2010
Summing up how the next few weeks should pan out, my winemaker boss Paul told me today I will be focused in the bottom cellar during vintage, looking after all the white tanks and all that other general stuff. Probably be yeast queen again too maybe. I don’t mind smelling like a bakery at work so if they gave me that role occasionally I wouldn’t complain! The other boys will be up in the top cellar where all the red ferments get going. I told them as long as I get to dig out (with a shovel over the top of the concrete fermenters) a few of the red ferments I will be happy.
I had my first real day doing proper work in the cellar to commence all that work: doing four wine rackings* of white juice and keeping the chilling on so it doesn’t commence fermenting prior to the weekend (Paul would like to have Sunday free before the craziness starts!)…fair enough!
racking: taking the clear liquid off the solids that have settled down the bottom
I knocked that on the head before lunch with the help of Stuart then got some more barrels sulphured, cleaned up my stations, cleaned some open fermenters, took grapes off trucks with my amazingly improved forklifting skills, then in the lab at the end of the day we were chatting with Prue & Stephen and he brought a ’62 Hill of Grace up to check it wasn’t corked before taking it to a tasting tonight, leaving us a glassful to take a whiff off and sample. Held up surprisingly well!
La Donna del Vino 
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