The 2023 growing season started with a warm spring, followed by a relatively cool, fertile summer, and ended with a warm, dry autumn. The initial vine growth was slightly behind schedule, providing an opportunity to manage the canopy effectively, improve fruit exposure, and help with disease prevention.

Vineyards showed great fertility, reflecting improved vine health. The season was relatively mild – perfect for allowing the grapes to ripen gently and evenly and show concentrated and distinctive flavours, particularly in the vineyards located in the Awatere Valley. The nature of this season allowed for optimal winemaking decisions.

David Clouston, Winemaker, has declared that this year’s Chardonnay and Pinot Noir varieties are exceptional. The Chardonnay has a bright acidity with great intensity and purity. The Sauvignon Blanc has powerful aromatics and distinctive flavours. The red varieties benefited from the late warmth in the season, resulting in very juicy and concentrated berries. Syrah is showing incredible vibrance and great potential. Pinot Noir is concentrated, with classic Marlborough wild berry aromatics and a ripe tannin profile.’It could be one of the best vintages since 2015′- David Clouston.

As of writing this on the 24th March, all our chardonnay and rosé grapes are harvested and safely tucked away at The Wine Studio. Both, are looking fantastic – pure with lovely acidity.

Pinot noir is coming off nicely, especially blocks that ripened slightly later and missed February’s rains.

We are starting sauvignon blanc this week and while crops look to be slightly above average, the intensity of flavour and aromatics this year will be very good, due to great fertility in the vineyards and late summer rains.

Fingers crossed the weather plays its part for the next 3 weeks!

An ideal flowering period was followed by the hottest January on record in Marlborough. All indicators were leading to a solid harvest with quality fruit and plentiful yields. Unfortunately Mother Nature took a turn for the worse and unleashed the wettest February on record – with Cyclone Gita causing the most damage.

These significant rain events, combined with unseasonal warm nights provided conditions for disease infection in our grapes.

All this lead to an early harvest. We picked our first block of Pinot Noir on the 14th March, two weeks early. Despite low sugar levels, the fruit flavours were intense and delicious, helped by low acids due to warm nights.

After a frantic and sometimes hectic four weeks, all of our grapes were safely tucked away in our new winery: The Wine Studio, by 11th April.

This early and rapid harvest made for an incredibly intense vintage, with most varieties ready to be picked at the same time. Fortunately most of our vineyards are planted on exceptional sites – this, aided with motivated staff, and having our own winery meant we were lucky enough to produce distinctive, quality wines in 2018.

“This was the perfect season to test out our new winery and the level of flexibility and control we had over the intake of our grapes was priceless.” notes Winemaker and Owner Dave Clouston.

Here in Marlborough, the vines are yellowing and the leaves are starting to fall. It’s a serene time of the year for winegrowers, after the turbulent harvest period now behind us and the 2016 vintage wines fermenting away in the winery.

It was quite a season, one not forgotten in a hurry…. We faced record-breaking dry conditions, thanks to one of the strongest El Nino events in recent history. February measured the second warmest February on record, and this, coupled with a serious lack of rainfall through summer, and unusually warm nights, caused a bit of vine stress and Powdery Mildew pressure in some areas. Crops levels were above average so we were busy earlier in the season too; bunch thinning to restrict yields to desired crop levels.

We’re expecting 2016 vintage wines to have great physiological ripeness and will quite possibly have lower acids due to the warm summer nights.

Look out for our first 2016 releases in July/August.