Smoke events are an ongoing risk for wine grape growers, particularly in fire-prone regions across Australia. During the recent February 2026 vintage, Hunter Valley viticulturist, Freshcare Director and Trainer Liz Riley drew on previous 2019 bushfire experiences, testing, new technology and Freshcare’s Incident Management to manage smoke risk, support informed decision-making and maintain confidence with buyers.
“Grapevines don’t just get smoke sitting on the berries – they take it in as they respire,” Liz says. “Some of the compounds can’t be detected by tasting fruit in the vineyard, so you need data to really understand the risk.”
Following smoke exposure from bushfires in October and November, growers coordinated grape sampling and laboratory analysis. While some compounds were detected above background levels, results remained below thresholds known to affect wine quality.
“Getting those numbers back gave us a huge amount of confidence,” Liz says. “It meant we could go to buyers and say, ‘Here are the results and this is what they mean.’”
Rather than treating the situation as a hypothetical exercise, Liz documented the event as a real incident under her Freshcare Australian Wine Industry Standard of Sustainable Practice for Viticulture and Winery.
“Instead of a made-up scenario, this was something that actually happened,” she says. “We captured what we did, what worked, and what we’d do differently next time.”
Later in the season, a second smoke event occurred much closer to harvest, leaving no time for laboratory testing. Real-time data from new Wine Industry Smoke Detectors (WISDs), smoke monitoring devices helped inform decisions.
“We couldn’t get samples away and back in time, but having access to that data helped us keep going with confidence,” Liz says.
The experience has prompted future planning discussions around leasing or purchasing the technology as part of sustainability and risk management planning.
The WISDs were developed by researchers from La Trobe University with funding from Wine Australia, with the Australian Government’s Australia’s Economic Accelerator (AEA) program awarding $1.78 million to the project.
Liz encourages wine grape growers to record data and incidents in their management plan as they occur because good information is key to managing future risk.
“I updated my incident plan in about 15 minutes while everything was fresh,” she says. “Progress over perfection. Just get it down. That’s what makes it useful when something happens again.”
Watch the full interview
