Day 8 - 26th February

As the last of this warm and dry summer sweats itself into the weather records, the days are beginning to shorten. Still, at the end of each days wine making roller coaster, I like to take “No Biting” for a stroll up to the front gate to check the mail box for retro communications.

These mostly seem to be official in nature and from Government Departments or legal firms. I sometimes wonder if they have heard about the information revolution. Still, it gets my goat and steps up and No Biting can be quietly philosophical when discussing modern art and bureaucratic inefficiencies. And he is a lovely dog. If it is late enough in the day and there are no storm clouds about, I sometimes see some quite Baconesque images in the gravel of the driveway.

What No Biting sees he holds quite close to his chest

I have had to sack our tractor slasher driver. As we like to make our picking team as comfortable as possible, we double slash each vineyard before harvest so they can get in close to the vines without being attacked by grass seeds and vine prunings. A well groomed vineyard floor also allows pickers to slide their picking buckets along with a tap of their feet without worrying about upending their Bryce bucket. This slashing requires quite a bit of skill on such an undulating vineyard and the offset of the machine leaves very little room for miscalculation. And it takes but a nudge from a slasher running at 450 rpm to decapitate our fragile old vines. At last count he culled 7 vines in this one session.

I will have to do much better next time.

The 2026 Schubert is now in barrel and fermenting away quietly in the winery.

It will stay in these barrels until bottling in October or November this year and will be stirred on its lees weekly.

There will also be a top-up tank to keep the barrels full as the Angel portion evaporates through the wood each week. The danger with barrel fermentation at Bloodwood as autumn advances is that the barrels could cool down enough to stagger the finishing ferment however, this years warmth seems likely to help in this regard.

Daily T’s and B’s (Temperature and Beaume readings) are now essential in monitoring progress.

The 26 Pinot Noir is still enjoying its long soak up in the cool store.

It shows very little sign of life but that’s no bad thing. Long cool soaks before ferment allows gentle colour extraction without the use of excessive hand plunging or warm alcoholic ferments bleeding the colour out of the must.

Although all is quiet on the Pinot Front today, I expect tomorrow to be a different story.

Cheers,

Stephen and Rhonda