Red Harvest in Full Swing
October 13th 2008, by GQ
It’s the week of harvesting most of our Merlot for the reds. The quality is surprisingly high with minimal rot, and I suspect that 2008 will be a far better vintage than we might have hoped for just a few weeks ago. This is the view of the vineyard at 7.45am, and it’s quite beautiful, with the fairly narrow, 1.5 metre wide rows of merlot we planted in 2002 in the foreground, and the sauvignon blanc down the hill towards the woods.
Reducing Costs with Child Labour
October 10th 2008, by GQ
Now that we’re entering a recession, we’ve hit on the idea of bringing in local children to carry out the menial tasks of picking the grapes. The schoolteachers in our local town have been only too happy to get their charges out into the fresh air, and best of all the kids are just the right height to be cutting off the bunches. And they’re free.
Red: The Good, The Bad and The Deadly
October 9th 2008, by GQ
We’re still hanging in there, or rather the red grapes are. The forecast, although constantly changing, is in our favour. After some rain yesterday, more rain now and we’d have to harvest like crazy. Worse still, some of the grapes aren’t quite there yet and the days – and hours of sunlight – are getting shorter.
White Fermenting in Tank and Barrel
October 8th 2008, by GQ
While we prepare for harvesting the majority of the red, we’re busy in the chai with vinifying the white wine. Now that all the grapes have been pressed and the juice has settled, we’ve kicked off the fermentation. The old semillon from Les Trois Hectares has gone into French oak barrels, whereas most of the sauvignon blanc is fermenting in a chilled stainless steel tank. We’ve also got some sauvignon blanc in barrels too.