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Cellar Update

28 Feb
2010

Work has been dandy the last week. I am finally out of the barrel hall where I spent a week sulphuring then topping all the wine. It was a long process not facilitated by the fact I had to wait occasionally for the laboratory to keep up with my red wine samples. Nevertheless, it was all done to a T in the end and I am sure the winemakers are pretty happy with my efforts as it’s usually ‘one of those jobs’ and I did it with a big smile on my face and a radio blaring Adelaide FM’s hits whilst down there on my own.

Since I haven’t been in the barrel room anymore I have instead been in the cellar where the rest of the gang are and where the action is really happening. I was a little rusty I will admit on my first full day in the cellar. I work with young Jacky boy and the poor guy has to put up with some of my blonde comments to which he just shakes his head to. He thinks I am funny though…possibly in a sad way, but we get a long well and he is pretty easy going to we’re making for a good team so far. Stuart from uni has been up in the top cellar processing the fruit that comes in. I do not have to deal with the crusher or presses as they have two people assigned to that job. Though the other day I came up there to check out the Riesling fruit and Stuart let me dump the rest of the bins in the big hopper so that was fun.
In the cellar my work days usually involve lots of different tasks, from racking white juices of Riesling, Semillon, Gewurtztraminer or Chardonnay from one tank to another to get the clear juice, then heating them up with another pump, then inoculating them…or ‘knocking them up’ as we say. Normally it is the responsibility of the assistant winemaker Josh to do all the yeasting but I had a chat with him and let him know I feel comfortable doing it and know what I’m doing so he has handed over all the yeasty beasty duties to me which leaves him free to go to the vineyards with head winemaker Paul to sample fruit. It’s more important for him to see that side of things knowing that I’ve got control on my side here, and I like smelling like a bakery so we both win 🙂
We don’t stop for much of a lunch usually. I will grab my food and munch on the go or grab a tea and leave it in the cellar to go cold when I forget about it. You want to get the job done so no fluffing around. In the afternoon is usually when the fruit that they have pressed is ready to be taken ‘off the floor’ (out of the old waxed underground tanks where they’ve gotten a volume) to the stainless steel tanks in the white cellar. Things are starting to get a little sticky, especially in my area and with all the work I’m doing with juice…so I’m hoping not to adopt the nickname ‘sticky fingers’ or something. They’ve already labelled Stuart ‘Frosty’ because he is a bit of an aficionado with the use of dry ice.
This week coming we start getting some red grapes in so that will start making life busier for the boys up top, but it’s welcome as that will give me more peace down below.

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Gazza’s MuscRat fortified

23 Feb
2010

That’s right, I said MustRat! It’s our kid name for the Muscat that today was to be fortified.

This morning I got into the skins with my feet again, discerned the detectable rise in heat, grabbed a sample and rushed back up to the lab to check the sugar level (Baume) and alcohol already produced on it. We don’t want it to drop too far, around about a 2% v/v alcohol drop would be perfect. The reading on the machine said that around 1.8 % v/v alcohol was present, which was a good thing, because it meant that Harry and I had to shift our arses into gear, get this thing cooled and pressed off then fortify it up!
But fortify it with what? SVR 96% v/v spirit of course!
Fortunately for us, the TARAC distillery is only 20 minutes away so we were able to receive some by 14:30 today. In the meantime, I got the mini-press out and loaded it up by bucketing in the two bins worth of Muscat fermenting skins and juice in, getting that going, then ending up with 250L more of juice than what we had originally anticipated! Awesome! More to go around!
The two winemakers and Stephen came around while I was working and Harry quizzed him about Gazza’s Undie Parade over the weekend to which Stephen commented that his glasses had fogged up upon entering the shed the first time, but gave me kudo’s for my spunky legs. Haha! Thanks!
Once that was ready it was a matter of waiting for the spirit to arrive then Harry and I added some sulfur, then dumped in like 80L of almost pure ethanol whilst mixing the tank.
That should kill those yeasties (shakes fist in the air)!
Stephen came and found me an hour later, telling me he’d gone to taste it. I was worried it might taste like jet fuel because it takes a while before the spirit and juice will be integrated, but he was impressed and said it is looking good. At least we didn’t overshoot how much we added. We considered a safety factor of around 10% because well, you can always add more, but once it’s in you can’t go back! So tomorrow we shall have a look and work out how far off we were then go from there. It tastes a little like fortified apricot marmalade at the moment! How about spreading that on your toast! What a shame…you can’t 😦

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Worthy of writing about!

18 Feb
2010

Dinner:
Bucatini pasta with good extra virgin olive oil cooked to infuse with garlic, mixed with chilli, parsley and anchovies

Wine:
Glass of 2005 Henschke Hill of Grace

Score:
Fricken awesome

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Cellar work at last

11 Feb
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!

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Is she a drug dealer?

10 Feb
2010

I thought that getting up at 6:30 in the morning when I was over in Italy to go for a walk before work was bad…here at Henschke I am starting at 6am…that’s right, you heard me: START WORK at 6am! Hence I wake up at 5:05am (that five minutes makes a difference, I swear!), dress myself, try and look presentable, have breakfast, grab my pre-made lunch from the night before, and head out the door by 5:30am, making it to work on time. Talk about keen to work!

This week has been warm and humid with rain starting to come in. It makes for hard work in the afternoon and we’re usually all wrecked by the late afternoon from the mugginess draining your energy. We’re working through getting barrels sulphured and stacked, I have been sulphuring up the Hill of Grace, the Hill of Roses, the Mt Edelstone, the Tappa’s Pass and the Cyril. They’re names of some of the red wines belonging to Henschke here. I was so proud of myself yesterday because I managed to manipulate the barrels racks to get one I wanted several rows in from the side with the forklift which is bloody tricky, but clearly do-able if someone like me who doubts themselves can do it!
Today I was lucky to be inside so topped up the barrels with wine from one barrel, so that was nice to be by myself and have some alone time in the back shed they call ‘Air Force One’. After lunch crazy Harry found me and got me to simulate the life of a drug dealer by measuring accurately 100g of a suspicious white powder into small plastic bags for the vineyard crew. Sounds dodgy hey, but really I’m just being a smart-arse and I was getting measured bags of potassium metabisulphite (PMS) sulphur powder for the vineyard to be able to throw over the fruit bins easily. I did about 160 bags going through 16kg of sulphur. That stuff is potent!

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Welcome to the Barossa

2 Feb
2010
BAROSSA VALLEY
I arrived here not even a week after landing back in the country after completing a vintage in Bolgheri, Italy. What am I here for? Henschke winery up in Keyneton. I’ve got a vintage placement here while there’s work to be done so will make the most of the opportunity and work as hard as I can. Considering the ‘work’ I did in Italy was so ridiculously easy in terms of workload and hours, I am really looking forward to getting down to some dirty work, earning some money, learning heaps from these guys and just having a ball!
WORK

It is only my second day working and my hands are already stained a dark colour from working with barrels…Lordy Lord, help me!
The work crew in the winery are a lovely bunch. There is the head boss and figure head Stephen and Prue Henschke who are so small, so cute, and incredibly nice people. Well-spoken and really interesting. Then I’d go onto my winemaking boss Paul Hampton who is really cool, funny, full of information, youngish and just great, so am really looking forward to working with him when he’s around. The assistant winemaker is Josh, a young, tall guy who’s really cruisy but really passionate. His family have a winery which he will take over one day so he’s in a great place to practice! There’s also the jovial Jack, the baby of the Henschke team, at the young 21 years old. He’s studying the same Wine Science degree that I did and seems older than his actual years say but is easy to work with and gives good direction. There are a whole bunch more of people of course but the main character would be Harry. My housemate warned me about Harry saying his language could be foul (if every second word turns out to be ‘bugger’ or ‘shit’ or ‘bloody hell’ then that’s what she was referring to), and he will tell you like it is. Turns out, I really like Harry so far! He explains things clearly and in a quintessentially male manner he knows everything about alloys, pumps, and stuff…most of the time I get the gist of what he is on about and other times I don’t…hey, I can’t be a full man here, can I!?
The winery is old, creaky, and quaint to say the least! So different from all the ubiquitous modern wineries around so it’s a great change and funny at times to see an ancient pump whirling around that’s been there since the 60’s or something. The floor where we empty/fill barrels is a purply colour at this stage because of the wine-tainted spit we cover it with. At least here they are pedantic about quality control and we taste every barrel that we come across. Thank god! There is Triple J radio playing in the background, not so loud so that you can hear the shouts for when the tank is almost full from across the other side of the winery. Sweat drips down your forehead as you careen the forklift in to pick up four barrels on the side – not a normal situation but Harry says you can fit more barrels into a warehouse this way. The sweat is because you’re dealing with quite the expensive product here, especially when one barrel can contain 225 litres of wine, you times that by how many bottles you’d get at 750mL, then by the retail price of each bottle…so if you drop it….shit.
At least my second day finished in true winemaking fashion: we all went upstairs to the lab where there were samples of the 2009 Henschke Hill of Grace from about 20 barrels. They would eventually make up the final blend and each was interesting with slightly different flavours, tannins, texture, length, depending on the cooper, the barrel (American or French), the forest the oak is from, the vineyards of course, whether the vines were 150 years old or 20 years old, the type of soil, the aspect of the vineyard…so many variables so it was really great to do with all of us there.
I also gave them my box of seven wines from Shadowfax winery that Matt Harrop had given me. Initially my housemate Monica who works in production told me that they don’t drink alcohol during work hours so no wine will be drunk she thought apart from beers on a Friday afternoon. But after chatting with winemaker Paul he told me once it’s vintage and we’re working long hours, we’ll have dinner here us six at the winery and they’ll usually go down to the ‘tunnel’ (the old wine storage area like the caves of Portugal) and select a mystery wine for everyone so we’ll get to drink some interesting stuff there he said. Yessssssssss!

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