Vintage Blog Week 5: Everything in before Easter, no wonder we’re exhausted!
Hello out there!
We are now down to the last few little blocks of Cabernet and Shiraz. The team is really consolidated now but are powering through the last few weeks of hard work ahead.
Half of our reds have been pressed off skins and now they are being transferred to barrel for malolactic fermentation. The whites are all ticking away nicely with fragrant clouds of floral and citrus scents pouring out of the tanks as we routinely lift the lids to check on their progress.
This week we have had Jo from the central coast of NSW help us out in the cellar. Jo thought she was coming to the Grampians for a holiday but has spent most of her time plunging and pumping over red ferments. A change from her usual job as a teacher, so I suppose it is a holiday of sorts.
Pam, our Queen of the drainers, is leaving us tomorrow to give a hand out for vintage in the Macedon. Pam has been devoting her energies to monitoring and extracting the all the goodness out of our opulent and spicy red ferments. And is a bit reluctant to say goodbye to her babies. Thanks for your help Pam and good luck at Curly Flat.
Pam was delighted yesterday morning when Viv took her out on his motorbike to find a big mob of kangaroos on the hill munching away at the few remaining grapes left on the vines. It was Pam’s first time seeing kangaroos in the wild, so exciting.
We are well into barrelling mode with Haydn and Penny juggling empty barrels in between processing the remaining grapes and with Simon and Miranda leading the filling campaign, the shed is filling up fast with fresh wines.
Here’s a short clip of what we’ve been up to recently here at the winery Vintage 2013.
It seems a bit weird that it is all over so quickly. The intake finished before Easter (an early Easter at that). It also won’t be long before everything is finished fermentation. Pressed and put into barrels, and we then start preparing the remaining 2012 reds and 2013 whites for bottling.
Such is the nature of agriculture. Every vintage is different. Not even Viv can recall a vintage quite like this one.
Talk to you all next week
Justin
