Confident of a good ’17 vintage on the grapevine

Grape Harvest reid fletchers property

THE annual grape harvest has hit full swing from this week and growers believe they have a promising vintage ahead. Their expectation remains “confidently high”.

A small amount of harvesting was done last week as test runs for local wineries, and Wrights Vineyard and Winery at Manutuke started to pick their Verjuice grapes two weeks ago.

“The expectation remains confidently high that this is going to be a good year,” said Gisborne Winegrowers spokesman Doug Bell.

“The crops are nice and clean thanks to the recent rain that was incredibly timely.

“It gave the vines a freshen-up and relieved any soil moisture level stress that might have occurred.”

Mr Bell said it was too early yet to talk about yields because the rain would have increased sizing.

“It will have improved the weight of grapes on the vine and perhaps the rain came late enough in the season to avoid significant disease issues.”

The first grapes off the vines each season tend to be for MC base wines (champagne base).

“Grapes for that use are picked early to retain the acidity,” Mr Bell said.

“It is about a six-week season for the bulk of the vintage but some late varieties will still be on the vine in late April.

“It all depends on the weather and hopefully it is on our side from here on in.”