Winemakers’ time to sparkle after storm

Former cyclone Gita should have little effect on the start of grape harvest next week, winemakers say, as long as the sun sticks around.

Heavy rain has bucketed down in Marlborough, with surface flooding across much of the district, though the region has been spared the gale force winds that were predicted.

But winemakers say the wild weather is unlikely to affect the schedule for harvesting grapes - though if Gita had arrived a week later, it could have been a different story.

Pernod Ricard operations manager Tony Robb said if the weather forecast was right, his grapes would have a few days to dry out before his scheduled harvest of grapes for sparkling wines started on Monday.

‘‘This weather is supposed to move on very, very quickly, so the reality is there shouldn’t be much effect,’’ Robb said.

Wet weather increased the chances of disease affecting the grapes, such as botrytis, also known as ‘noble rot’.

The fungus thrived in wet, humid conditions, causing the loss of fruit where it took hold. But Pernod Ricard had good fungus spraying programmes to deter disease, Robb said.

Hunter’s Wines chief winemaker James Macdonald said the company’s grapes grown for sparkling wines would not be harvested for another two weeks.

‘‘The grapes are nearly ready but we still want their sugar to go up a bit more and the acid to go down a bit,’’ Macdonald said.

Macdonald expected ‘‘some sort of disease to rear its head’’ before harvest, he said.

‘‘It’s par for the course, I’m afraid. We had two tropical cyclones last harvest, and two already this year,’’ Macdonald said.

‘‘But the timing was worse last year, because the grapes were at full maturity, whereas a lot of the grapes aren’t at full maturity yet this year.’’