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
[ add comment ] ( 12 views ) | permalink |
( 2.9 / 695 )
Random Entry
