Vintage Blog Week 2: Some beautiful old vines & funky little clogs
Vintage 2013
Vintage 2013 is now well underway. This week we have been very busy receiving and hand sorting most of the Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir. As well as the dry grown Shiraz, including the 145-year-old Thomson Family Shiraz blocks. Whilst the yields are down in the dry grown blocks, the quality and the concentration is good. The remainder of our Pinots will be picked today.
This week also saw the start of plunging open red (and one white) ferments on skins. Our new recruits are happily stripping down to their underwear and foot stomping some of the whole bunch batches. Yesterday’s foot stomping coincided with a very rare occurrence.
Our vineyard stalwarts Radish and Bogie came into the winery to see what was going on. I wonder why? They obviously came by to enjoy the heady aromas of yeast, fruits and spices that are filling the winery. As the fermentation aromas reveal the potential of the wines to come.
We are very happy with our beautiful Chardonnay juice that will be put into barrel tomorrow for fermentation. We can not wait for the Riesling that we will start picking next week. As it gets busier we have a couple more people helping us out.
Nicole has come away from her normal duties at Cellar Door to help. Getting her hands dirty in the cellar a couple of days a week. She easily qualifies as the best dressed cellar hand with designer cargo shorts. Colourful shirts with matching head scarves and these funky little clog type safety shoes.
A far cry from our normal subdued cellar attire. We also have Pamela from California coming next Monday for a few weeks. She will be a great help to tide us over the vintage rush. Speaking of, I had better get back to it.
Cheers
Justin