Dream season for Wairarapa wine

Wairarapa winemakers are confident rainfall at the start of harvest this week will not spoil a remarkable grape-growing season.

Escarpment winemaker Larry McKenna said yesterday that crews harvesting grapes at Martinborough vineyard on Sunday and Monday were rained off Tuesday but would return to the vines tomorrow "at the latest, I hope".

"We're very happy with the quality and quantity of the grapes we've already picked and I'm confident Wairarapa will take the cake out of all the districts in New Zealand this vintage," Mr McKenna said.

"It's been a dream season - even with the rain this week - and looks set to be a bigger crop than 2009 or 2010. The forecast reports are for a quick return to drier weather and that makes this just a day off, nothing more."

Grape-picking at Martinborough Vineyard, which began on Monday, was likewise postponed until today or tomorrow and winemaker Paul Mason agreed there had not been sufficient rainfall to seriously threaten fruit quality.

"It can be a problem if there's too much rain, but the vines aren't really taking up a lot of water right now and there hasn't been enough moisture to really dilute the flavour of the grapes, which can happen.

"There's some really good quality fruit out there, even though the blocks we picked on Monday were about average quantities."

Harvest gangs will drop crop to clear vines of excess fruit and give remaining grapes more time and a chance to ripen before being harvested.

Jane Cooper, winemaker for Matahiwi Estate Vineyard, said she agreed the growing season this year has been close to ideal "with a hot and settled summer" and consistently dry weather.

"I don't like to count bottles before we get the stuff in the tanks, but there's been no disease pressure and the foundations for the season have been exceptionally good.