Jan 20th -vintage has officially started!
We picked the first fruit, Chardonnay to make the base wine for our Sparkling
Chardonnay. The fruit was left in the cool room over night to chill down to about 4 degrees, and then at 6am yesterday morning we started processing.
We destem the grapes and crush them, then the must (a combination of fruit, juice and skins) gets pumped into the wine
press. After the free run juice has drained out, we then inflate the air bag inside the press to very gently press the must against the sides of the press so that the rest of the juice can drain out.
Right now all this juice is cold, stabilizing in a vat, the vat is directly refrigerated so that the juice gets chilled down to 4 degrees and we let all the solids settle to the bottom of the tank. In two days time we’ll pump off the clear juice, add yeast to start the
fermentation and so begin the transformation of grape juice into wine!
Jan 24th We picked the Verdelho today, quite nervous as we delayed Sunday’s pick and then it
seemed to pour with rain last night, however that seems to have been paranoia and the fruit looks great and yielding the amount we wanted! Pressing the fruit tomorrow, it’s being chilled to 4 degrees right now…
1st Feb The white wine grapes have all been picked and are fermenting away in vats or, in the case of the Reserve Chardonnay in oak barrels. Its been a bit tricky this year as we’ve had quite a bit of rain; so lots of changing and re-making plans about when to pick.
Derek likes to leave the fruit on the vine as long as possible, so that it develops more complex fruit flavours, however this year we’ve had to balance that against the threats caused by the rain. Once it has rained the fruit has
water on it, so it can’t be picked that day, as the juice would be diluted. Over the next day or so the grapes absorb the water again diluting the juice so we wait until they’ve dried out before we can pick.
Since getting all the white fruit in we’ve had quite a bit of rain, which slowed down the ripening of all the red grapes
Feb 16th Finally some of our red grapes are ready for picking! James & Miles have been out in the vineyard, overseeing the picking of our Merlot. A smaller yield than expected of just over 2 tonne [sorry all you Merlot fans!]. The payoff to this is that the fruit will have great intensity and the berries are small which means great concentration of flavours.
The next red to come in will be Grenache. I am so excited! We are buying some in from a 60 year old
un-irrigated Swan Valley vineyard. I will keep you posted…..
March 4th All the red grapes have been picked, the Shiraz is fermenting away in open fermenters and filling the winery with fantastic smells- it looks great! Derek is busy doing pump overs every four hours. Pump overs are when we mix the skins and flesh of the red grapes with the juice, leaching the colours and flavours from the skins, this gives the shiraz its structure and flavours. But it is important to keep the skins wet and hence 45 minutes every four hours of mixing the juice and skins; a bit like having a newborn baby…but it doesn’t cry!