Harvest progresses 'come hell or high water'

When he was 24, Cyclone Bola struck Hawke's Bay and Gisborne, "and I said 'nah that will never happen again'." Thirty-four years on, Cyclone Gabrielle has gutted 50 hectares of Simon's vineyards, including 30ha in the Esk Valley now wearing more than a metre of silt, layers of forestry slash, the odd car, and several water tanks from "goodness knows where".

Flood waters also crashed through Simon's Links Road winery, which was swiftly yellow stickered in the wake of the storm. Within a week, Simon and his shellshocked team had conducted a "counsel of war" over pizza and beer, wading through the water to make plans for recovery, including a long list of certifications rapidly required for a white sticker. The plan, "come hell or high water - pardon the pun", was to harvest by 10 March, Simon says. "Which was quite a long bow to draw given that we'd had 60cm of water and attendant silt through the winery."

The next day, a team of 38 turned up with mops, brooms, buckets and shovels, and on 8 March, two days before the target grapes arrived at 8am. That effort was about resilience in the face of mammoth destruction, and not letting growers down, as long as harvesters could access the vineyards, Simon says. "It's tough enough for them as it is. When your single income stream is grapes - and I have been that person before; I know what it feels like - when something like this happens it absolutely sucks your sould completely out of your body."

The Link Winery story is one of countless examples of human spirit and community support that have flourished in Hawke's Bay and Gisborne since Cyclone Gabrielle devastated homes, lives, businesses, vineyards and wineries on Valentine's Day 2023. For all the trauma, there's been an "outpouring of help from total strangers", Simon says.

Speaking on the morning the first grapes arrive, Simon is both relieved and aggrieved, with a working winery, but two vineyards practically written off, with tens of thousands of dollars per hectare required to clear the silt. Many in the area feel betrayed by the district council, regional council and forestry operators, he says. "I feel there has been systematic neglect of water security systems and systematic neglect of roading and bridge infrastructure, and neglect of looking at industries like forestry and saying: 'by the way make sure you clean up your mess'."

New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW) Chief Executive Philip Gregan says there are varying degrees of impact in Gisborne and Hawke's Bay, starting with "profound", encompassing a group of growers and wineries grappling with 100% loss of their crop or a flooded winery because of broken stop banks, silt depositions, and flood-flattened infrastructure.

"Then across the wider industry in each of the affected regions, across the whole of the North Island, you have the general impact from a really difficult growing season, which has seen disease pressure, general fruit loss and yields significantly down," Philip says, calling this the North Island's toughest season in more than 30 years. "Those people may not have suffered 100% fruit loss, but their grape intake is going to be considerably down on a normal year."

NZW has been working with the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) on the response, and sought and received funding to send a group of expert viticulturists, led by Dr David Jordan, to visit flood affected vineyards to discuss the next steps. NZW Biosecurity and Emergency Response Manager Sophie Badland and her colleague Kerrie Hopkins travelled to the North Island to assist in the recovery, and NZW helped fund extra hours for a Hawke's Bay Winegrowers staff members.

Philip says the cyclone, coming in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic's myriad challenges and years of severe labour shortages, "is incredibly challenging for people". And the recovery will be long. NZW is working to provide estimates of the financial impact on the industry "which will then hopefully help inform the recovery package that the government develops", Philip says. "We've had a response package to the immediate situation, the question now is, what the Government will do over the next one, two, three years, to support these producers."

It's still very early in the recovery, he adds. "What is really clear is that the wider wine community has offered a lot of help to the affected businesses, in terms of immediate response. But quite what the longer term is going to look like, we're not sure at the moment."

Simon Gilbertson in Esk Valley with his neighbour's water tanks.

Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers Executive Officer Brent Linn says it’s been a “whole of community effort, that’s for sure”. Speaking during a 10-day stint of fine weather, he says harvest continues in Hawke’s Bay for those who are able, and a later vintage and spell of fine weather are helping mitigate the season for some. “It was always going to be a difficult vintage and the viticulturists earned their money this year in terms of getting the canopy sorted out and open and given every change of success for vintage 2023.”

Brent also emphasises that Hawke’s Bay had three stellar vintages in tank, in bottle and in reserve. “Now we have a very difficult vintage, but we still have the legacy of those fantastic vintages coming through.”

NZW Chair Clive Jones says a network of support has “rallied” around affected winegrowers in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne, with Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers, Gisborne Winegrowers, NZW and MPI working together to get assistance and information to those that need it. “They have all stood up and combined effort to make things happen,” he says, adding that relationships and crisis management efforts grown during the tumultuous pandemic period have stood the wine industry in good stead when it comes to front-footing assistance in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle. “This is where those relationships pay off.”