Top harvest comes with export deal

Tauranga winemaker Steve Bird is finishing off his best harvest in more than 20 years and has scored a new export contract to Canada.
"We are pulling off the grapes for riesling, and it's all done and dusted," Mr Bird said from Blenheim.
"The harvest (over the past six weeks) is one out of the bag. The last time we had a true Indian summer in Marlborough was about 1986.
"The last rain of significance was the final week of March - it's been a long, moderate, dry summer; not scorching hot.
"It hasn't been good for cropping and grazing, but it's great for the winemakers. None of the grapes have gone rotten," said Mr Bird, owner of Steve Bird Winery and Vineyards with his wife Caroline.
He said the yields were slightly down - to balance the industry's over-supply of the last two seasons - but the quality was there.
"There's no pressure on us, at all," said Mr Bird, as his pinot noir, riesling, pinot gris and sauvignon blanc grapes are sent to the Blenheim winery for fermentation.
He is leaving the last of the grapes on the vines for another four weeks "so they shrivel up into raisins" for gewurztraiminer desert wine.
Mr Bird expects to match last season's production of 22,000 cases of wine, and may even increase it to 25,000 cases depending on availability and demand.
He has just sent the first order of 200 cases of Bird 2008 Big Barrel Pinot Noir and 800 cases of 2008 Sauvignon Blanc to Canada - after gaining support from the government-controlled Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) which represents more than of the province's total alcohol market.
LCBO, which operates Vintages stores, sources wine, spirits and beer from 77 countries and recorded $4.27 billion worth of sales in its 2009/10 financial year.
The Bird wines will be supplied to about 80 stores in Ontario by early September, and Mr Bird will visit the province in August for pre-launch trade presentations.
"The door has been opened to an enormous marketplace - there are 13 million people living in Ontario - and we want to take full advantage for the long term by building relationships," he said.
Mr Bird is planning to supply further cases of the 2010 vintage into Ontario by December.
The Canadian link started with a morning coffee at Mr Bird's local pub, the Rain Bar in Papamoa. The operators, Americans Shannon and Geoff Ellis, told him about their distributor friend Anderew von Teichman in the United States.
"It took one quick Skype call with Andrew; he knew his stuff; he grabbed the opportunity with both hands and ran with it," Mr Bird said.
He has now appointed Mr von Teichman's Von Terra Enterprises to represent Steve Bird Winery in Canada.
The Tauranga-based company - it also has the Manu brand - already exports its boutique wine to Australia, United States, Singapore, Japan, mainland China (Shanghai), Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Brazil. It is also  organising a new distribution agreement for French Polynesia.