Friday 17th April
Still the weather is holding up, but there is a forecast for showers over the weekend, so we are trying to speed up the picking. Last night (Thursday) we picked until about 10.30pm (yes at night). No fancy floodlights, so we had to park the cars and trucks with their headlights shining down the rows. It was all quite surreal however the task was accomplished and the entire River Flats block was harvested before everyone went home. Then the winery team had to press through to the early hours this morning, with Chinese takeaways for a late dinner!
Slightly over half the crop is in now so the vineyard team are on the downhill slope while the pressure on the winery is building up. The ferments we have underway so far are progressing really well, with no
problems. We did have one small hiccup this morning when one of the team dropped his torch into the Sauvignon Blanc juice ($%%#@$!). So we had to empty the tank (10,000 litres!) and recover the torch. Some bright spark did suggest we could leave it in so we could make a wine with a light finish……………Today’s images are of Kyri pumping the Sauvignon Blanc into the balloon press for the crush of the day, of Carl trying to break through
the thick cap on a big 5 tonne ferment (not a pretty sight, but too thick to use our normal plunger), and of Cliff balancing the full picking bins on the back of the ute as Steve drives them across to the winery.
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