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Harvesting Pyramid Valley’s Lion’s Tooth Chardonnay in Waikari. Photo Credit: Richard Brimer.
Pyramid Valley had its longest Chardonnay Vintage ever this year, thanks to Hawke’s Bay and Central Otago fruit travelling to the North Canterbury winery.
“In every district Chardonnay has performed superbly, so that’s something new and exciting for us for 2024,” says Winemaker and Estate Manager Huw Kinch.
Steve Smith MW, co-owner of Pyramid’s parent company Aotearoa New Zealand Fine Wine Estates, says the 2024 season was a return to a “classic” North Canterbury weather pattern, with an unsettled, quite wet spring followed by a long dry summer, with more than 10 days over 30C, then a slightly cooler, dry autumn harvest period.
Advection frost events in mid-September and towards the end of October resulted in quite severe damage, especially to Chardonnay, with frost fans not working in many cases, due to the nature of the frost.
Summer and autumn were very dry, with only 120mm of rain between December and April, and harvest proceeded from mid-March through until later April in excellent conditions, Steve says.
Yields varied across the region, but quality appears “exceptional”, he adds. “Especially for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir on the vineyards where clay and/or limestone soils, and judicious irrigation on the lighter soils, mitigated severe water stress.
A potentially truly great vintage awaits for those who managed the challenges of frost and were patient.”
In the late 1970s, Ann Pinckney defied the prevailing view that Central Otago's climate was too extreme for viticulture, establishing its first commercial vines since Jean Désiré Féraud’s first efforts more than a century later.
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