I feel quite guilty today, worrying about a few possible rain showers when there are people in the Caribbean losing their lives to the weather – our thoughts are with them….

In the wine cellar we are racking our first grape must, after a day or two of settling (when all the residual elements that we don’t want, fall to the bottom of the tank). One of the first things that I noticed this morning was the smell – the floral scent of the juice. Of course, in our line of work, we use our sense of taste and smell all the time and so tend to notice even small traces of different aromas, and the grape must is just one of them. Over the period of the wine making there are so many different smells wafting around the cellar – some good, others not so good. The juice is one of the more attractive scents, as is the smell of the yeast (like a bakers shop), the smell of sulphur however, is pungent and quite unpleasant, used to protect the grape must from oxidation. Finally, during the fermentation itself, we have the deadly carbon dioxide (which is completely odourless, but that you can still detect). Even with our ventilators working overtime, it is still easy to feel a little light-headed at times.

Meanwhile, out in the vineyards, after the first three days of picking, we are nearly half way through the collection process. With sun today but potential showers on the horizon, we are working as hard as we can to get all the fruit safely inside.

Our time lapse video today shows one of our presses being loaded with grapes. 4,500kg in 18 seconds…. if only.