Another Climate-Related Disaster? Winemaker Mental Health

Australian wine producer Matt Fowles spent the first few days of 2026 battling flames that would eventually engulf his livestock, equipment, and storage sheds. The entirety of his vineyards—all 300 acres in Victoria’s Strathbogie Ranges—had already burned in what would be dubbed one of the most catastrophic fires in the state’s history. At least he’d managed to save the family home. Or so he thought. But by the next evening, his house, too, had succumbed to the raging flames, along with his uncle’s home and a guest house on the property. Fowles spent the six hour drive to Melbourne, where his family was sheltering, in a state of complete shock. 

Three months later, the outcome of the fire is finally sinking in.

“The last two weeks have been where the grief side of things has reared its head more than the shock,” the normally gregarious Fowles says quietly, his voice shaking a little. “It’s starting to be a tough patch.”

Since the inception of life on planet Earth, natural disasters have been par for the course. But the last decade has seen an unprecedented rise in climate-related disasters—and wine country has been hit hard. 

The financial and physical toll these disasters take on producers is well documented. Less so is the effect they have on mental wellbeing.

A Rising Toll

“I had something like a nervous breakdown,” Meike Näkel of Weingut Meyer-Näkel recalls of the days and weeks that followed the devastating flood that washed away her winery. 

On July 14th 2021, when the Ahr River in western Germany burst its banks, fifth-generation winemaking sisters Meike and Dörte Näkel were washed from their winery as its walls started to collapse. They clung to a nearby tree for eight hours in the dark listening to cries of their neighbors as winery equipment, cars, even houses, rushed past them. 

That awful night wasn’t the worst of it, though. The real blow came after they were rescued and realized everything was gone. What little energy they had left drained from them. “I was so devastated,” Meike says.

From floods to fires, these catastrophic losses are increasingly common across the globe.

California wine country experienced destructive wildfires six out of the last ten years. Just before the 2023 vintage, Cyclone Gabrielle tore through New Zealand’s North Island wine regions, burying vineyards in river sludge. Four months later, Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region flooded, after historic droughts, causing 2,000 mudslides and total devastation. One year later, in May 2024, 1,200 acres of vines in Brazil’s main wine-producing region of Rio Grande do Sul were destroyed in floods. And, just days after the Victoria wildfires engulfed Fowles’ entire life, South Africa’s Western Cape was set ablaze.

Combine climate change with a slew of other economic and geopolitical challenges currently plaguing the planet’s winemakers: the reality is that  producers today are experiencing stress at levels the generation before them couldn’t have imagined. 

Suicide rates in the U.S. have risen to their highest levels since 1941—and individuals in farming are two to five times as likely to take their own lives. In 2021, at least four French winemakers died by suicide. There has been a steady stream of others since. 

While this paints a grim picture, it’s also true that people are more open and willing to seek mental health care than ever before. Translating that to the majority male, rural landscape of wine-farming—two factors that decrease therapy rates significantly—remains a major challenge.

The Hurdles to Wellness

“It’s been a quiet subject until late, and it’s such an important topic,” says Matthew Spaccarelli, a second-generation wine farmer and producer at Fjord Vineyards and Benmarl Winery in New York’s Hudson Valley. 

He’s exhausted. It’s the third week of April 2026 and he’s been up all night lighting fires in an attempt to mitigate the fast and furious frosts that are becoming increasingly common. Warmer spring temperatures push out vine buds earlier in the season, making them vulnerable when temperatures plummet again. Invasive pests—the latest being the spotted lanternfly—also keep Spaccarelli up at night. Farming a one-time-a-year crop comes with a number of stressors, actually, and they all take a toll.

“They pile up on each other because you’re exhausted when you get home and it’s like, ‘Do I want to find the time [for my own wellbeing], or do I want to drink a beer and put on a football match?’”

American wine producers face another challenge unique to the U.S.: the cost of healthcare, including mental health support.

“Health insurance [in the States] is ridiculous,” says Spaccarelli. “Mine went up 20% this year.”

Then there’s the issue of time, whether it’s finding a therapist or even just making an hour-long session during harvest and other busy farming seasons. “You’re working eight days a month just to pay for healthcare that you don’t even have time to use,” he adds. “Those are really big hurdles for people in our industry.”

While Americans battle with a broken healthcare system, in France and other parts of Europe, the challenges are more culturally rooted.

“I just don’t think people think about [therapy], it’s still very taboo” says Sarah Hwang, a New Jersey native who has managed Vouvray winery, Domaine Huet, since 2012, after her father purchased the Loire Valley estate in 2003. 

Especially in small towns, like Vouvray, she says people fear judgment over going to therapy. “It’s a cultural thing,” she says. “It’s totally different than in the U.S. where everybody is in therapy all the time.”

Germany faces similar cultural hurdles. 

Julia Bertram, a fifth-generation Ahr Valley winegrower and co-founder of Weingut Bertram-Baltes, doesn’t see mental health having “a place in society,” she says. She and her husband, Benedikt Baltes, also endured devastating losses from the floods. Despite the huge toll on growers in the region, she says, “there’s still a lot of silence surrounding mental illness.”

A Meeting of Minds

German culture may not openly embrace counseling, but both Bertram and Näkel emphasize the impact of community support. 

After the flood, the community came together to spend time talking about rebuilding their lives. For an entire year, Näkel’s mother—along with other older local women who couldn’t manage the heavy lifting of clean up—served breakfast from local food donations to the community from a garage. People would just stop by for a coffee or snack. 

“You could just chat, sip, talk about how the day was,” Näkel says. “Someone might say, ‘It was a very awful day,’ and you’d say, ‘I also had an awful day!’ And you could laugh and have the weight of this terrible time lifted a little because you were handling it together.”

In the Loire, a region plagued by torrential rain and frosts in recent years, Hwang says many wine professionals find stress relief from outdoor activities and hobbies. “And vacation is very important here,” she says. “People go away for a good amount of time and really switch off.”

In Australia, the government is promoting mental health through social media campaigns, presentations, and the web. After the January wildfires, the state organizing body, Wine Victoria, set up an information page that included mental health resources.

“We then communicated directly with those wineries impacted, ensuring they were aware of the mental health services available,” Wine Victoria CEO Stephanie Duboudin says. 

Many producers claimed it helped to reduce anxiety.

In October, 2022, The Wine Grape Council of South Australia (WGCSA) released a podcast series titled “Healthy Minds, Healthy Vines,” to help open conversations around mental health and wellbeing among winegrowers. Currently in its third season, the podcast features a range of guests from producers to mental health professionals, including men’s mental health specialist, Dr. Ian Zajac.

In Australia (and in the U.S., too), men are half as likely to obtain mental health treatment when compared to women, notes the The Flinders University research fellow, whose focus is on suicide prevention. But in Zajac’s clinical psychology work, he often sees rapid improvements in male clients. “It can definitely work,” he says. “But there remains a reluctance in some segments of the population.” 

While cost is a big barrier, stigma is the biggest. Zajac has found that when men hear “from other guys who have had good outcomes, it has helped clients shift their thinking to enable them to enter health care settings.”

An Open Mind

Fowles has inadvertently become one of those guys who has had good outcomes from therapy. While he doesn’t think therapy is the “be all and end all,” but rather “one tool in the arsenal,” the fires have enabled him to see the benefits of opening up about seeking professional help.

“Probably in past times, I wouldn’t have talked about it,” he says. “But I feel there’s a responsibility to my family and to my team to let them know there’s no shame attached to it, to show them that it’s a normal and healthy thing to do” 

For other producers impacted by life-changing natural disasters, like Näkel, the work of rebuilding is what’s helped most. “You have chaos, and in chaos you have energy, and we took that energy and put it in a new direction,” she says. 

Näkel and her sister are moving the winery to higher ground, far from the river. This fresh start also gave them the courage to pursue an organic farming certification in 2022, which they’d previously worried would be too difficult on their steep slopes. “After the flood we realized we were so much more capable,” she says. “We felt like we could face anything.”

Fowles’ wounds from losing so much are far more raw. But he’s been leaning on professional help to rebuild his life and business. He regularly talks to people he trusts, including business advisors, and has reestablished an exercise routine, which he says, “has been massive” for improving his mental health.

He’s also been reminded of what’s important in life. “There are blessings in this, and you have to take those blessings and really run with them,” he says. “It complicates grief, but it gives you hope as well.”

How to Navigate Mental Health Challenges 

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month. This year’s theme, “More Good Days, Together” focuses on community support, fostering connection, and supporting individuals to find individual mental wellness practices that work for them. Below, we asked Zajac for his tips on improving mental health in the wine industry—and beyond.

Beyond therapy, how can those working in the wine industry look after their mental health?

Dr. Ian Zajac: The first thing is to think about your daily protocols. What things are actually helpful (exercise, diet, socialization) and how can you set up a routine that makes these things non-negotiables on a daily basis. 

Decision-making skills are impaired when your mental health is not in a good space. You are more likely to make poor decisions, and having a structured protocol helps to reduce the decision load. Try to incorporate a friend or partner where possible to increase connection and support.

Are there signs that members of the wine industry can watch for in their colleagues and friends that might indicate they’d benefit from seeking professional mental health help?

IZ: One of the major signs that someone is not doing well includes changes in social behavior. For example, someone who is usually quite social could withdraw. This doesn’t necessarily mean not attending social settings; often, they just become less talkative, or hang on the outer of the group, which is unlike them. The next extreme is the complete opposite: they might seem more intense and engaged, but often that is fueled by alcohol, or another substance that helps them to shift how they are feeling. Either way, the person is changing how they show up socially and changes are apparent to those who pay attention. 

Alongside this, we need to be aware of life stressors in the background. In Australia, a leading cause of suicide in middle aged guys is relationship breakdown and separation. After that, we have job changes, financial pressure, legal challenges, and other relationship issues. If you know someone going through any of these things, the important thing to do is ask directly “How are you going navigating the separation?,” for example. Even if they don’t want to talk, knowing that others are aware and checking in can be very powerful.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health challenges, emotional distress, substance use problems, or just needs to talk, call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org 24/7. 

Alternatively, The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), by texting “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741, or at suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

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Published: May 27, 2026