(Wine-Searcher) - The 2015 vintage is wrapped up Down Under. Wine Searcher takes a look back at the season across Australasia.

New Zealand

Official harvest statistics are not expected until early June, but all reports indicate a smaller harvest will be declared in New Zealand in 2015, following an early frost in some parts of the country and a dry season nationwide.

In the country's major wine-producing region, Marlborough, 15 separate spring frosts, cool temperatures during flowering and the driest season in 80 years have served to keep yields low, particularly Sauvignon Blanc yields. Individual reports suggest overall yields could be down by 15 percent or as much as 40 percent compared to 2014.

As Santa was making his rounds, it got hot and it stayed hot and dry; the region was declared a drought zone in late January, having received the lowest amount of rainfall over a seven-month period since records began. This meant little disease pressure, as well as smaller, concentrated berries.

When it came to harvest "it was an early start and an early finish", said contract grower Callum Linklater. "We started picking Pinot Noir [for still wine] in early March and most people were finished by the first week of April."

Harvest was also one of the earliest ever for Cloudy Bay. Winemaker Nick Blampied-Lane reported the Sauvignon Blancs are "plump with plenty of ripe fruit – it's not a year for green flavors but there is a lot of white-stone fruit."

For Pinot Noir, Clive Dougall, winemaker at Seresin Estate, said the wines are "not particularly tannic, but fruity" with balanced alcohols – coming in at just 12.5 to 13 percent .

In Pinot-dominant Central Otago, after a warm, early start to the season, an unusually cold November saw snow fall on the mountains. "We were walking around with woolly hats, the vines didn't progress in November at all and it put a halt on things," said Paul Pujol of Prophet's Rock.

The vines soon caught up with a warm December, January and February. It was a drier season than normal although rains in February created some botrytis pressure. The February rains and drip irrigation did not prevent some vineyards showing water stress, noted James Dicey, the spokesman for the Central Otago Winegrowers' Association.

Harvest was short and sweet, taking around four weeks rather than the usual six. It is thought that most wineries had their fruit in before April 12, when snow fell – Pujol's frost alarm on his cell phone rang at midday on April 12! It's thought the harvest will be around 10,000 tonnes – around 5 percent down on last year.

Growers report that they were delighted with the ripeness and bright aromatics.

Hopping across to New Zealand's North Island, it appears to be another good harvest for Hawke's Bay, on the back of two fantastic vintages. Tony Bish of Sacred Hill said: "2013 and '14 are both epically good years. It's hard to do that every year but 2015 is probably close behind. I'm rating it at least a 7 or even an 8 out of 10."

The major cause for concern across the region was Cyclone Pam but she turned out to be a wet weekend. "We didn't get anything more than 35mm, which was a quarter of what they were predicting at one stage. It was much ado about nothing and business as usual straight after."

Unlike the compact harvest in Central Otago, the wide spectrum of grape varieties in Hawke's Bay and the long, dry autumn created a drawn-out harvest. "The hardest thing to be honest with you was managing my staff. There were flurries of activity then periods of nothing. Then another flurry and then another period of waiting," said Bish. "It was quite spread out but it did mean we got the hang time on the later varieties because it wasn't foreclosed by bad weather."

Australia

Let's start with the good news regarding Australia's 2015 vintage. In many key premium regions, quality is high to excellent. And the bad news? Yields are down.

And the decade-long trend of early harvests continues with the Clare Valley recording one of its earliest.

To call it unpredictable in the Clare Valley would be an understatement, says Peter Barry, winemaker at Jim Barry Wines.

"Never, ever have we picked Cabernet Sauvignon at the same time as Shiraz and Riesling," he says. "There has been some overlap between Shiraz and Riesling before but never Cabernet. It is the earliest we have picked that red. Quite extraordinary."

By happenstance, months earlier, the Barrys purchased a sorting table and crusher, and could cope with having reds and whites coming in at the same time. "Thank goodness otherwise we would have been stuffed, although volumes were down."

The yield in some red grape vineyards was down by 60 percent. However "the Rieslings are better than last year's, and we're pleased with that and the reds are pretty strong. They haven't finished malolactic fermentation yet but we will producing the top end stuff such as The Armagh," says Barry.

Senior viticulturist with the Australian Wine Research Institute Dr Mardi Longbottom, who deals with growers and producers across all regions, says it is unusual to harvest white and red grapes at the same time.

So what happened?

"Essentially quite a warm spring meant the season got going early and accelerated giving an early harvest," says Longbottom. "We've been dealing with this trend for more than 10 years and it is a function of climate change."

However, given the size of Australia and the scope of disparate conditions between regions, states and even vineyards, there will always be differences.

Margaret River has produced another terrific vintage although spring storms reduced yields so there will be less wine to buy, especially Chardonnay. That doesn't please Vasse Felix winemaker, Virginia Willcock, but the quality does. "The high demand for Margaret River Chardonnay means there was none to spare but the fruit's beautiful and so too the Cabernet Sauvignon."