Vintage Report

Dear wine-friends,

This year’s 2019 grape harvest is looking to be another fantastic vintage – with fantastic quality fruit coming in from all wine regions in New Zealand from North Auckland and Waiheke Island to Hawkes Bay to Marlborough and Central Otago. A long dry and hot summer ensured that the winemakers and viticulturalists were able to wait until optimum ripeness was reached before the decision to harvest was made. In previous years, harvest has been a compromise in view of changing weather – and consequently grape quality was not the best. We look forward to some stunning Pinot Noir and Syrah as well as fantastic white wines.

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is still by far our largest harvested and exported variety. New Zealand Pinot Noir is our second most grown grape variety, and steadily gaining a reputation as one of the world’s best. Our other major varieties are Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Merlot. And another varieties showing large increases in popularity and production are Pinot Gris and Viognier.

And when you’re thinking about wine tours in Auckland New Zealand, remember – Fine Wine Tours is the one recommended by TripAdvisor, Frommer’s, Fodors, Lonely Planet and Rough Guides.

I have been hosting Auckland wine tours for over ten years as a one-man operation and enjoy meeting guests from all over the World.

I have had many guests lately from USA, UK, Australia and Japan – and also some of our cousins from Canada.

Please feel free to email me with any wine questions regarding New Zealand wines, and I’ll do my best to answer your enquiry promptly.

Join Fine Wine Tours Auckland on a relaxing, scenic and informative wine tasting tour package to prestige wineries. I am the Auckland specialist for small, guided vineyard tours in Auckland New Zealand. I cover wine tasting tours all of Auckland’s wine regions – Kumeu West Auckland, Matakana North Auckland and Waiheke Island.

Kind regards and Cheers,

Phil