Wet growing season for wine grapes brings plentiful fruit but there's no-one to pick it

Grape pickers have been in short supply on the NSW south coast with international borders closed.(ABC Illawarra: Justin Huntsdale)

It has been a year since Shoalhaven winery owner Joseph Felice watched one of the most promising years of grapes get hit with weeks of bushfire smoke, followed by a plague of birds escaping fire.

He lost 40 per cent of his crop at Crooked River Estate on the New South Wales south coast, mostly from birds discovering the rich source of food.

One year on and not only has the weather changed in nearly the opposite direction to bring an abundance of rain, but the pandemic era has meant another major part of the business has been hard to find — customers and workers.

"It would've been good to get this rain last year, considering all the troubles we had with the bushfires, but that's what farming is all about — you have to give and take what you can," he said.

Those parameters include a loud gunshot sound that fires off every 10 minutes and large flapping flags dotted throughout the vineyard.

It is a yearly battle waged between fruit farmers and birdlife each year on the south coast.

Crooked River Wines owner Joseph Felice says the wet weather and COVID have hampered the harvest.(ABC Illawarra: Justin Huntsdale)

Worker shortage makes harvest difficult

While the winery has successfully kept the birdlife away, they have been trying desperately to attract workers to pick the fruit.

"We've struggled to get pickers and we've tried to get locals or people from Sydney," Mr Felice said.

"Last year we had an abundance of people from the UK and France."

A small and dedicated team is now a couple of weeks away from finishing the harvest.

"The grapes that have done particularly well are sauvignon blanc, shiraz, chambourcin and cabernet sauvignon," Mr Felice said.

"We just bottled last year's sauvignon blanc and I think it's the best we've produced, so I'm optimistic to see what we get this year considering the tonnage we're picking."

The wet growing season has resulted in strong grape tonnage at Crooked River Wines.(ABC Illawarra: Justin Huntsdale)

Chinese wine tariffs closed valuable export opportunity

Last year, China announced it would place tariffs on Australian wine imports ranging from 107 to 200 per cent.

The move not only affected major Australian wine exporters, but small businesses like Crooked River, which has exported wine to China in the past.

Ramping up the export side of the business was something the Felice family wanted to do before the tariffs were introduced.

"We have tourist buses bringing people from Japan and China and the south coast has picked up a lot in the last 10 years.

"People are interested in the wines we produce and that gives an advantage to export to those countries."