SYDNEY, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A record breaking frost event has left the Frankland River wine region in Western Australia with a significant loss to a number of its world-class wine producing vines.
Due to its occurring late in the year, the unseasonal cold snap took its toll across the region, with winemakers and fruit growers still tallying the cost.
"I think everyone's still taking stock, but at the moment we have losses of about 25 to 30 percent across the region," Frankland River Grape Growers and Winemakers Association president Hunter Smith told Xinhua on Wednesday.
Those figures are as high as 80 to 100 percent for some growers, which Smith says will be noticeable in terms of this season's output.
It was an inopportune time for the frost to strike with young shoots being particularly vulnerable to environmental anomalies.
"A lot of those vine leaves are quite thin, so it actually doesn't take much of a frost event to totally freeze those, and kill those shoots right off," Smith said.
"We are probably a week away from some of the early varieties, like chardonnay, going into flowering, so it's a really critical time of year, and that's where we'll see the most significant losses."
The region has only recently recovered from a hail event in 2014 which caused similar widespread damage to crops, and just like then, Smith said that winemakers would rally and carry on.
