Warm winter weather is causing worry for wine growers on southern Queensland's Granite Belt.

The cool climate Granite Belt has experienced its warmest July day on record, with 22 degrees recorded at Stanthorpe last week, and the warm weather was wreaking havoc with the vines. Mike Hayes from Symphony Hill Wines said the warmer conditions presented a serious challenge for growers. "I was pruning the vines out at the winery and while I was pruning I thought I was completely overdressed, I kept stripping down my clothes and I probably could have been wearing shorts and a singlet," he said. "July is our coldest month, this is our brass monkey season, this is when the tourists come here, but this is the trend worldwide and global warming is here and it's quite scary. Not only here in Stanthorpe but all over Australia and the world," he said Mr Hayes said growers were now faced with a dilemma. "You've got to be careful because if you go in and prune too early and ... we get another cold snap, that can damage the crop load for that coming season," he said. "We can't rush out and prune, but then we'll run out of time, so it's a bit of a tricky situation.

Granite Belt growing conditions changing over time

While a cold snap was anticipated this week, Mr Hayes said the temperatures were far from what he was used to, growing up in the area. "When I grew up here in the '70s, we were recording temperatures of -6, -7, -8 and [this week] they're talking two and three degrees, so that's 10 degrees above what was experienced in the '70s," he said. He said while southern growing regions were not experiencing the same problems, they did face extreme problems in the harvest season with temperatures well above average. "The grapes are cooking on the vine and because of the vastness of the South Australian wine regions, as it heats up, everything comes in at once and they haven't got the people or the workforce to get the grapes off," Mr Hayes said. Mr Hayes said the Granite Belt wine industry, which specialised in growing alternative varieties at high altitude, was better positioned to cope with climate change than many wine regions around Australia. "What we've got to look at is that we are seeing this year in and year out and we've got to adapt and by changing our varieties and looking at varieties that do grow in warmer conditions," Mr Hayes said. "We're ahead of the black ball, so to speak, compared to the rest of the industry throughout Australia," he said. Source - www.abc.net.au