During this period you discover that you haven’t got this or that bit of equipment which you resolved last vintage to get, or you haven’t ordered enough of the various winemaking fermentation aids – yeast, nutrients etc, because you’ve under-estimated your crop size, or someone in the cellar neglects to open a valve and the pump hose gives way under the pressure, splattering crimson juice all over everything, or your quad bike breaks down and disrupts the whole logistical chain from picking to crushing so you have pickers standing by idle, or you get a heavy shower of rain and can’t decide whether to call it off for the day or take a punt on the weather clearing, or your refrigeration unit goes haywire just when you need to get a tank of juice chilled very quickly….. and so on.
Winemaking and cellar staff get leaner, fitter, hairier (male staff that is) and more tired as the season progresses. Their patience with themselves, each other, the weather, the equipment, and anyone standing around can at times be very frail, and sometimes they can be observed immobile, looking vacantly into the middle distance wondering just what it was they were meant to be doing next….
Some people rhapsodise about “living the dream”, to which I suggest they come and give it a go for a while, especially right now!
Fortunately there is a good measure of fun and satisfaction to balance the long hours and hard yakka. Vintage can be and usually is an exhilarating time, with lots of co-operation between different growers, lots of banter in the cellar, some beautifully ripe fruit coming in to the winery, a convivial beer at the end of the day, and a cellar full of gorgeous fermentation aromas. Then there is the satisfying prospect of eventually conjuring up a marvelous product deriving from soil and sunlight, which gives many people a good deal of pleasure.
Robin Ransom, 16/4/09
Originally published Mahurangi Matters May 2009
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( 2.9 / 695 )Grape growers and winemakers in the Matakana area have banded together to advance the interests and efforts of the industry in the North Rodney region. “The idea has been tossed around for several years and kicked into touch on a couple of occasions in the past but with the much larger number of growers now represented in the area it is an idea whose time has well and truly arrived" says Robin Ransom, the newly elected president of Matakana Winegrowers Incorporated.
The group held its inaugural AGM at the end of May in conjunction with a well attended end-of-vintage party. An earlier concept meeting had appointed a steering committee which determined a set of objectives. These focus around the idea of establishing credibility for the local region as a winegrowing area. This will involve such things as organising activities designed to ensure best practice in grape growing and wine making, and promoting acceptance of Matakana wines amongst wine consumers.
There are now approaching 30 commercial winegrowing enterprises in the wider Matakana area, and Matakana Winegrowers Inc expects the great majority will join the group. An early activity will be to conduct a census amongst members which will establish the scale of their operations, varieties of grapes grown, numbers of people employed, future plans, and so on. “We expect this will demonstrate that local winegrowers are now very significant players in the economy of the North Rodney region, and that our economic impact will continue to grow in years to come as newer plantings come into production” Robin says.
“Another early task will be to define the boundaries of our local winegrowing appellation, to ensure the regional identity of our wines and integrity in our labeling. This will be required in the future to enable us to export to such places as the EU which itself has very tightly controlled appellations” Robin says. Creating a local appellation will involve determining what constitutes “Matakana” for winegrowing purposes, because at present many of the local winegrowers are located in the wider areas of Ti Point-Omaha-Takatu and Mahurangi-Sandspit. The group expects that similarities in soils, climate and growing conditions will mean that vineyards in all these areas are likely to be included in the appellation.
Matakana Winegrowers Inc expects to work closely with two other high profile local organizations in helping promote the region – Matakana Coast Wine Country, and the Warkworth Visitor Information Centre. Several committee members of the new winegrowers group already serve on the committees of both of these organizations.
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