On Thursday night 100 helicopters flew frost protection missions in the Marlborough's grape country in what wine growers say was one of the toughest frosts they have faced.
It looked like a scene from Apocalypse Now as the crowd of choppers took to the air to fight the frost flying low over the vines.
"When you have a radiation frost the heat radiates out from the surface of the earth (and) gets trapped in an inversion layer, and then the wind machine or the helicopter is able to (push) that warm air down and circulate it around the vines," says chairman of New Zealand Wine Growers Stuart Smith.
It costs up to $3,000 an hour to run a helicopter, but when your livelihood clings to a grape vine, it pays to go all out to protect it - and pilots answered the call from far and wide.
"Some guys that are here parked with us at the moment are from Taupo. I'm from the Fox Glacier so gives you an idea of how far away we've come from," says chopper pilot Jamie Henery.
The choppers were not the only method employed to stave off the cold and Smith says there has been a lot of investment by the industry in frost protection measures.
Growers say it will be a few days before they know the extent of the damage but they are hoping the massive mobilisation of helicopters has saved the bulk of their budding vines.
