What a difference a few weeks make when it comes to the weather over the grape harvest. In a column last month I'd spoken to winegrowers who considered they were on the cusp of an effortlessly good vintage. Now their talk is of lucky escapes and laments against the lashings of rain some regions have since received.
For many, the vintage did deliver its promise. I touched down in Hawkes Bay on the tail of the ex-Cyclone Ita that unleashed torrential rains and high winds across the country, where I caught up with Clearview winemaker, Tim Turvey.
"If this was a normal year, we'd still have grapes out there," Turvey told me, as we watched the trees of the Te Awanga coast twist in the tempest. "However, as the harvest started so early the only grapes we haven't yet picked are those for our botrytised dessert wine."
Sweet success or soggy failure, this vintage would largely appear to be down to whether winegrowers got their grapes in before the rains came. In the warmer regions of the North Island a dry and sunny start to autumn and early harvest meant most seem pleased if not ebullient about what they have fermenting.
"Everyone was pretty much done in Martinborough as picking started early and it was warm and dry for most of harvest," commented Martinborough Vineyard's Paul Mason. "Rain for the last week caught the last blocks, but all the good stuff well and truly done by then."
