From far away, YESTERDAY, this vineyard looks great. THIS MORNING, upon closer inspection, it looks less than great. Temperatures in West Melton plummeted overnight to a low of -3.0 which, despite some desperate helicopter action, may well have caused up to 50% of the shoot growth to die. Some shoots will recover and secondary buds will grow so it isnt all over just yet. Barring another whiteout there will still be a crop here but it will certainly be a smaller crop. And the season now just got shorter for the new growth so we will need it to be a better than average one just to get the full potential out of this fruit. The margin for error in the season just got tighter.
Better news from our other vineyards - no frost issues to date for our Central Otago, Marlborough or Waipara vineyards. Spring Frosts are a major issue on the New Zealand wine industry. The price of protection is huge but the price of total crop loss is worse.
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