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Some winegrowers are preparing for a glut in the coming vintage.
Marlborough winemakers are considering tipping out wine to make room in their tanks as they prepare for the bumper harvest due to start next month.
And Constellation, New Zealand's second-largest producer of wines, has called for some Gisborne grapes to be left on the vines.
Gisborne is warmer than more southerly wine regions, and is traditionally the first major wine region to begin harvest. This year it is about a week earlier than usual.
Constellation is looking at not harvesting about 650 tonnes of semillon, reichensteiner and chenin blanc grapes, normally used to blend with sauvignon blanc.
It would mean about 3 per cent or the region's 24,000 tonne harvest would not be picked, according to Constellation chief executive Joe Stanton.
"We made the difficult decision to ask some of our growers to not harvest the 2009 crop," he told the Gisborne Herald.
Growers would be paid, and would be allowed to still harvest and sell their grapes if they could find a buyer.
"Constellation would still take all contracted fruit for chardonnay, pinot gris and sauvignon blanc and looks forward to a quality harvest out of Gisborne for 2009," Mr Stanton said.
Gisborne Winegrowers president John Clarke said it was a responsible and practical solution.
Mr Stanton said a combination of a large 2008 harvest and the potential of another sizeable 2009 intake meant industry supply was likely to exceed demand for the next couple of years.
"This, of course, has been exacerbated by the global economic challenges that we all face and the uncertainly around what the future might hold," he said
Constellation controls the NZ brands Nobilo, Selaks and Drylands, and the Hardys and Banrock Station brands from Australia, as well as exporting the House of Nobilo varietal range, Kim Crawford, and Monkey Bay.
Another company, Montana, will kick off its 2009 harvest on Thursday in Gisborne, by picking chardonnay grapes for its Lindauer sparkling wine.
They will be harvested with slightly higher acidity than those for still wines, and will be followed shortly after by pinot noir grapes.
Montana said in a statement that a dry spring and early summer brought a strong, even budburst and set the vines up for an excellent flowering.
Pinot gris grapes set fruit well, but some clones of chardonnay cultivars flowered through a slight cooler snap which restricted their yield.
"Everything is on track for us to start taking fruit off the vines first thing [today]," said Mike Insley, national vineyards manager for Montana.
"Our early indicators are forecasting that we should have 20 per cent of the Gisborne harvest in before the end of February".
"The exceptionally warm, dry summer we've had was great for grape quality. We expect to be getting very good fruit."
The rain in early January refreshed vine canopies and helped to increase the size of the grapes, so yields this year will be slightly above average.
In Marlborough, an industry veteran, John Forrest, of Forrest Wines, has argued that people would respect winemakers getting rid of poor-quality wine to make room for better wine, Radio New Zealand reported.
Some 2008 sauvignon blanc is reported to have been sold for as little as $2.50 a litre, but Dr Forrest said wineries could potentially seek a resource consent to dump vats of poorer wine.
Last season, Marlborough produced 45 per cent of the 169,000 tonnes of sauvignon blanc harvested, a sharp jump on the national harvest of 100,000 tonnes the previous year.
- NZPA
