Waipara Vintage Reports

Start – 20 March 09. Finish 5 May 09. This is a region that has had a cracker of a harvest two years on the trot. An unusual occurrence for Waipara the season started with some frosts that didn’t affect any of our fruit then a freak hail storm that gave us a light tickle up but nothing to impact on the final crop as thinning had not been done at that point. The summer was glorious with very hot temperatures during the day and fresh cool evenings. The entire crop was thinned to targeted tonnages resulting in even ripening and great flavour accumulation. The harvest seemed like it was never going to end with an early start and a late finish. A ripper of a year!