Day 22 12th March

Yesterday was Cabernet Franc day at Bloodwood, today it is Riesling’s turn.

A beautiful crisp dawn with a lot of promise is always a rewarding way to start the day.

Mind you, at this stage of the vintage merry go round I could use a little less crispness and the promise of just a little sleep-in.

But the Riesling can’t wait for mere mortals like us.

So a full day’s picking with the team yielded a manageable stainless steel tank of ripe, aromatic and tangy juice with a pH of 3.12 and just over 7.3g/l T/A.

The January heat wave which I blame on action on climate change and far too much remote nuclear power took its toll.

Desiccated bunches were dropped and the continuing drought meant we were never going to get a normal yield, but what we have is well worth working with.

At the time of writing we are still pressing the last load which we will refrigerate and lightly sulphur overnight to settle the juice before racking and fermentation.

There’s no such thing as waste at Bloodwood and after 43 years of NOT having a garbage service courtesy of Cabonne Council, we are particularly keen that it should stay that way.

Whole-bunch pressing Riesling means that we take the pressings out of each whole bunch.

Are you with me? Well if you are you’ll understand that there are skins and seeds and stalks and bits of underwhelming berries left over.

In plush years we return them to the vineyard they grew in, but in years like this hot and dry one, we let the cows in on the joys of whole bunch pressing.

And as you can see in the photograph, there’s a whole bunch of pressing going on to understand that Germanic classic variety.

Towards the end of every vintage, the ghosts of vintage past often make an appearance.

These ghostly ghouls can appear before your eyes in broad daylight if you, like the National Party, are prepared to suspend your disbelief and accept they exist.

Today’s man from the shadow world appears to be climbing a horizontal stairway and carrying either a bucket or a severed head.

I do hope it is the former.

As I may have mentioned previously in this version of Ulysses, if you come to Bloodwood during vintage, you’ll get a job that will run you up a hill and drive you round the bend.

And it only took twelve hours..

Thanks Jeffrey

Cheers,

Stephen and Rhonda