A Marlborough winemaker says in his almost four decades of experience he's never seen a harvest begin as early as this year – and he's not the only one.
While harvest dates changed depending on weather and variety, Vinarchy winemaker Jamie Marfell said the trend is clear.
"I've been making wine for 37 years which is quite a long time but it's incredible that the whole season has actually moved forward probably three or four weeks," Marfell said.
"It's crazy. It's probably... the earliest vintage that we've ever seen".
He said it meant winemakers have to be more organised but so far the warm temperatures were having a good impact on the quality and taste of the wine, something he hoped would continue this year.
"Basically, all we need now is a really good window of good weather and it's home and hosed. We're gonna have a good vintage".
Marfell said they began picking on Tuesday last week, mid-February. For some in Hawke's Bay it was even earlier.
Hawke's Bay Wines' Brent Linn said the trend over the last decade was noticeable there too. "We are experiencing one of the earliest harvest that many of our producers that have had 40 plus vintages under their belt have experienced".
According to Bioeconomy Science Institute's Damian Martin this year's early harvest was the result of a warm spring, bringing early flowering.
"We've seen over the last 25 years about a week... to 10 days advance in flowering and if we project that forward, we're going to get another three weeks before the end of the century".
Martin says that could lead to regions such as Marlborough having a similar climate to the Hunter Valley in Australia or California wine country and that could be a threat to New Zealand's most popular variety sauvingnon blanc as it could change the taste.
"We can kind of adapt to a point, but I think we'll also be looking at needing new varieties and especially new disease resistant varieties as part of the evolution of the industry," he said.
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