Season Overview 2009

After a very wet late winter which included Marlborough’s biggest flood event of the decade (see gallery), spring posed few challenges in the frost department.  Budburst was strong with warm conditions and abundant groundwater reserves.  Crop loading is in part determined by the conditions during flowering and plant stress during the cell division period post fruitset.  In both of these stages the weather was conducive to successful outcomes. 

The sun shone through flowering ensuring a better than average fruitset and then a wet February ensured there was no vine stress allowing berry sizes to be at the upper end of the range.  Luckily the rain stopped and vines entered verasion in strong health.  Much work was undertaken in the vineyard combating the vigorously performing vines.  Fruit thinning was carried out on all blocks and varieties.

Harvest was a breeze compared with other vintages. Fruit ripened block by block and came into the winery mostly clean and in beautiful condition.  There was some disease pressure on later ripening crops, particularly Sauvignon Blanc off some of the heavier soil sites.  Winemakers were very happy with the flavours they had to work with and the vines shut down with good reserves for the following spring.