Rain was a pain but good wines in train from 2022 harvest

Chardonnay grapes at Nelson's Greenhough Vineyard.

Article by Neil Hodgson. Published by Stuff.co.nz

It has been a nervous harvest for winemakers in the Nelson region, and it has turned out to be a very good vintage with plenty of challenges.

A wonderful summer allowed the grapes to grow and ripen quickly with very few issues; a little rain scattered through the summer months ensured there was enough natural water to keep the vines healthy and productive while sunshine hours were high, helping develop wonderful flavours.

But the two weeks of rain in early February, just as some pinot noir clones were almost ready to harvest, was very unsettling and created a number of challenges for viticulturists. While grape growers are used to dealing with rain events late in the summer one of the biggest concerns this year was that the rain was warm rain, resulting in humidity that provides the perfect conditions for fungal diseases to develop.

I usually try and visit wineries to try juice fresh from the presses to taste the pure flavours of freshly harvested grapes; I find doing this is a wonderful guide to the quality of fruit being harvested. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do so for the last couple of years because of protocols around managing Covid exposure during this critical time for wineries. Instead, I made a few phone calls to a number of wineries and chatted with winemakers.

They tend to be honest with me about quality and issues rather than give me marketing spin, so I have faith in their reports about this vintage.

The real story about quality this year is vineyard management. It’s a year that viticulturists earned their money balancing lots of things around the significant rain event in February.

Pat Stowe from Rimu Grove Wines also makes wine for other wineries and sees fruit from around the region making him a logical person for me to talk with about the 2022 wine vintage.

He says the story seems to be the same across the region: “If growers put the effort and money into opening the canopy by removing leaf growth from around the fruit, thinned the crop so the bunches could dry out quickly and got the timing of the spray regimes right then they are seeing good results.”

Rimu Groves Wines' Pat Stowe says it was a juggling act for growers leading up to harvest this year.

Once the bird netting goes on it is much more difficult to get decent protective spray coverage and some growers decided to leave the nets off until after the rain. This means they lost a little bit of fruit to birds, “it was a real juggling act for growers this year, timing was everything,” Pat says.

He says the biggest issue wasn’t the rain so much as the humidity.

“Warm rains and very little wind was the perfect recipe for mildew and rot to thrive. We’re seeing a bit of botrytis rot in some varieties on some vineyards while the fruit is pristine from others – it comes down to vineyard management and location.”

Pinot noir appears to be the most affected because some of it was almost ready to harvest when the rains arrived.

As an example, he says one vineyard he gets grapes from to make wine with “half was left in the vineyard because of the level of botrytis and sour rot while on another vineyard the pinot noir was perfect, the fruit wasn’t as ripe when the rain hit and the canopy had been opened up so the grapes could dry quickly.

“On the same vineyard the chardonnay is great, the variety seems to have come through the rain and humidity pretty well.

“Making good decisions around only harvesting very good fruit means there will be some great pinots made in the region this year, some of the flavours we are getting are fantastic.”

Andrew Greenhough says after February’s rain it has been a stunning season leading up to harvest.

Andrew Greenhough says on their Waimea Plains vineyard it’s been a fantastic season “apart from two weeks of rain at the beginning of February. It was a quite advanced season, from early flowering onwards, as seems to have become the norm in recent years.

“The biggest impact from the rain was on pinot noir because some of the clones were at a point they were vulnerable at the time the rains occurred. Some pinot clones came through really well providing it was a little behind in ripening at the time of the rains.

“After the rain it has been a stunning season. The weather conditions in last two weeks of February and the whole of March has been excellent so we’ve been able to pick grapes in optimal conditions rather than being rushed. “

Andrew says the beautiful autumnal weather has been great for development of ripeness and flavour. “The whites have come through amazingly well. Sauvignon blanc, riesling and chardonnay fruit has been beautiful and clean.”

As an organic producer Andrew says his only opportunity to get effective spray cover on his grapes is before the nets go on. They work very hard from December onwards opening up the canopy so they can rely on airflow and ventilation to help grapes ripen and come through these adverse weather events in good condition.

“We can only use topical sprays rather than systemic sprays so managing the vineyard canopy is an essential part of what we do.”

He says he’s never seen a two-week period of rain in February that has been quite like the rain event this year. “If fruit was in that zone of ripeness where it was susceptible then it was going to be damaged, some sites are ahead of others so it’s a bit of the luck of the draw.”

And how does it compare to recent vintages? “It’s been as good as I could have hoped for, flavour and quality are right up there with the 2019, 2020 and 2021 vintages as far as white varieties go. Volumes are better than those years, so it’s been an excellent vintage for white wines across the board. We lost some parts of our pinot but what was harvested has been excellent too.”

The 2022 grape harvest in the Nelson region has had a few challenges, caused mainly by the two weeks of heavy, warm rain in early February but, overall, it looks like there will be some exciting wines sitting safely in tanks and barrels for you and me to enjoy when they are released later in the year.