Marlborough’s wine industry is continuing to grow strongly, creating new opportunities - and a few headaches along the way.

The district’s ‘producing vineyard’ area will top 11,000 hectares this year and will account for a little less than half of the total national producing area. The region contributed 58 per cent of the 2005 vintage and shows no signs of slowing in the near future.

The scale of vineyard growth in the region, which is predicted by New Zealand Winegrowers to steadily continue, is bringing with it new challenges, along with greater economies of scale and new business opportunities for big and small players.

As vineyard area increases, wineries are also feeling the squeeze. One of the country’s largest processors, Rapaura Vintners, is expanding its capacity for the 2007 vintage to 8500 tonnes, an increase of 1000 tonnes on the 2005 vintage.

Chief executive Nigel Taylor says the goal is to increase production to 10,000 tonnes in the medium term. Currently Rapaura Vintners processes five per cent of the total national production, or eight per cent of Marlborough ’s production.

Taylor describes the 2005 vintage as a year of “consolidation” with volumes just short of the “monstrous” 2004 harvest.

The introduction of continuous drainers in the grape receiving area increased productivity in the 2005 year by 50 per cent. However, with volumes increasing each year, further investment will be required in grape de-stemming and crushing, must pumping and cooling capacity, Taylor says.

In the vineyard is where the growth in new plantings is starting to cause headaches for growers. Several thousand seasonal workers were required in Marlborough for this vintage to prune, tie, lift wires and do all the other jobs that must be squeezed into a tight three-month timeframe in winter and autumn. That came to a head with a chronic shortage of staff creating the real possibility of not getting the job done and undermining grape quality.

Winegrowers Marlborough spokesman Stuart Smith says growers cannot afford to be complacent about the labour requirement, as it was only going to get worse with new vineyards still being steadily planted.

Last season, nationwide coverage of the emerging crisis, coupled with a lifeline from the Department of Labour in the form of temporary work permit extensions for overseas visitors, helped alleviate the problem.

But vineyards are continuing to expand across the Wairau Plains, the Southern Valleys and the rapidly emerging areas south of the Wither Hills and in the Awatere Valley.

Further south, farmers in Ward had their viticulture dreams temporarily dashed when a proposal to pipe irrigation water from the Awatere Valley was turned down at the resource consent phase. That decision has been under appeal to the Environment Court but is becoming typical of the opposition to water consents by groups seeking to protect their existing or future rights.

A new irrigation scheme in the valleys south of Blenheim was used to full effect for the first time last summer, although at one stage low Wairau River levels threatened to limit the scheme before the main irrigation period had even begun.

The Wairau River serves as the main source of irrigation for most of Marlborough ’s vineyards and farmers further up the valley could also be testing new ground within the next decade.

The farmers, who already have rights to water from the river, plan to connect to TrustPower’s proposed hydro canal. The power scheme has yet to negotiate its way through what promises to be a difficult resource consent application in March this year. However, farmers in the area say they will proceed with an irrigation scheme with or without the power company. Most of this new land will be far too frost-prone for viable vineyards but some substantial new areas are likely.

The availability of water is the main regulator of vineyard growth in the typically dry climate of Marlborough .

Water battles have often been hard-fought affairs (as evidenced by several public stoushes) and there is a growing trend toward water harvesting as b-class supplies are fast becoming a thing of the past.

Article compiled February 2006