Frosty Reception

At the tail end of last week a storm swept up the South Island brigning rain, sleet and snow to all areas. And it wasnt only the peloton in the Tour of Southland who were affected by the snow. Vineyards across the island were also struck by the freak weather.

In Central Otago the vineyards had helicopters on standby all mornings from Wednesday to Saturday. It was much the same across the rest of the island. Temperatures plummeted to 0C and below on all of those mornings, the lowest being -2.6C in our Gibbston Valley vineyard on Saturday. Newspapers reported that 500 helicopters were working in vineyards across the country that night. Check out the TV3 news video here.

I was up in Waipara on Friday night/Saturday morning with a helicopter on site. Temperatures in the vineyard went from 7C at midnight down to around 0C by 6am but soon warmed up with daybreak and the only thing lost was a nights sleep.

Helicopters are expensive to run. Depending on its size and the area of vineyard you want to protect, the hourly rate can be anything from $600-$3000. Which is enough to give any vineyard owner sleepless nights but is better than the stress of losing your entire crop (and hence income) in a single night.

You can read a little more in a newspaper report Here. The net result for Sandihurst is that we have lost our West Melton fruit - two good Riesling vineyards (potentially 20 tonnes) and our Pinot Gris (5 tonnes). Its disappointing but on the plus side, our vineyards in Waipara, Marlborough and Central have been unaffected. The forecast this week is for fine weather and surely this spells the end of the frost risk this year.