Yesterday I was reminded of the famous Hollywood film ‘The Perfect Storm’, not because it was raining or stormy, but more because we pretty much achieved the prefect day. It was one of those very rare days when everything goes according to plan, like a well-oiled machine. Even the last pressing of the day was within 10kg of the optimum weight of the wine press! It’s just a shame that these days don’t occur to often.

Day three was much more complicated as we were not only harvesting grapes, but also we started to ‘rack’ some of the new grape ‘must’ (juice). After a day or two sitting quietly, well chilled, in tank (known as ‘settling’), the new grape juice is transferred to clean tanks, leaving all the remnants of soil, leaves, stems, berries etc. behind, at the bottom of the original tank. This clean juice will now be left to recover a bit of temperature before being ‘seeded’ with yeast.

The reduced pressing time (to achieve more concentrated must) is also adding pressure to the team working in the bodega. Bearing in mind that all our presses are loaded manually, case by case, no sooner had we finished loading one press, then the next press had finished and had to be loaded…. it was very much a non-stop production line. Exhausting for those involved. The only consolation of this system is that we can chew through the pallets of grapes much quicker, and this in turn means that we can finish pressing in the early hours of the morning rather than at dawn the next day!

Yesterday I was reminded of the famous Hollywood film ‘The Perfect Storm’, not because it was raining or stormy, but more because we pretty much achieved the prefect day. It was one of those very rare days when everything goes according to plan, like a well-oiled machine. Even the last pressing of the day was within 10kg of the optimum weight of the wine press! It’s just a shame that these days don’t occur to often.

Day three was much more complicated as we were not only harvesting grapes, but also we started to ‘rack’ some of the new grape ‘must’ (juice). After a day or two sitting quietly, well chilled, in tank (known as ‘settling’), the new grape juice is transferred to clean tanks, leaving all the remnants of soil, leaves, stems, berries etc. behind, at the bottom of the original tank. This clean juice will now be left to recover a bit of temperature before being ‘seeded’ with yeast.

The reduced pressing time (to achieve more concentrated must) is also adding pressure to the team working in the bodega. Bearing in mind that all our presses are loaded manually, case by case, no sooner had we finished loading one press, then the next press had finished and had to be loaded…. it was very much a non-stop production line. Exhausting for those involved. The only consolation of this system is that we can chew through the pallets of grapes much quicker, and this in turn means that we can finish pressing in the early hours of the morning rather than at dawn the next day!