Winemaker happy with syrah looking good

Kevin Beams, Mission Estate Winery, clipps bird netting on to our celebrity syrah vines on their Gimblett Block in Gimblett Rd, Hastings.

Hawke's Bay is renowned for its award-winning wines and fresh fruit. Both are sought after nationally and internationally. Linda Hall has "adopted" an apple tree and a section of grapevines and will be following them through the seasons to the 2017 harvest. This is the third in the series.

In November when we last caught up with Mission Estate's viticulturist Steve Wheeler and our syrah, mass selection clone vine from Gimblett Gravels vineyard, the season was tracking well.

Mr Wheeler's parting words were: "It's looking good. The warm, windy weather is ideal for flowering in grapes. The whites have set well. The syrah is also looking good so far but there is still a long way to go yet."

A little over three months later and Mr Wheeler is still smiling.

"The flowering was good and we had a good fruit set," he said.

"Our vines are wind pollinated so the continuing hot windy weather through December and January was perfect for us."

They have continued spraying every 17 days or so. "At flowering parts of the flower die dead tissue can get infected. We spray to counteract that. We also spray for grey mould (aka mealybug).

"The grapes love this hot, dry, windy weather we have been having," Mr Wheeler said.
"It means the air circulates around the fruit keeping powdery mildew out. They ripen very fast in this weather.

"The only down fall of the wind in this syrah block was some of the shoots blew out from their ties, they slid down and flopped out.

"In some of our other vineyards we have had rows flopping over and a post topple due to the wind."

The vines have been irrigated on a regular basis. Like most other vineyards in New Zealand The Mission uses drip irrigation which was developed in Israel.

"It's very localised and efficient. We regularly walk the vines checking to make sure there are no leaks or popped joints."

Mr Wheeler said our celebrity vine was looking healthy - "not too overgrown".

They have plucked leaves by machine.

"Best way to describe it is a sucker plucker. A tractor works between the vines with the plucker running atop sucking off excess leaves. This enables the fruits to be exposed to the sunlight and wind so they ripen better and keep nice and dry - especially syrah.

"We've also had a gang thinning the bunches to reduce crop load. This is done when you want to produce high quality fruit that has more intense flavours.

"It also avoids clumping so the fruit is hanging nice and free which makes it less prone to disease.

"If the fruit is bunched together too tightly the sprays can't get in and the wind can't circulate between them."

Earlier this week contractors clipped nets over the vines so birds can't get to the fruit.
Mr Wheeler is happy with how things have gone so far this season.

"The recent rain was a bit of a worry. Rain can cause the berries to swell and split. I wouldn't want much more rain at this stage. We want it hot and dry until harvest which is about five weeks away."

We will catch up with Mr Wheeler then.