Bathurst wine: Drought years hit production at Vale Creek and Renzaglia Wines

Vines that should be bursting with fruit at this time of year are looking almost bare as local vignerons are forced to deal with the same harsh drought conditions that have impacted the region's farmers over the past two years.

Vale Creek Wines' Tony Hatch and Mark Renzaglia from Renzaglia Wines both say they have not seen conditions this bad in Bathurst in their two decades of growing grapes and both are preparing for a 2020 vintage that's just a fraction of regular production.

ALSO MAKING NEWS:

Mr Hatch said he was continuing to irrigate vines on his four-hectare Georges Plains vineyard but he did not know what the next few months would bring.

"I'm really just irrigating to keep the things alive. There's some fruit but it's hard to know what's going to happen," Mr Hatch said.

"This is usually an exciting time of year. Just after bud burst in late October you then go through a grand growing period where they really shoot up ad fill the canopy with leaves and the beginning of the fruit.

"Then the berries start to form but it's just not happened."

While Vale Creek is probably best known for some of its red wine varieties, including award-winning dolcetto and sangiovese drops, Mr Hatch said he would concentrate on white wine this year.

"I will try to do the best I can with white wines, pinot grigio and arneis. They are usually just small quantities but with white wines you can sell them the year after you make them where with the reds they need to be cellared for a bit longer," he said.

"The harvest is a bit of an unknown at this stage but it will probably be in March or April and will be an incredibly low yield."

Mr Renzaglia said the past 12 months had been the hardest he had seen.

He said the 2019 crop was about 40 per cent of their regular production and the 2020 crop would be even less.

Mr Renzaglia owns a small vineyard at O'Connell that is continuing to produce fruit but also leases a vineyard on Mount Panorama that will not produce a crop this year.

"What's happened this year is that our small home vineyard at O'Connell is OK because we have been able to get some water on it and have been doing a lot of work with mulching and adding nutrients to make it more able to handle not having much water, but up at Mount Panorama Estate we have not been able to water it at all," he said.

"If we do get anything it might be a tonne or so because we haven't been able to water it."

He said he would consider buying in fruit to give the winery a 2020 vintage.

"Orange may be doing a little better than we are because their vineyards are generally on a little more fertile soil, it's a little bit cooler and there's a little bit more rain but they're suffering as well," he said.

"We will probably have to buy some fruit - hopefully from Bathurst if there are one or two others that might have some fruit to sell, or we can buy from Orange. We don't really want to but will if we have to.

"As a grape grower, a wine maker or a farmer you have to understand you will have these periods and you have to deal with it, but I've never seen it this dry."