Day 16 6th March

And so it goes.

After yesterday’s red fruit whole bunch pressing, the winery work floor looked like an abattoir floor at the end of a killing day with the juice of sticky red grape bleeds and press wheel flattened grape skins festering in the pores of our normally pristine concrete.

The press needed a very up there and personal attention session by Mark. It’s an Italian press which means it looks fantastic as an object but is excruciatingly tiresome to keep clean. Every neglected nook that a cranny could imagine is a harbour for the development of acetic acid so an intimate personal touch is essential.

But all is not lost..it is another chance to get your pants off at vintage in the traditional cause of doing what it takes to produce the very best from every Big Man In Tights.

The other excitement for today is dealing with the normal series of breakdowns and technical failures.

We began with a minor explosion in our electrical surge suppressor which protects the entire office..computers, printers NBN and modems etc.

For all practical purposes, we are of the grid here at Bloodwood with over 100 solar panels and two separate battery storage systems. However, at vintage when we initially start our 3 phase chillers, crushers and presses, we need a spike of power which gets them going so our battery backup can take over the load. That’s when we need surge suppressors to protect our electrical equipment.

So even though the surge protector failed, in reality it succeeded in protecting our office.

As we are happily so dry here at present, we need to shift a bit of stored water about so it can be best conserved and used.

Our irrigation dams all are capable, through siphon pipes, of concentrating their dwindling contents into the lowest point on the property where a solar pump lifts that water up to our irrigation dam. Think of Snowy 3.0.

When the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, gravity shifts the water down to a dam which, when the sun does shine again will help stabilize the water levels in our main irrigation dam. This works seamlessly unless there is a break in the siphon between dams.

Luckily, we’d already finished cleaning the press.

The other job for today was to test the remaining fruit after the rain earlier in the week.

You can really see what moisture does to each variety during these analyses. At Bloodwood, the rainfall seemed to effect the Merlot Noir and Shiraz the most. This may be because of their position in the lower slopes of the vineyard where the “soil” has a bit more clay content.

Every other variety seems to have continued ripening as expected. There is no appreciable change on the pH or T/A’s of all remaining fruit.

I am particularly pleased with the Riesling at this point. We may harvest it mid next week at this stage.

It is mid-vintage and the cracks are beginning to show. Another week and we should by through the worst of it for 26.

Cheers,

Stephen and Rhonda