Vintage Reports
Announcing our new Winemaker
Posted in Uncategorized - Written by Claire on July 4, 2024 - 0 CommentsWe’re thrilled to announce the appointment of Paul Mason as our new winemaker. Paul will join the Nga Waka team in November to take over from Roger Parkinson, who will retire at the end of the year after an impressive 32 vintages. Paul is currently head winemaker at Martinborough Vineyard, and during his 20 year […]
2023 Vintage Report: “I can’t stand the rain”
Posted in Vintage Reports - Written by Nga Waka on June 2, 2023 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) I toyed with a few song titles for this vintage report including “Why does it always rain on me” and “You can’t always get what you want” before settling on “I can’t stand the rain” accurately reflecting how we felt about the season and […]
2022 Vintage Report: Fast and Furious
Posted in Vintage Reports - Written by Nga Waka on April 27, 2022 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) The title of this vintage report doesn’t allude to the mental state of the winemaker (although there were moments!) but more to the compressed nature of this year’s harvest. A roller coaster of a growing season carried through to harvest with grapes ripening in […]
2021 Vintage Report: great things come in small packages
Posted in Vintage Reports - Written by Nga Waka on June 14, 2021 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) The title of this vintage report will alert you to the main story of vintage 2021 – there wasn’t much of it! Thanks (if that’s the right word) to cool, damp weather over the key weeks of flowering, yields ultimately ended up down 50% […]
2020 Vintage Report: when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
Posted in Vintage Reports - Written by Nga Waka on June 5, 2020 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) I’ve always wanted to use a Hunter Thompson quote and the 2020 vintage presented the perfect opportunity with the impact of Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown and social distancing requirements presenting some unique challenges and a distinctly different and weird normal for vintage. Turning to […]
2019 Vintage Report: frost depleted yields offset by high quality vintage
Posted in Uncategorized, Vintage Reports - Written by Nga Waka on January 31, 2020 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) A rather typical season in many respects with one glaring exception. A major advective (cold air mass) frost in October took out most of our largest vineyard, Pirinoa Block. The cold air mass settled to the South of Martinborough and around Te Muna while […]
2018 Vintage Report: warm season and early harvest beats out late rain
Posted in Vintage Reports - Written by Nga Waka on July 30, 2018 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) Unlike 2017, the numbers really do tell the story of the 2018 growing season and vintage. The early part of the season was unremarkable, slightly dryer than normal and next to no frost events. Flowering conditions were perfect and, in the absence of strong […]
2017 Vintage Report: lies, damned lies and statistics
Posted in Vintage Reports - Written by Nga Waka on September 19, 2017 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) Looking at the numbers above you might think the 2016-2017 season was slightly wetter and cooler than average but nothing too out of the ordinary and you would be dead wrong! Hence the old Mark Twain quote (attributed in the first instance to British […]
2016 Vintage Report: The Big Dry
Posted in Vintage Reports, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on August 8, 2016 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) After the small 2015 vintage we were hoping for a bounce-back to more normal yields in 2016. Frost was an issue again in Spring but the wind machines proved their worth and we sustained minor damage but only in our Pirinoa Block. Temperatures in […]
2015 Vintage Report: small but perfectly formed
Posted in Uncategorized, Vintage Reports, Wine - Written by Nga Waka on August 25, 2015 - 0 CommentsGrowing season (Oct-Apr) data: Rainfall (mm) Growing Degree Days (heat units) There’s always a danger with catch phrases like “small but perfectly formed” that somewhere in the past I’ve used it to describe a similar vintage. If I have, mea culpa! The “small” part of the equation was established during the first half of the […]