Butterflies dance in the late morning sun as pickers chat, happily snipping distended maroon grapes on the Hunter Valley hillside.
They've been working since sunrise, bringing buckets of grapes to the tractor to be be carted away and crushed, and then fermented in vats and ''plunged'' every four hours for a week.
By lunchtime this day the pickers had cleared the the hillside, the last Hunter harvesting of this 2012-2013 summer. Rain haunts the Hunter come harvest time, but it had been such a dry spring and summer that many - although not all - winemakers took the gamble and got their grapes off early in the January heat.
On Australia Day the heavens opened with a tropical deluge of 150mm, opening and closing through much of February.
Some vineyards, like Midnight's Promise and Tatler Wines, suffered heavy damage
Rodney Kempe, winemaker at Lake's Folly at Rothbury, had a few bob each way.
He had pickers in the clear chardonnay grapes from vines along his river flat land in January, but daily tastings of the cabernet convinced him to play dice with the rain in hope of getting the fruit to peak fullness.
He won.
''You don't get rain so much in other Australian wine areas during harvest, but rain's part of life in the Hunter,'' Mr Kempe said. ''It certainly did rain, but we missed much of it.''
It is 50 years since Max Lake established what is generally regarded as Australia's first boutique winery, and although over 60 per cent of the wine is already sold, a special anniversary offering of 2012 chardonnay and 2011 cabernet will be available next month. ''In my opinion, it's one of the best vintages made here in the last 10 years and getting this year's harvest in is just the icing on the cake,'' Mr Kempe said.
At nearby Brokenwood its forty-first vintage was underway quite early. Chief winemaker Iain Riggs said well over half the semillon had been picked before the Australia Day deluge.
''There was some berry split in the reds, but with the lighter crops, no real harm.''
Having finished the local harvest in mid-February, Brokenwood, like many of the bigger Hunter vineyards, has been processing grapes from interstate.
Ken Bray, secretary of the Hunter Wine Industry Association, said yields were down about 10 per cent.
''The dry weather led to lighter canopies that go with the lighter crop of fruit,'' he said.
Mr Bray said shiraz, a Hunter speciality, was all but wiped out last year by rain, but was expected to make a welcome return next year.
NSW wines are on show during March at the NSW Wine Festival. For more details, visit nswwinefestival.com.au