Early start to grape harvest

Vintage workers have been given an ‘‘unprecedented’’ early call-up because Marlborough’s hot weather has ripened grapes early.

Harvest will kick off this week, which is a week to 10 days earlier than the long-term average.

Some companies picked their first grapes of the season last week already.

Pernod Ricard was due to start harvest tomorrow, which was so early it called it ‘‘unprecedented’’.

Gearing up for Marlborough’s busiest time of the year, equipment has been greased up and run through its paces before the ‘‘huge’’-scale harvest takes over the region.

Pernod Ricard group winemaker Jamie Marfell said they usually started harvest at the end of the first week of March.

‘‘It’s incredible really,’’ he said. This was the earliest harvest staff had ever seen, Marfell said.

‘‘We have started in February before, but not this early. It is kind of unprecedented.’’

The early harvest was driven by the lack of cool weather, he said. ‘‘We haven’t really had any southerly flows come through to check the grapes. It’s all just 100 per cent go.’’

However, the vines were looking healthy and the canopies were strong.

With many of their workers coming from overseas, they had to make sure their labour was geared up in time for the early harvest, Marfell said.

This meant ringing them and telling them they were starting a couple of weeks earlier than expected.

They usually came in and did a bit of training, but instead were going straight into grapepressing, he said.

Wine Marlborough general manager Marcus Pickens said early March was usually the benchmark for harvest. ‘‘So this is pretty early for Marlborough.’’

On average, harvest would be about a week early across the region, and up to 10 days early in parts of the valley, Pickens said.

‘‘We’ve had quite an amazing run of hot, dry weather and it’s definitely impacted when harvest would be expected to begin.’’

The vintage was like a bell curve, he said. It would kick off with early varieties such as sparkling wine base, followed by pinot noir and chardonnay.

‘‘They are going to come on quite fast because the crops are a bit lighter in pinot and chardonnay.

‘‘It begins slowly, and then