How to Help the Growers and Makers Impacted by the 2026 Bushfire Season
The risk of bushfire is never far from the minds of those who live in rural and regional Australia, and our wine growers and makers are no exception. Wine is an agricultural product that is especially vulnerable to bushfire – whether those impacts are direct, such as the loss of vineyards in a blaze, or less direct, such as grapes that have been affected by smoke taint. While the current bushfire season has thus far been far less dramatic than the wide-scale destruction that was caused across the country during the ‘unprecedented’ 2019–2020 bushfire season, fires in Central Victoria have already impacted the livelihoods of dozens of winemakers this year – and we are not yet out of the woods. In this article we’ve detailed the major fires that have impacted Australia’s winemakers thus far in 2026 – including information about the producers affected and the best ways to support them.
