For Delta Estate Wines, 2026 was a dream vintage in Marlborough. No disease or frosts and the perfect ripening conditions, allowing us to produce exceptional, expressive wines across all varieties.
The Growing Season
Spring temperatures were above average, producing strong healthy grapevine canopy growth. These warmer temperatures and few frosts, with no frost damage, allowed good flowering and fruit set. The Spring rainfall was well below average, which set the vines up for a clean, healthy growing season. Meanwhile, our 2025 Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs were tucked away in barrels, maturing ready for summer blending.
Summer began warm and dry, creating the perfect conditions for BBQs and enjoying our 2025 Sauvignon Blancs, and for starting the grape ripening process on the vines. For our vineyard team the work amped up with a lot happening in the vineyard, while the winery quietens down, allowing our winemaking and cellar team to enjoy some beach and family time.
Marlborough received some rainfall in January, which relieved the risk of water stress and gave the soils moisture reserves to get them through the rest of the growing season. Late summer is a busy time in the vineyard, and in the cellar tasting each barrel to determine our blends, then taking the wine out of barrel ready for finishing and late Autumn bottling.
Late summer was cooler and had a higher number of overcast days, which slowed the ripening progress, allowing for extended hang time and perfect physiological ripening, optimum flavour intensity and complexity, while conserving acidity. There was almost no rainfall in the lead up to harvest and during the picking period, so with no disease or rain pressure we could wait to pick until flavours, tannins, acids and sugars were perfect.
Harvest
Delta Estate Wines has a number of loyal passionate winemakers from around the world who return to Marlborough to help us out in the cellar during the intense harvest period. Their knowledge, skills, care and fantastic personalities help us craft high quality wines, while making the long hours a lot of fun. Harvest begun for Delta Estate in early March and finished mid-April. A slow start allowed our winery team to spend time in the vineyards picking wild flora and grapes to do field ferments, where we allowed the natural yeasts from the vineyard to ferment small parcels of crushed grapes, before taking these wild yeast cultures back to the winery to inoculate a tank of grapes.
Once the fruit got in to the ripening zone it came into the winery quickly, which meant some big days and long hours for our team. With our winemaker’s daughter’s sixth birthday party, Easter, and school holidays in the middle of harvest, it was a very happening time for the Delta team! Because we love knowledge, learning and continued improvement, we still did a lot of trials in both the vineyard and winery, using different yeast strains, varying the time fermented Pinot Noir was left on skins, and the way we extracted colour and tannins of Pinot with hand plunging, and using whole bunches in the ferments.
