EDUCATE
Harvest 2020 A bubbly start to the vintage SOPHIE PREECE
MARLBOROUGH HAS had a “dream run” in the lead-up to the 2020 harvest, says Cloudy Bay technical director Jim White, two mornings in. Cloudy Bay began hand picking Pinot Noir for sparkling on Monday February 24, harvesting clean fruit with good flavour and balance of acids and sugar, he says. The Pinot harvest was to continue into early March, at which point the pickers would move to Chardonnay for sparkling wine. Pinot Noir for still wine should be ready around March 10, with the Sauvignon Blanc harvest expected to fall between March 23 and April 7, says Jim, noting similarities between 2020 and the harvests of 2014 and 2015. He’s got his fingers crossed for a continued “dream run”, with more dry sunny days, the promise of cool nights, and continued access to irrigation, which was still on in late February. Hunter’s planned to start its sparkling harvest early this month, and Sauvignon was likely to kick off on March 20, which is typical for the company, says chief winemaker James Macdonald. “It’s always on my birthday, which is the life of a winemaker.” Combatting the dry was a challenge in the lead-up to harvest, with the Waihopai Valley particularly arid, and vines stressed as a result. Irrigation was still possible in those vineyards at the time of writing in late February, but likely to switch off soon, he said. On the plus side, the dry weather has meant less disease pressure. With average yields and clean fruit, “it has the potential to be a really good vintage,” says James. “But
Picking begins at Cloudy Bay. Photo Jim Tannock
let’s wait and see. I have been wrong in the past.” In the Awatere Valley, Yealands chief operating officer Mike Insley says that with warm dry weather, winds dying down, rain in the headwaters but not on the vines, and the Awatere River still flowing well, the company was relaxed as it cruised towards harvest. “Who wouldn’t be happy with weather like this?” Mike says yield predictions earlier in the season were relatively low, based on cluster counts. But “beautiful” flowering weather boosted berry weights, so crop loads look good. Dog Point Vineyards’ viticulturist Nigel Sowman is looking forward to a “really good” harvest, likely to kick off around March 10 to 15, with early Pinot Noir from hill sites. Disease levels are low, with only a small amount of powdery mildew “nothing threatening” - and no botrytis due to the consistently dry weather, he says. The Pinot harvest for Dog Point is likely to take around two weeks, with some Chardonnay picked towards the end of that period, then Sauvignon Blanc from warmer hillside blocks taken in at the end of March, followed by the main Sauvignon harvest around April 1. Nigel says the size of the bunches came as something of a surprise this season. There had been talk of a poor flowering, but in reality it was
“Who wouldn’t be happy with weather like this?” Mike Insley
“fantastic” with 70-80% of florets successful, compared to 30-40% in a typical year. “That means that instead of the average 100g bunch of Sauvignon, it is pushing up around 150g per bunch weight.” Bunch numbers were down before flowering, so the crops are still at reasonable levels, although the company is still dropping fruit where necessary, especially in Pinot Noir, he says. One of the highlights for Nigel is the success of the Mendoza clone of Chardonnay, which is typically fickle and can tend towards small berries. This year he is seeing a lot of big berries, “which is great for Chardonnay”. Moving into harvest, he is looking for more of the warm days, the onset of cooler nights, and morning dew to refresh the canopy. “If this weather pattern continues, it looks like it will be a reasonably relaxed harvest.”
Winepress March 2020 / 9
