The Marlborough Harvest is an extremely significant time in our region. This is our ‘time to shine’ as one of our greatest, award-winning products begins its journey from grape to wine, Marlborough’s liquid gold. Many hundreds of hours have been dedicated to preparing the vines in order to produce the perfect crop. Many more hours have been committed to protecting the integrity of the fruit, nurturing and caring for every aspect of the growth period waiting for optimum results.
When the time is right, the call is made to begin harvest and Marlborough becomes a hive of activity. Ask any Marlburian and they will likely have some sort of connection to Harvest. This is when you see a community come together, working hard and making magic happen. So many people rely on this time to be the huge success it has the potential to be. Families, businesses, and community groups all benefit from the literal fruits of the labour which is why it’s important to celebrate this time. This is a chance to remind ourselves that Harvest is our regions finest triumph that we can be proud of and appreciate those attributed to its success.
Thanks to those within the industry we can share some beautifully captured moments in a special photo montage to celebrate Harvest 2022 and raise a glass to another successful year.
Coles Contracting Tractor and Gondola. Once the harvesters have picked the fruit from the vines, the grapes are tipped into a specially designed trailer so the grapes can be carefully transferred. The grapes are then transferred to the grape cartage truck where they will be delivered to the winery to be pressed. Photo: Natalie StevensonNets on in the Waihopai Valley at Spy Valley Wines. Nets are put on the fruit to protect the grapes from birds eating them. Photo: Fold in the MapMarlborough Grape Growers Co-op capture a view of a member’s vineyard, cascading down the Awatere River.Bird net removal at Astrolabe Farm Vineyard in preparation for harvest. Winemaker Simon Waghorn driving a tractor while vineyard manager Nick Taylor feeds the nets into a bag. The nets then need to then be taken off for harvest (vineyards can also use lasers, gas guns or flags to deter birds, not all vineyards need to net).A hand picker at Rock Ferry Wines, carefully removing a juicy bunch of nebbiolo red wine grapes. Photo: Sarah Fix.Hand picking at Astrolabe farm vineyard in Grovetown. Arabella Waghorn checking the quality of a bunch of pinot noir.Hand pickers from Alapa Viticultural Services.
Picking at sunrise, Dog Point Vineyard.Focus Labour Hire captures their team thrilled with the fruits of their labour.Jak at the press at Dog Point Road. For white wine like sauvignon blanc the skins and seeds are often removed straight away during the pressing process and ferment started (yeast added) which is why machine harvesting is efficient as it destems in the vineyard. For rosé the skins a kept on for a little bit to extract colour, and for pinot noir the skins are kept on and plunged daily or pumped over to extract tannin/ flavours/ colour.Marisico Winemakers, Dave, Seb and Jeremy tasting through early harvest ferments at Marisco Vinyards, Waihopai Winery, in search of the perfect balance of taste and aroma. The wines are monitored and analysed daily by winemakers and at the end of ferment the wine is then pressed if not already and transferred to the final resting vessel. The pinot noir skins need to be cleaned ‘dug out’ of the tank in this process.Coles contracting operating a modern fleet of machinery. Here the freshly harvested fruit are transferred to the gondola, ready to be carted away.Harvest can be hard work but can also be rewarding as this Nautilus worker displays.Sam from Marisco digging out one of the pinot noir tanks at the Waihopai Winery.Handplunging pinor noir at Rapaura Springs.Astrolobe winemaker Simon Waghorn in the barrel room, where the wine is finally in the barrel and rested, soon to be ready for bottling for all to enjoy.
