This year sees the earliest harvest ever for Central Otago wines. The first grapes of any season are used for making sparkling wines and Quartz Reef winery is one of the few vineyards in the region that produces this type of wine.
Vintner Rudi Bauer says there's never been a year like it and he is a bit apprehensive about how this year's vintage will turn out.
"This is the earliest harvest we've experienced within our short history of 31 years in our region."
This year's harvest of grapes started on the 15th February and is three weeks ahead of normal. This is attributed to the extraordinary summer.
According to Bauer, Cromwell only had two days in the whole of January with a high less than 30 degrees.
