Day 25 15th March

Today involved the usual winery monitoring tasks including gentle pump-overs of the Cabernet Franc and Merlot Noir, T’s and B’s (daily temperature and Beaume readings) across all ferments, and a trip through the newly opened detour of Victoria Pass through Rampaging Roy Slaven’s home town territory of Lithgow to pick up Rhonda who has just completed our vintage in Burgundy.

Apparently there is a warranty claim on a couple of the 1820ish convict constructed bridges on the pass up to Mount Victoria. I expect there will be a call for a Royal Commission into the inadequacies of early Nineteenth century engineering and its abject failure after 200 years to cope with 20,000 vehicles up to 65 tonnes grinding up and down them at speed.

After all, they were built for quite heavy bullock drays and fully occupied handsome cabs.

After today’s expedition, we will have to add around an extra 45 minutes to the already tedious journey across the sandstone curtain of the Blue Mountains for the foreseeable future.

Seriously, one of the most important skills in wine making is managing containers; particularly from here on in.

Wine, as it completes ferment needs to be taken away from the oxidative effects of contact with air. It’s not a problem while ferment continues, but it is essential that all your barrels and tanks are kept completely full as fermentation completes. If you make the decision to truncate malo-lactic fermentation, the wine in your full container will also have had around 60 ppm S02 added to prevent the malo getting away.

S02 addition is usually better done in a big hit like this because it has the desired effect and you don’t have to continually monitor Free S02 levels in your new wine and make incremental adjustments over the next few months. You’ll have to keep an eye on levels from time to time remembering 0.825 mg/L molecular SO2 is the level needed to eliminate cell viability and that pH levels have a huge influence on molecular S02.

As you all know, I am a boot fetishist. I like boots and they like me. They are practical apparel which support and protect the feet from all manner of attack from grape mark, mud and accidental acid spillages during a busy winery work day.

And one of the most popular brands in wineries and on percussive stage productions is the fabulous Blundstone. I spotted these today attached to a pair of Sunday legs getting about Blackheath.

These boots aren’t made for working.

We have an intimate relationship with scales in the winery. We have some so sensitive that they can measure the weight of fly’s wings.

We have done that from time to time, but this scale is relatively crude in that it can measure up to 1kg in 1/10 of a gram increments.

OK, so we are a small winery but good things come in small cliche’s.

Cheers,

Stephen and Rhonda