THERE's nothing quite like watching a golden arch of chardonnay wine grapes stream from the harvester into the bin at night, illuminated only by the light of the tractors as they rumble along the row.

That's the magical moment that keeps Lindsay McClelland in the winegrape game, despite years of declining returns and an uncertain future.

    AT A GLANCE
  • Who: Lindsay McClelland
  • What: wine grapes
  • Why: pursuit of excellence
  • Where: Merbein South
  • Report: SANDRA GODWIN

"Leading up to that, when you're driving down a row of mature fruit at night and your mouth starts to water," he said.

"You know you've got something special and that's what drives me: the pursuit of excellence."

Lindsay and his wife, Judy, have been growing grapes since they bought their home property almost 13 years ago.

Set up for dried fruit - and located across the road from dried-fruit guru Ivan Shaw - they redeveloped it several years later for wine-grape production.

Lindsay said a lack of industry information about crop size, demand and price had made it too difficult to plan for a future in dried fruit.

But he hasn't ruled out returning to dried fruit, depending on how long it takes for the wine industry to recover and whether his supply contract with Orlando Wines is renewed in 2013.

A former public servant, who worked in environmental assessment and land-use planning for the-then Department of Lands, Lindsay said he now had about 14ha of wine grapes in production, with a similar area of vacant land "waiting patiently for some direction".

"Our heart says stick with wine grapes, because that's what we're geared for and that's what we know," he said.

"But tomorrow I could walk out and get a 10-year contract to grow dried fruit, which means having two small holdings and not getting the efficiencies of mechanisation, because dried fruit is a specialised mechanised industry now."

Lindsay said any decisions about future plantings would be guided by advice from Orlando.

Sadly, the company doesn't yet have the answers he needs.

"We have 'what if' budgets for three to five years," he said.

"Our contract has this vintage and three more to run, so we've got four years' breathing space.

"Orlando have stated that they want growers to know who's got a future - as in after 2013 - and who doesn't, and that's good.

"After this vintage we really need to know."

Despite the drought and several years of low water allocations, Lindsay said he had never considered mothballing part of the vineyard because of its youth.

The oldest vines are 12 years old and the youngest six.

The gravity-fed flood irrigation system was replaced by pressurised under-vine sprinklers in 1997 and the first vines, shiraz, were planted on a two-wire vertical trellis.

There are now 3.3ha of chardonnay, 6.2ha of shiraz, 2.7ha of cabernet sauvignon and 1.9ha of merlot.

While chardonnay may have fallen out of favour with consumers - sending farmgate prices into a nosedive - Lindsay said the variety had yielded the best returns over the past decade.

Prices for his chardonnay have ranged from $600 to $950 a tonne, but are expected to reach just $450 a tonne this season.

"When you look at the returns per hectare, chardonnay's been the best since we've been here," he said.

"We're contracted for 30 tonnes per hectare, but we've cropped up to 40t/ha and got semi-premium prices for it."

Lindsay said there were no real tricks to producing quality fruit.

His recipe relied on attention to water, nutrition, canopy management and pruning the vines back to two buds each winter.

A single foliage wire about 30cm above the chardonnay, merlot and some of the shiraz vines helps to lock the cordon in place and stops it from rolling.

"The canopy provides a wonderful dappled light and we drive the vines so the canopy is in place before fruit sets," he said.

Lindsay irrigates on weeknights to reduce water loss through evaporation, takes advantage of off-peak electricity rates and ensures water pressure is at its highest because of lower demand from other irrigators.

He relies on an Enviroscan system, which provides continuous logging of soil-moisture levels and water consumption by vines, to guide irrigation frequency and duration.

Lindsay said he usually watered once a week - depending on weather conditions - beginning at midnight and going around the block to check for blockages and breakages.

He said he was happy with current yields and quality. And he didn't mind buying extra irrigation water on the open market during dry times.

But without an improvement in grape prices, the farm would continue to lose money.

Gross income has declined 58 per cent in the past two years and Lindsay expects to lose $91 a tonne for every contracted tonne of fruit he harvests this year.

"For us to keep going, after this vintage it's going to be crossroads time," he said.

"We are lucky, we do have a contract. There are a lot of people who are growing grapes without a home."