Running hard right to the finish line

We’ve all seen the video clips of someone celebrating their victory before they’ve crossed the finish line and then being pipped at the post. That won’t happen with Babich.

Even in a year when we know we’ve done everything as best we can – we’ve created the best possible conditions for our vines to produce excellent grapes and the vineyard is packed with the most luscious fruit – we keep going at it hard until every grape is in the winery. The last thing we want to do, is to undo a year’s hard work in the home stretch.

That’s why harvest is such an intense time for us. We need to get the fruit into the winery at just the right time, when they’re as ripe and flavourful and healthy as they can be. That might mean that we need to get heaps done in a short time frame. For our team, it means early starts and late finishes, day after day for about three weeks. Nature does not take weekends off.

When the last grapes were brought into our Marlborough winery, there were some tired minds and bodies, but also a great sense of satisfaction.

“We want to get the outstanding quality that is in the vineyard into the winery,” says winemaker Adam Hazeldine, “so that we can put it into the bottle for people to enjoy.”