It was an early harvest, characterised by reduced volumes and high quality. A special feature was the “on-vine” time we were able to gain, from a very early bud burst and flowering; running through to harvest. Total heat summation was close to that of the 1998 season although we experienced several heavy showers in January
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In Hawkes Bay, 1998 was a drought season following a wet winter. Vines showed vigorous growth early in the season, and then had a compact flowering in early December. Crops set were large, again necessitating thinning, and the ability to drip irrigate vineyards was essential in order to retain sufficient leaves to maintain photosynthesis. Older
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This was a year that started well, but flowering was somewhat drawn out and crop management, particularly bunch thinning over the summer, was a very important quality factor. February was warm and humid, as was most of March. We were nervous about our crops, but decided to wait and keep the canopies very open. We
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The growing season culminating in vintage 1996 was a mixture. Initially, the weather was warm and dry, enabling the bud burst through to flowering section to be most satisfactory. We had 90mm (about double average) of rain in January and the same in February, with warm weather prevailing. We had plenty of days at over
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A lovely spring and good weather until mid-December. We got Cyclone Fergus on the 31st December with 95mm of rain. We had a cool, cloudy January, a warm weather February with uncharacteristic humidity and then it all came right, with a wonderful harvest period from Easter until the final picking on the 6th May.
The 1994 vintage for Te Mata Estate was of high quality. Although cool weather in November delayed flowering, a very warm and dry growing season led to intensely concentrated crops. Yields on sauvignon blanc were 15% down; on reds and chardonnay they were about normal. The resulting wines should be powerful, concentrated, with significant keeping
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