Thursday, 13 August 2015 07:56

Small But Stunning

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Vintage 2015 was 27 percent down on last year, and while wineries may be bemoaning the small yields they certainly aren’t unhappy about the quality.

With the final numbers in, this year’s vintage was 326,000 tonnes, 119,000 down on 2014. That will come as no surprise, given the difficult growing conditions many regions faced going into the summer.

With frosts, hail and even snow in parts of the country last spring, it was always expected that yields would be well down on the previous year. Although early estimates were that the drop would be around 100,000 tonnes less that the record 445,000 tonnes in 2014. Those early expectations were found to be on the low side, for a number of reasons. One being the impact the drought experienced in Marlborough had on the berry size. Another being the fact last year’s record highs may have placed a certain amount of carbohydrate stress on the vines going into last year’s growing season.

NZWinegrower CEO Philip Gregan says the end result was in some ways a good thing, given no one was keen to see a repeat of last year’s record harvest.

“We didn’t think there would be an appetite for a large vintage this year, given there was so much still left over to draw down on,” he told the NZW Grape Day audiences.

While the 326,000 tonnes may seem to be a substantial drop from 2014, Gregan pointed out that when NZW do their forecast looking out, the base line they work on is nine tonnes per hectare. That was exactly what vintage 2015 produced, when averaged out across the country. (Last year yields were averaged out to 12tph).

“So we categorise this season as normal or light overall.”

But the yield swing of three tonnes per hectare is huge for people to have to deal with it he admitted.

“If you look at the last three years, the industry has been through a real roller coaster. Last year the vintage was up 100,000 tonnes. This year it is down 119,000 tonnes.”

Not surprisingly, it was Marlborough that had the greatest drop, down 90,000 tonnes in total, or 30 percent. Eighty thousand tonnes of that was Sauvignon Blanc. The region produced 233,000 tonnes, compared with 329, 500 in 2014.

Every other region, with the exception of Gisborne also saw drops of close to 30 percent, although Waipara was even harder hit, with yields dropping by over 50 percent.

In total Marlborough produced 75 percent of the country’s grapes. Hawkes Bay produced 12 percent, Gisborne 6 percent and the rest of the country 8 percent.

Sauvignon Blanc made up 69 percent of this year’s crop. Chardonnay was 9 percent, Pinot Noir 8 percent, Pinot Gris 6 percent and Merlot 3 percent.

It was Sauvignon and Pinot Noir that were the hardest hit when it came to yields, both down around 30 percent. The only variety to show an increase was Chardonnay, on the back of a 6 percent rise in production this year in Gisborne.

So while yields are well down, Gregan says the quality of the fruit was extremely good. He said talking to winemakers in Marlborough, he had heard comments about it being the best vintage in four years, with one winemaker claiming it was the best in a decade. Those feelings have been reiterated throughout the country.

“The grapes came in in good condition and the wine is looking very good to excellent.”

So what does the lower harvest mean for the New Zealand wine industry? Gregan says the supply demand equation has been turned on its head.

“The supply demand balance has swung back to shortage at the moment. Wineries will try and manage that shortage as best they can. They will draw down on stock and will probably be hoping for an early 2016 vintage.”

Vintage-15-varieties

There are other ramifications as well.

“Clearly grower’s incomes on average are going to be lower. We will see bulk wine prices rise. They are currently sitting at around $5 a litre. We will see bulk imports rise and we will see New Zealand sales fall as wineries prioritise export markets over domestic markets. Bulk imports will replace New Zealand wine at home, generally in the lower price bracket, and volume growth and export growth will be constrained over the next few months.”
With sales growth having continued over the year ending June, Gregan says there will be an issue of meeting demand in the months to come.

“If we take the production from this year’s vintage, 326,000 tonnes and convert that into wine, then take off what our forecast sales are over the next year – it shows a deficit of somewhere in the vicinity of 30 million litres. So we are going to sell, by our best forecast, about 30 million litres more wine than we produced out of this vintage. We can only do that by drawing down on the stocks that we have in hand from vintage 2014.”

However he is not encouraging growers or wineries to head into the next season with the aim of deliberately increasing yields. In fact he had a word of warning to the entire industry.

“We always need to remind ourselves that the reason there is high demand out there is because of the quality of our wines. Our reputation is based on the quality we produce. If we continue to produce high quality wine, then we will continue to see growth and demand for our products. If we let our quality slip, then our reputation will slip and that brings into question the demand for our wines in the longer term.

“So going into vintage 2016, yes there is going to be more demand for grapes, more demand for a bigger vintage. But I would suggest that there needs to be a demand for high quality grapes that will contribute to our reputation, rather than to just fit the demand.

“Vintage 2016 will be determined by Mother Nature and the decisions growers and winemakers make through the course of the coming seasons.”

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