Harvest 2023

Great expectations of quality vintage

SOPHIE PREECE

VIGILANT VINEYARD management has been vital to Marlborough’s 2023 vintage, with La Niña doing her best to cast a shadow on the season.

And the hard work has paid off, says Dog Point Vineyards viticulturist Nigel Sowman at the end of March, “pretty damned happy” with the quality on the vine. “We’re having one of those really good seasons this year. The fruit is lovely and clean which is, I must say, a good change from last year.” The season has been “tricky”, he adds. “But the team here have really put in some brilliant work and we have come through as clean as it could be really, at this stage.” Some Pinot Noir blocks are a little light , while others are good, “and everything else is a good average cropping year”, Nigel says, evoking Goldilocks in his yield assessment. “It’s not big; it’s not small. I think it’s going to be a really, really good year.”

That’s a welcome change from the challenges of vintage 2022, in which Marlborough harvested a whopping 414,649 tonnes, which was 80.6% of New Zealand’s 2022 yield. While many needed the fruit after a very light-yielding 2021 harvest, the 2022 season was described by one industry member as “edge-of-your-seat” stuff, with higher yields stymied by inclement weather and the massive impact of Covid infections on winery and vineyard crews.

“We learned a lot of lessons from last year,” says Nigel, noting that what to do in a La Niña year, with “increased humidity and more heavy downpours at inconvenient times”, was key among them. He previously underestimated the role La Niña would play in the grape seasons, “but now this is the third one in a row, and it’s the third tricky season in a row. You look back to all the good seasons and they’re either neutral or El Niño. “So what do we do differently if we know we’re having a La Niña year? Look back in history at what you did well and what you didn’t do well. And that’s the time where being on a block for a long period of timeunderstanding those little things - really pays off.”

He changed a number of practices following the 2022 season, starting right after harvest when Dog Point, which is certified organic, made a conscious decision to instigate a different spray procedure, using biologicals. Then there was a conscious effort with pruning, including a change in the way they tied down, says Nigel. “Lots of little things along the way, and what it has led to is incredibly clean grapes, so it’s a recipe we’ll definitely be keeping up.”

Framingham Wines viticulturist James Bowskill says things are looking a lot better than he expected when he saw NIWA’s long range forecast for the region. The weather service heralded a wet, warm growing season for Marlborough and James responded by opening up the fruit zone and intensifying his fungicide programme, because “the risk of not doing anything about it is too high”. Forewarned is forearmed and Framingham’s Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling blocks are looking great, “so I think we did the right thing”, says James on March 22. Chardonnay is looking good as well, and while one of Framingham’s Pinot Noir blocks suffered in the wet summer, other Pinot blocks have come through well, he says. “So all in all it’s much better than last year quality wise.” He’s happy with yields too, with crops looking around the long-term average.

The Marlborough Grape Growers Cooperative began its Sauvignon Blanc harvest at the end of March, picking younger blocks and earlier ripening fruit from the shallow soils in saline areas. Speaking on March 27, viticulturist Johnny McMillan says it’s looking like a really good vintage. “I think the really exciting thing this year is just that when considering all the disease pressure we’ve had, our grower owners’ increased focus on management for botrytis has really paid dividends.” They are seeing "sound clean fruit” ripening well pre-harvest, he says, noting that sugars are up and they’re waiting on acids to drop. The cooperative’s Sauvignon Blanc yields are looking around 8% up on their long term average, compared to 14% up on their long term average last year.

VinLink winery began working 24-hour cycles on March 20, but winery production manager Kathy Cooney says it’s still in warm up mode, with the “sauvalanche” not likely to roll until the last days of March. That’s a week later than last year, but closer to the long term average, she says. Meanwhile, vintage has a “really nice vibe about it again”, which she’s also seeing in the wider Blenheim township. “It is like what it used to be. Not fully pre-Covid, but certainly a step in the right direction.” The Riverlands winery, with its focus on Sauvignon Blanc, has around 15 returnees this year, with a mix of Kiwis and international visitors. “It’s a really important part of our workforce that comes from overseas,” Kathy says. “They come here and then we go there... It’s nice to have that back.”

The 2023 team also reflects changes in employment practices over the Covid period, when labour shortages forced them to think outside the box. They offered more flexible hours to experienced workers they needed, moving beyond “the one-size-fits-all 12 hour days, six or seven days a week”, says Kathy. “You can miss out on some good people that way.” Having key experienced people on the ground for eight hours, instead of 12, worked really well, as did pulling

Sampling Marlborough's wine industry

SOPHIE PREECE

At the beginning of 2022, Lisa Morgan was living in Auckland, working as a picture framer, and tiring of “crazy house prices, crazy traffic, and too many people”.

A year and a bit on, she’s in her second vintage at New Zealand Wineries, and loving the view-drenched, vine-dappled commute from her Seddon home to the Riverlands winery.

“My husband and I wanted to get out of Auckland,” she says of her kickstart into the wine industry via the Vine to Wine intern collaboration run by Ormond Nurseries, SLT, and New Zealand Wineries, with the help of recruitment company Only Human. “I started looking for a change in career and we were keeping an eye on a few small towns.” They settled on Blenheim because of its sunshine hours and the access to outdoor activities, she says. “I saw this job and thought it would be a really awesome opportunity to learn a whole new industry.”

Lisa started her internship with vintage 2022 at New Zealand Wineries, which was “overwhelming and crazy”, she says, excited to be into her second year with that experience under her belt. After harvest she and other Vine to Wine interns went on to Ormond Nurseries – “a really cool company” – where she learned to process the previous year’s grafts, as well as quality control, allocation, and packaging. From there they went to SLT and drove tractors around the vineyards, Lisa says, amazed at how much she has done since she and her husband – Mills Rogers – moved south. “It has definitely been an intense year.”

She’s not planning to specialise in any one aspect of wine just yet, keen to instead build on her education through the internship. “Because I am new to the industry and only have one year of experience, I want to do it again and get more of an understanding of what happens in each part of the industry.”

Meanwhile, her second round at vintage already feels different, with open borders meaning plenty of returnee cellar hands are on deck this year. “The crew is super experienced,” Lisa says. ”It’s incredible and it’s going to be a really smooth vintage.”

Meanwhile she and Mills are relishing life in Marlborough, settling into the house they bought in Seddon late last year. “We’re loving the slower pace; we are loving the valleys and the sun” Lisa says. “It is so beautiful.”

“It has definitely been an intense year.”

Lisa Morgan