{"id":284512,"date":"2026-02-14T23:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T23:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/284512\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T23:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T23:23:08","slug":"hawkes-bay-winemaker-tony-bish-locks-in-the-earliest-grape-harvest-in-45-year-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/284512\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawke\u2019s Bay winemaker Tony Bish locks in the earliest grape harvest in 45 year career"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe have had to move everything forward two weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re certainly from zero to 100 miles an hour with the early season.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Hawke\u2019s Bay Today spoke to Bish on Friday morning, 21 tonnes of premium grapes had already been hand-harvested ahead of forecast rain with 70 pickers on Wednesday and Thursday alone. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe fruit is fantastic, it is what I call pristine, what we have picked on Wednesday, yesterday [Thursday] and we are picking right now [Friday] is impeccably clean, beautiful condition and ripe, and ideal maturity.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said the earlier harvest could be attributed to the warm climate. <\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change can not be ignored. The seasons have been getting consistently earlier, particularly for the last five years and then this year it\u2019s verging on ridiculous how early it is.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"SamSam Bish, left with father Tony Bish, and brother Oscar Bish started their wine harvest at Kokako Farms in Hawke’s Bay earlier than in 2025. Photo \/ Richard Brimer. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been making wine in the Hawke\u2019s Bay on and off for 45 years and other parts of New Zealand, but I have never ever seen a harvest this early.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spring heat was reflected in the Earth Science NZ Seasonal Climate Report which outlined that Hawke\u2019s Bay\u2019s cities experienced their hottest springs in 135 years <\/a>of recordings, with experts saying it\u2019s a sign of a \u201cnew normal\u201d emerging. <\/p>\n

The report for spring said Hawke\u2019s Bay temperatures, like most of the country, were \u201cwell above average\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TonyTony Bish said he was pleased with the grapes, describing them as impeccable. Photo \/ Richard Brimer. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just insane how warm and early this season is this year,\u201d Bish said. <\/p>\n

He suspected other growers across the region would be in a similar position, given that chardonnay grapes were the first variety to ripen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t speak for the rest of the industry, but I think some people are going to get caught on the hop a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Loughlin, owner of Askerne Estate Winery and life member of Hawke\u2019s Bay Winegrowers, is also expecting an earlier harvest. <\/p>\n

Loughlin said he typically harvested the first of his 17 varieties, the pinot gris and chardonnay, in the last days of February or early March. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe think we will be a week earlier than we have ever been before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just watching the fruit and watching the weather and the weather forecast, and we are very close, but we haven\u2019t quite started yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said the warmer temperatures, coupled with judging the fruit\u2019s readiness, determined when the picking would begin.<\/p>\n

\u201cNature holds the patent, and as a grower, you live or die by nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loughlin said the earlier harvest meant growers had more certainty around the potential of the wine and less risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you start to harvest fruit and have it in the winery, the pressure comes off bit by bit, so it\u2019s always a really nice feeling to have some really good fruit and be working your way through it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Michaela Gower joined Hawke\u2019s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke\u2019s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe have had to move everything forward two weeks. \u201cWe\u2019re certainly from zero to 100 miles an hour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,43966,95087,1561,158602,2046,136111,70358,8594,1976,78,44698,111,43,139,42304,69,193,7812,28702,427,223,11554,47036,29154,102,379],"class_list":{"0":"post-284512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-2246","9":"tag-43966","10":"tag-45year","11":"tag-bay","12":"tag-bish","13":"tag-career","14":"tag-earliest","15":"tag-grape","16":"tag-harvest","17":"tag-hawkes","18":"tag-in","19":"tag-locks","20":"tag-new-zealand","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-noting","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-other","26":"tag-seen","27":"tag-similar","28":"tag-story","29":"tag-the","30":"tag-tony","31":"tag-vineyards","32":"tag-winemaker","33":"tag-with","34":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}