ALAN Herath casts a well-trained eye over his picture-postcard vineyard in the Adelaide Hills and predicts a vintage to match the sublime views.

Full bunches of near-ripe fruit and a prolonged dry spell are pointers to one of Mount Lofty Ranges Vineyard’s better years.

“I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily the best season we’ve ever had, but it’s up there in the top 10 to 20 per cent quality-wise,” Mr Herath said at his vineyard in Lenswood, 20km east of Adelaide. “It’s been keeping dry but that’s good — the grapes don’t split if there’s no rain.”

With more than half the nation’s wine grapes picked, better-than- expected yields are disproving earlier gloomy forecasts for this year’s harvest.

The revised figures are good news for an industry still reeling from last year’s drought-stricken season, when just 1.4 million tonnes were picked compared with the average of 1.9 million tonnes.

The Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation said this year’s crop was projected to come in between 1.55 and 1.65 million tonnes compared with a pre-season estimate of 1.22 million tonnes.

All the data suggests the lift in quantity will be matched by the vintage’s quality.

“Early signs illustrate a promising quality profile to match the improved anticipation in volume,” the AWBC’s acting chief executive Jock Osborne said.

The better crop figures would “reassure markets of our ability to maintain supply”, he said.

The AWBC said the harvest forecast was revised up because of improved water allocations and “water trading in the warm inland districts”.

The executive director of Wine Grape Growers Australia, Mark McKenzie, said the picture varied across the country, with low yields in the inland regions of SA, NSW and Victoria, but other production areas looking positive.

“It is a mixed bag,” he said. “The Riverina in NSW, centred around Griffith and Leeton, looks like having improved yields. Greater Victoria is rebounding off a bad last season.

“In contrast, it has been a difficult vintage in areas in NSW such as the Hunter and the Mudgee because of high summer rainfall. The wet, warm conditions have caused splitting and rot in some grapes. But we are still expecting quite a strong result for the rest of NSW, places like Cowra and Gundegai.”

Mr McKenzie said WA looked like having a strong vintage, despite very hot weather in the Swan valley and lack of water in some southern regions. Overall, grape quality was looking good, although some white wine varieties, particularly chardonnay, would be lower in volumes.

“We expect a good year in general for reds,” he said. “It looks like being a particularly good year for cabernet sauvignon, both quantity and quality. There might be some difficulty with shiraz because of heavy rain.”

Mr Herath forecasts a slightly-above-average yield from his 5ha of award-winning pinot noir, sauvignon blanc, riesling and chardonnay, with his neighbours also talking up this year’s vintage.

But water is a problem, even in high-rainfall areas such as the Adelaide Hills.

Dry weather is preferred during the ripening season, but only to a point.

“Probably the biggest issue we’ve got is keeping water up to the vines at the moment,” Mr Herath said. “If it’s too hot, the grapes ripen too early and you don’t get the depth of flavour. We’ve emptied a couple of dams but my bore is still alive.”