Day three of the frost fans hearing

Go the Marlborough Express! Great coverage of the hearings all the way up to the last day.

So more interesting stuff.
Predictably, the whine industry is crying poverty in these difficult economic times. And they're right times will be tough. Especially for what is essentially luxury goods.
$1billion of Marlborough wine put at risk in a frost event? Err.. I'm not sure that that would be right would it? I mean didn't all of NZ produce $1billion last year (as reported by NZ Winegrowers I think) so that might be a bit of a stretch. Also, how much of that is covered by frost fans? Surely the percentage being protected by frost fans is pretty small, So I would presume that a catastrophic frost event is going to still be catastrophic even if all the frost fans in Marlborough are whirling away. Kind of smells a bit like scaremongering :-)
And apparently Marlborough was a dust bowl before the wine industry transformed it. Actually, I kind of thought that the varied orchards, peas, garlic and the marvelous trees that were scattered across the plains were kind of pretty before the vineyard mono-culture crept in. If anything is going to make Marlborough vulnerable it would be reliance on a single industry to support it. Anyone remember seeing herds of cattle and flocks of sheep? Where did they go?

And to think, all this on the day when David Prestipino called New Zealand Sav Blanc oversupplied and to be avoided. Perhaps a catastrophic frost could assist?