High fliers at Abel in Nelson
Abel flew through its spray programme – quite literally – in the lead up to vintage 2024.
The Good: Excellent quality and, despite the early spring frost, good volume, thanks to the best flowering conditions ever seen in the region. At Abel we picked every single last grape of Chardonnay (unless it didn’t meet our stringent criteria) from our own vineyard and our grower vineyards, which sounds like it was a rare feat in 2025! Speaking with my winemaker’s hat on, it was a stellar vintage – but is it as good as 2024? I don’t think so. However, as they say, only time will tell.
The Bad: As I write this it’s pouring down again here – we’re already over 1,250mm since 1 January. Please make it stop! Speaking with my viticulturist hat on, the 2024/25 growing season was one to forget. It darn near broke me, until the winemaker stepped foot in the vineyard and brought the sunshine (but don’t tell him). It was a very tough season with constant rain – not lots, but enough on a week to 10-day basis to make you have to get back on the horse (or drone as it were) and apply another spray. The weather app had never seen so many fingers and the canopy just kept growing. Then, just when we thought summer had come early, it quite quickly decided to disappear for six weeks, only to show itself again just in time to give us five weeks of sunshine to get things over the line. Phew! I truly think we got away with one there. Survive to ‘25 we did – just!
The Awesome: One word, Chardonnay. Clearly biased at Abel, but if you asked any winemaker in this region for the strongest variety for the vintage, I guarantee they would reply “Chardonnay”. Year in, year out, it proves resilient to challenging conditions and always makes it over the line when grown with care and common sense. Chardonnay grown here in the Moutere clay soils is awesome. Oh yeah, and to finish, young people are drinking wine! That’s
also Awesome. Let’s not keep telling them they aren’t, or they won’t, which is clearly not awesome.
