We had spent the winter setting all our vineyards up for the anticipated light to average flowering, and a modest crop. Our target 7-9 ton for Sauvignon Blancs through to a low 4-5 ton/ ha for premium Pinot Noirs and Rieslings. The spring and early summer obliged with a warm start, regular rain through to early January with a cooler flowering period in early December – assuring fewer berries per bunch and thus modest crop levels. I think it was fair to say the entire NZ wine industry wanted this modest flower! The second half of summer was ideal, warm and dry allowing an even and rapid veraison period in early February to set up our crops for vintage.

Vintage 2010 began right on queue with our bubbly base being gently hand-picked from 20th March and then we got serious with our first Pinot pick on the 28th March. April was ideal for a long slow harvest based on the flavour profile changes as each varietal ripened. We had every wine tucked away in tank safely by 25th April- Anzac Day! The one exception being our grapes for sweet wines! And then we go into May or should I say dismay. May- June turned wet, very wet, and I watched in dismay as the sweet wine grapes dissolved on the vine!! A complete wash- out, no Botrytised Riesling for 2010 - damn!

2009 was very much decided by how much faith you put in research by Dr Mike Trought and his colleagues of the Marlborough Wine Research Centre on predicting the next vintages crop, 10 months before harvest. We had been observing the development of the crop prediction model and had the faith! – The model predicted a 30-40% increase in the number of bunches of grapes. This knowledge allowed us to drastically reduce the number of buds laid down at winter pruning; hence reduce the number of shoots that grew in spring, reducing the numbers flowers and bunches per vine, therefore our crop at harvest was, (a modest 7-8 ton/Ha). For those that did not heed the warning, the season involved endless rounds of crop reduction procedures, a costly exercise mostly done by hand or those who choose to do nothing produced excess yields of below average quality fruit (and who wanted that after the record 2008 vintage)!!

Climatically the growing season was wonderful, just the right amount of rain in spring, summer sunshine, then a dry cooler autumn harvest. In fact the weather during harvest was so good that I was often heard saying that vintage 2009 was boring!! Where had the adrenalin rush of impending doom, gone over harvest? All in all, one of the best vintages in the last 10 years right across our range of grapes.

Our spectacular summer of 08 has simply turned, ever so gently, into a superb vintage 08. Temperate days 21-27°c cool nights 5—8°c and NO RAIN is making picking currently stress free. We’re approximately 7 days earlier than normal commencing on the 20th March with our first grapes for The James Randall, 5t/Ha handpicked Sauvignon Blanc which is looking fantastic. It’s all very exciting—now all we have to do is not mess it up in the making and you should enjoy another great Forrest vintage.

Vintage is now over for us here at Forrest Estate and all our fruit has been processed, our vintage started in earnest on the 20th March 2008, approximately 7 days earlier than normal with hand picked Sauvignon Blanc for the ‘James Randall’ which looked fantastic. The vintage came to a finish on the evening of Monday 13th April to the delight of our dedicated vineyard team who celebrated with some cold beers. John, Brigid and the team were able to sleep very well that night as 70mm of rain fell in the valley, one could call it good planning by John and Tim his vineyard manager.

Press reports of a challenging 2008 grape harvest that overwhelmed wineries are rife, tales of crop left unpicked on the vines due to lack of processing space creating a ‘Sea of Sauvignon’ have been appearing on websites for the last few days, none of this has been a problem for Forrest Estate for a few good reasons including our philosophy to be self reliant in all areas of making wine from vineyard to winery.

A majority of our fruit comes from Estate owned land from Marlborough’s premium Wairau Valleys free draining soils , importantly helping to ensure a low cropping of 6-10 tonnes per hectare this added to being 100% self reliant from picking through to processing has meant a vintage exactly to expectation and above expected quality.

John Commented “Having complete control of the vineyard and winery this vintage in particular was imperative in the final batch of the fruit being brought into the winery on Monday 13th April as pre-planned by myself and Tim” John added “not relying on contract growers and contract pickers and owning our own machine harvester allowed us to manage the yield and act quickly when necessary as the weather turned ensuring clean fruit with fantastic varietal flavours”.

In keeping with John and Brigids pioneering outlook this year sees more exciting additions in the winery from new yeast trials to new varietals such as Arneis, an Italian variety traditionally from Piedmont which creates elegant white wines with peach and almond aromas.

So the ‘Challenging’ all our fruit is now in and we are excited by the quality of this fruit and the potential of the 08 vintage, our tonnage is as per usual by choice meaning we will not compromise on quality, so all we have to do now is let John and his winemaking team do their thing.

We look very much forward to tasting the new wines with you at the earliest convenience and hope you enjoy them as much as we expect.