Wynns and CSIRO progeny plants in the ground at Wynns Coonawarra Estate. Photos: CSIRO
New mildew-resistant and drought-resilient grapevines have been planted in South Australia’s Coonawarra wine region to help safeguard the future of Australia’s wine industry against a changing climate and disease threats.
Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, and Treasury Wine Estates have partnered to future-proof some of the most collected wines in the region from old vines, with the first vines of the new progeny planted at Wynns Coonawarra Estate earlier this year.
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The new grapevines blend genetics from Treasury Wine Estates’ heritage vines in Coonawarra and the Barossa Valley, which have enhanced climate resilience, with mildew-resistant traits developed through years of selective breeding by CSIRO, with funding from Wine Australia.
Seedlings in the lab at CSIRO’s Waite campus in Adelaide.
Powdery and downy mildew costs the Australian wine sector an estimated $160 million in management expenses and production losses a year.
CSIRO research scientist and project lead Paul Boss said breeding mildew resistance into elite vines gave future grapevines a genetic advantage to withstand these disease-causing pathogens.
“Using traditional breeding methods, we introduced two distinct genes to the Wynns heritage vines, which give resistance to downy mildew and powdery mildew,” Dr Boss said.
“These are from CSIRO-developed breeding lines that confer robust disease resistance and other quality traits on to their progeny.
“Having resistance genes for both powdery and downy mildew makes these plants more robust as it is unlikely the pathogens can break both sources of resistance with a single mutation.”
Wynns Coonawarra Estate.
Through many decades of exposure to climate extremes of hot, cold, wet and dry, the heritage vines from the Wynns and Penfolds vineyards have developed a natural resilience to drought, making them prime candidates for further development to enhance their tolerance to climate extremes.
Treasury Wine Estates chief supply and sustainability officer Kerrin Petty said the global wine industry faced significant challenges managing grapevine disease pressure sustainably while managing the increasingly variable growing conditions created by the changing climate.
“In partnering with CSIRO for this important project, we’re combining the genetics of heritage Australian vines from our renowned Wynns Coonawarra Estate and Penfolds brands with scientific research and innovation,” he said.
“Creating mildew-resistant vines that are also able to withstand climatic variation means we’re setting up our vineyards to continue producing world-famous wine for generations to come.”
Wynns terra rossa soil is perfect for growing vines.
The resulting superior cultivars are expected to require fewer inputs, such as the application of fungicide sprays, which will likely lead to additional sustainability benefits, including lower carbon emissions from less frequent use of diesel-powered tractors in vineyards.
The project demonstrates how science innovation can be used to bolster adaptation to a changing climate and manage disease pressure, providing knowledge that benefits the wider Australian wine sector to become more sustainable into the future.
Wynns Coonawarra Estate’s Sue Hodder and CSIRO’s Paul Boss.
The mildew-resistant grapevine breeding lines used in this project were partly funded by Australia’s grape growers and winemakers through their investment body Wine Australia with matching funding from the Federal Government.
Two brands in the Treasury Wine Estates portfolio – Wynns Coonawarra Estate and Penfolds – have been involved in the program, building on existing in-house breeding programs that have been under way since the 1990s.
Superior quality vines have been propagated from material selected from the best vines from heritage vineyards in South Australia’s Coonawarra and Barossa Valley regions.
In 2022, Treasury Wine Estates entered a partnership with CSIRO where the cabernet sauvignon vines from both wine regions were bred with the CSIRO vine material, giving them robust resistance to powdery and downy mildew.
The performance of the progeny vines from this breeding will be monitored in the vineyard. Small batch winemaking trials will determine the best vines and will be used to cultivate new plantings.
CSIRO and Wynns progeny planted at Wynns Coonawarra Estate.
