2005 New Zealand

New Zealand 2005 Harvest Summary
By Darryl Woolley
Manager Viticulture and Winemaking
Nobilo Wine Group

MARLBOROUGH

The 2005 harvest was one of the most compressed ever experienced in this region. Cool, but generally sunny weather early in the season (February to April), meant that ripening was slow. These slow ripening conditions are ideal for developing and retaining the critical flavour compounds that make Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc what it is. Harvest started a week or so later than last year.

All was going according to plan until April 24th when a cold southerly dumped a considerable quantity of snow on the ranges.  At this date, with everything at or close to optimum maturity, we had approximately 75% of our Sauvignon harvested and a plan in place to harvest the remainder in a leisurely fashion over 10 days. The morning of the 25th delivered a -4C frost and plan "B" meant we had to harvest everything over 4 days instead.

Overall, quality was not affected and the resulting wines are excellent. Sauvignon Blancs are big wines, 12% to 13% alcohol, with the desired signature Marlborough, pungent zingy, varietal fruit characters, crisp acidity and good balance.

Pinot Noir was lightly cropped as a result of the cool weather during flowering. The prevailing weather conditions allied to the light crop loadings were ideal for ripening this variety and the wines are rich and show the full range of desirable characters for this variety. All Pinot had been harvested at optimum maturity prior to the 25th April frost.

The cool early season conditions delayed the start of harvest by 10 days or so. Once underway, however, harvest pace was ideal with fruit picking decisions based on each parcel of fruit achieving optimum maturity. The 25th April storm that hit Marlborough was too late to have any effect on the North Island harvests.

As a result of the cool flowering conditions the previous year, cropping levels were marginally down on what we had expected from the area. Once again, this light crop load allied to the sunny conditions allowed our key varietals of Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc to develop a great range of ripe flavours with optimum sugar / acid balance. The Merlot wines in particular are showing great promise with intense ripe berry-fruit characters, deep colours and   elegant palate balance.

Although Chardonnay is a relatively minor variety in Hawkes Bay, it performed exceptionally well in 2005. The wine is showing great balance and fruit promise at this early stage.

Work on construction of the NWG "Corner 50" winery commenced in July 2004 and was completed just in time for the first of the 2005 grapes in late March 2005. The winery team did a sterling job in getting the plant operational and making such great wines.

The most northerly, and warmest, of our grape growing regions is best known for its unctuous, fruit driven Chardonnay wines. Vintage 2005 has been typical in all respects for Gisborne. The Chardonnay wines are big fruit driven wines with great creamy mouthfeel and clean crisp balanced finish.

In general our quantities of finished wines will be down a small amount over expectations, but the quality is what we would wish for from all varieties and regions.