The Hunter Valley wine industry has been left disappointed by the news that smoke taint, which decimated the vast majority of the 2020 vintage, does not quality for assistance from the bushfire recovery funds.
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The federal member for Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon had been strongly pushing the case for assistance for Hunter winemakers and growers, but was informed this week that he had been unsuccessful.
Adam Marshall, the NSW Minister for Agriculture, informed Mr Fitzgibbon by mail that despite his best efforts, smoke taint did not qualify for assistance under the Special Disaster Grant - Bushfires.
The grant is funded by the Federal Government, but distributed by the NSW Government.
Mr Fitzgibbon could not mask his disappointment at the decision.
"Despite my best efforts, the Government failed to address the smoke taint issue," Mr Fitzgibbon said.
"Like many employers struggling with the JobKeeper cash-flow issues, many growers will struggle with both a revenue collapse and the cost of pruning and the like."
The letter to Mr Fitzgibbon instead referred to Government assistance in the way of salvage and removal of smoke tainted grapes.
Bruce Tyrrell, of Tyrrell's Wines, said that while obviously disappointed, there are some assistance packages on the table and that it is up to the individual wineries to do their homework.
"We probably lost 80 per cent of our vintage all up, and we had some wineries didn't produce a drop, so we were badly hit," he said. "But there is a grant of up to $75,000 for maintenance type work, fixing sheds, repairing fences and so on, that's available.
"And the region also received a $500,000 loan at low interest to help with recovery - so it's not as if we've missed out altogether.
"The truth is we're not going to have someone come out to each of our kitchen tables and go through it with us. Obviously we'd have liked to have had more.
"There was also some money provided to go towards smoke taint testing but from our winery's point of view, it probably only covered about a third of what we actually had to spend.
"I'd say that the onus is on us as individual winemakers to read everything that's available and seek assistance individually. I know that's what we've been doing at Tyrrell's."
Angus Barnes, executive officer of the NSW Wine Industry Association, was saddened by the news smoke taint wouldn't receive further assistance.
"Smoke taint doesn't just affect the Hunter, but vast areas of the state," he said. "We probably had 40,000 tonnes of fruit that wasn't made into wine because of smoke this year, a lot of that in the Hunter.
"We've been provided some support - and we're grateful for that - but it has been slow and methodical in coming.
"And while we'll happily take what we can get in these difficult times, the Victorian Government provided greater support faster, and they weren't hit nearly as badly as NSW by smoke.
"But last month John Barilaro announced $140 million in State Government funding to support the agricultural, horticultural and forestry industries - we qualify as horticultural - so we'll continue working with him to see if we can get some further assistance from there."
