Tens of thousands of bottles of wine were extracted from the sludge

It is hard to imagine the devastation in the Esk Valley, in Hawke’s Bay on the eastern side of New Zealand’s North Island.

What was once a picturesque landscape of vineyards is now covered in mud.

Sometimes you see exaggerated news reports and posts on social media. It’s about as bad as it sounds, says Hana Montaperto-Hendry, who makes the Saorsa wine, and continues:

– It’s as if we’re immersed in a mud bath that you can’t get out of.

“keep going up”

When Hurricane Gabriel made landfall in New Zealand on February 12, it did so with strong winds and torrential rain.

Philip Barber runs Petane Vineyard in the Esk Valley, which he and his family built over the course of 16 years. He was prepared for the water to rise with the storm, and equipped it with sandbags to protect the basement of the apartment building.

– But the water kept rising, and we thought it wasn’t normal. Then water started pouring out of the shower, and over the downstairs windows, TT tells.

In the end, the family, aged three and five, were forced to climb onto the roof of the three-story house.

– We sat there for four hours, from four o’clock in the morning, and it got worse. A full log came floating in and hit the home run until it shook.

– the tractor shed was torn apart, and the tractor floated away. We were in the middle of a huge, raging river.

At six o’clock the climax was reached. Then the sun looked ahead. After a while the water receded and the family was finally able to jump onto land and reach the friends. What was left was mud, sludge, and destruction.

– Last week we went home and to the brewery, restaurant and vineyard and saved what we could. He says people—and some strangers—came in with shovels to help.

The five-hectare vineyard was destroyed.

– It will be five to six years before you have a vineyard here again, if you choose to do so. Maybe I’ll do something else, maybe this is the end of an era, he says.

“We extract the sludge and wait for the insurance companies,” he says.

Hana Montaperto-Hendry says a small part of her vineyard, the highest site, may survive. Normally, you harvest 15-20 tons of grapes.

– We might be able to get one to two tons of fruit if the rain stops. The rest is destroyed, it cannot be saved. We need bulldozers and trucks to pull out all the sludge and dead vines before we can plant again. She says it will take years.

In addition, all machinery and vehicles used in winemaking were destroyed.

Lots of bottles

But as often happens in disasters, people showed their best side. People reach out to you, come and help in a real spirit of collaboration. Another bright spot for growers in the Esk Valley is the amount of wine bottles that have been excavated from the sludge, or found floating in the water.

– It took 15 to 20 people two days to extract them, says Philip Barber, who found 12,000 bottles.

– Some of the labels are quite dirty, so we do the cleaning and sanitizing, but we seem to be able to save the wine.

Much of Hana Montaperto-Hendry’s wine and her husband, Alex Hendry, also seem to have been made by him.

– Work continues. We’re talking tens of thousands of bottles. I may be exaggerating a little, but there’s a lot, you say.

There are plans to auction off the bottles in Auckland. Individuals and restaurants also approached us about buying wine, which could mean a financial relief.

no victim

Hana Montaperto-Hendry refuses to see herself as a victim, saying that everything will be rebuilt, and that the Esk Valley will once again become a valley of the winds. She points out that other farmers in the rest of the Hawke’s Bay area have done better, and that they have promised to put in machinery and provide assistance.

“We have a lot of support, it’s great, and we’ll continue,” she says.

Perhaps there is also a future for Petain. The barber may be able to purchase grapes from other farms. And though he’s still awake with nightmares of being in the waters of the river with his children, he feels grateful.

“We are lucky to be alive,” he says.