After the difficulties of the 2023 season and the saturated soils from high rainfall, the 2024 season started well with nice, even budburst throughout the vineyards. Things were looking very good, until a short spell of wet and cold weather just on flowering meant that some decrease in yield was certainly to be expected.
The rest of the growing season was excellent, with mostly dry and warm conditions. While other parts of the country experienced quite high temperatures, ours were just moderately warm, and never exceeded 29°C.
This resulted in very steady berry maturation, with beautiful aroma and flavour development right up until harvest.
We did an early pick for the Crémant wines in Kumeu from February 8th to 20th, then started the Kumeu Chardonnay harvest on Leap Day, February 29th. Harvest concluded with the last of the Rays Road (Hawkes Bay) Chardonnay on the 16th of March.
The harvest period itself was relatively free of rainfall, with only two small rain events interrupting the flow of vintage. The picking crews had very little damage to sort through and the grapes arriving at the cellar were beautifully pristine. Hand harvesting is a very expensive process, but well worth the cost and effort for the quality it brings.
Our earlier fears about yield were justified. In Kumeu, we were down by more than 30%, and in Hawke’s Bay, it was nearer 50% down on average. Quantities of all our wines will be low this year, but on the positive side, the quality across the board is outstanding.
Chardonnay wines, particularly the Single Vineyards, are shining examples of the Kumeu style. The terroir differences between various parcels are very distinct, really highlighting their individual personalities. Pinot Gris is also very strong this year with high sugar levels and with some Botrytis influence, producing rich and textural wines.
Our Rays Road vineyard in Hawkes Bay continues to improve greatly as the new plantings gain maturity. Ripening was pretty much in parallel with Kumeu, which made for a very busy time in the winery for an intense period of pressing and fermenting. We are now receiving significant quantities of Chardonnay from the new plantings, based on Clones 15 and 548. These allow for a much deeper and more nuanced expression of the Chardonnay variety than the existing Clone 95 plantings, but still with the zesty minerality on the palate. Similarly with Pinot Noir, we now have new plantings of the most up-to-date Dijon selections from Burgundy: Clones 828 and 935. While still in very small quantities, it is obvious even now that these will have an enormous positive impact on the quality of our Rays Road Pinot Noir. These are exciting times indeed.