyist, it's the application of scientific knowledge that does the trick."

Driving nursery efficiency is a rail system that supports rolling beds as they are moved through various phases of production. Essentially, it takes seedlings and vines from one environment to another using a minimum of time and labour. The progress of new plants from sowing or potting to its climate-controlled glasshouse and shadehouse, and outside standout areas, takes place smoothly and economically. Beyond dispatch, empty beds are rolled back to sowing and potting areas for the cycle to begin again.

Vineyard material is sourced from various vine improvement programs across southern Australia, as well as Gunns' own sites in the Tamar Valley and on the East Coast. These company vineyards are carefully inspected between veraison and harvest. Vines showing signs of virus symptoms are marked and excluded from the cuttings program. So too are over-cropped vines. Over-cropping prevents wood from being fully matured, and results in poor rates of propagation.

Late June – a quiet time in forest seedling production – sees cool rooms here holding their annual vine cutting selections. Each will have been counted, bundled and tagged with labels detailing variety, clone, vineyard origin, and date of cutting. Re-hydration and callusing for potted stock on its own roots begins in early July. That often continues until the end of August. Callused cuttings receive a small application of rooting hormone, followed by two weeks in a warm room. These are then set in media-filled peat pot strip containers, and moved into a heated glasshouse to form roots and break bud.

When they are well rooted and have good shoot extension, the new plants are rolled into a shadehouse area to harden off. Once hardened, they are moved gain to an open standout area until dispatch in late October. Containerised vine cuttings are packed into waxed cartons, palletised and transported to vineyard sites by semi-trailer.

Potted vine production is based around Canadian-made Jiffy peat pots. Vines start off as callused cuttings and are then added to these biodegradable pots. Pre-formed and ready for planting, they are made from sphagnum peat moss and wood fibre. 

That's far more expensive per unit than standard cell packs. However, they do provide a convenient planting medium, as an entire pot can be placed in the ground with minimal root disturbance, practically eliminating transplant shock. New root systems pass quickly through their walls. The pots degrade with time, offering valuable plant nutrients as well as root protection. 

Over-watering is also less critical than with other forms of container.

Key varieties under propagation at Somerset include Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Riesling.

"I'm also interested in alternative varieties, and there are several things that I like, including Alvarinho, Viognier and Grüner Veltliner," Smart says.

"One of the visions I have for Gunns is to source world's best germ plasm. We plan to get clones from all over the mainland and build up repositories for them."

Among Somerset's most recent additions to its collection are cuttings removed from a moribund 30-year-old experimental vineyard owned by the University of Tasmania. Grüner Veltliner figures among them. 

Watch this space.

First published December 2005, Australian Viticulture