For Ruth and Robert Ellis, COVID-19 shutdowns and unpredictable weather have heavily impacted sales at their winery near Hanging Rock in Victoria this year.
Luckily, online sales and diversification into a new and exciting breed of cattle has helped this sister and brother family business get them through the thick of a difficult season.
Yield is down on this year's vintage, but good prices for their Canadian-bred speckle park cattle is keeping staff employed.
"All up I think that means that we're down about 80 per cent on sales for the year, which has been really hard," Ms Ellis said.
"The cattle side of the business— which was usually more of a luxury item for us — has become a really important revenue stream of recent months which has been great."
The speckle park breed has been in the country for over 10 years and is a combination of three breeds of British cattle — Angus, White Park and Teeswater Shorthorn.
Ms Ellis runs about 50 cattle and sell their genetics, embryos and semen — along with a few studs.
"My parents handed the reins over to my brother and me in 2011. They decided to take a different path and get serious into cattle," Ms Ellis said.
"At the time speckle park had been in Australia for a handful of years, but they liked the look of them, how tender they are and also how gentle."
She has been selling some of the cattle off to market or has them processed nearby in Kyneton to sell as packaged meat at their cellar door.
"We've lost a lot of business with closures to our cellar door and a hit to agritourism, but now is not the time to be letting go of staff, let me tell you," she said.
"They are working around the clock to make sure we're selling wine in 12 months' time, so this is our most expensive time of year, and the most labour intensive.
"Our staff are like family to us. Most have been here for 10 to 15 years and we made a stand early on that it didn't matter how bad this got, we want to stay open as long as humanly possible to pay and keep the staff."
Unlike many other vineyards across the state, the Ellis family were not affected by smoke taint, but poor weather conditions has meant they will produce much less wine this year.
Vintage suffers
For farmer Peter Leeke at Kimbarra Wines in the Grampians, early frost and unpredictable weather conditions has meant his vintage is almost non-existent.
"It's one of those seasons where you can't predict things and it's out of our control," Mr Leeke said.
"This year our vineyard will probably produce under a tonne of grapes — last year was 40 tonnes."
Despite the hit to his vineyard, his wool sales to China last November are enough to get him through.
Wool prices help
"We run about 2,500 head of super-fine merino. We sold wool last year, and the sales were very good," he said.
"The wool market is taking a hit at the moment, but hopefully it will bounce back. We shear in July and August, so we're hoping it will be back to normal by then — it's a wait and see game."
He said diversification has allowed him to get through difficult seasons.
"It helps in the years when one business is down and hopefully the other one's up."
