(Scoop) - The 2016 New Zealand grape harvest has finished, with high quality fruit being picked across the country. Producers benefited from excellent summer and early autumn weather in grape growing regions, enabling full ripening and flavour development.

“Going into harvest, growers and wineries were looking for a larger vintage” said New Zealand Winegrowers CEO, Philip Gregan. “In the past year we have seen continued strong demand in our key export markets, which exacerbated supply constraints following the small 2015 harvest. With good weather through the summer expectations for the vintage were high”.

“This year’s vintage of 436,000 tonnes of grapes will be a welcome boost for markets, growers and wineries”. The 2016 harvest is up 34% on the small 2015 crop, but is still below the record breaking 2014 vintage.

“New Zealand wine exports are now valued at $1.56 billion, up 13% in the past year,” said Mr Gregan. “The rebound in production from the 2016 Vintage will be another boost to the export ambitions of our sector. The 2016 Vintage will definitely keep us on track to achieve our goal of $2 billion of wine exports by 2020.”