Bay vintage looks a corker, again
Hot and dry season blessed vintners with pristine fruit
Hawke’s Bay winemakers say 2020 could be the region’s best vintage yet, with back-to-back superb growing years producing “phenomenal” wines.
A hot and dry season that has plunged the region into drought meant the entire region basked in optimum sunshine hours for graperipening last summer, from the inland alluvial plains to the coast.
It blessed Hawke’s Bay’s winemakers with pristine-condition fruit.
Winemaker and owner at Radburnd Cellars, Kate Radburnd, said that an extraordinarily dry growing season produced an early vintage of ripe, clean fruit across all varieties.
“It was a delight to manage harvest decisions which were based purely on merit, with very little weather or disease pressure.”
Hawke’s Bay has seen near-record low rainfall over the past eight months which led to the warm conditions that have created a perfect vintage for yet another year.
The outstanding growing conditions built on the base set up by a stellar season in 2019.
Julian Grounds, the chief winemaker at Craggy Range Vineyards, characterised it as having “produced wines that are staggering in their depth, energy and sense of place”.
“In your winemaking lifetime, the law of averages very rarely gives you two iconic vintages back-to-back. But that is what they will write of 2019 and 2020.”
Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers chair Sally Duncan said the consistency of the vintages from the region over the last decade could be compared to those of the highest quality across the world. “What’s quite remarkable is that our region has enjoyed a run of noteworthy vintages with exceptional growing conditions, producing superior quality premium wines,” she said.
“This record of consistent excellence is actually comparable to the vintages seen in Bordeaux and Northern Rhone — the Old World origins of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah — varieties which have made themselves at home in our terroir.”
Some of Hawke’s Bay’s early vintage wines for 2020 have already reached the shelves.