Harvest - South Australia

[REDRUM]

Well, after a topsy-turvy summer (heatwaves, cool spells, rain... the whole kit & kaboodle) vintage is well & truly underway around here - I have 3 days of picking coming up - Grenache from my father-in-law's backyard block, Shiraz from a commercial vineyard in McLaren Vale (to blend with the Grenache) and a harvest day with another local winery. I will try to take a few photos & put them up!

The plan is to co-ferment Grenache & Shiraz at a ratio of about 3:1, fingers crossed that it all works out!

 

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Day One - picking a row of Shiraz in McLaren Vale, nice black fruit but with a little bit of berry split from heavy rain event a few weeks ago - flavour-ripe with a Baume around 13.5. Picked approx 400L
Day Two - picking my father-in-law's Grenache block in Reynella. Fruit ripe & good acidity, generally good quality but some bunch shrivel from sunburn. Put all the grapes through crusher/destemmer, ended up with approximately 65% Grenache, 35% Shz. I helped myself to about 25L to take home and make myself, the rest of it is currently sitting in a shed slowly starting its own wild ferment.
Day Three - picking Shiraz at a commercial winery in Sellicks Hill (McLaren Vale) - Cradle of Hills - with a small group of others who will 'follow' this wine through the whole process until release in 2016. One interesting thing: the winemaker put a layer of whole bunches at the bottom of the fermentation vat before crushing the rest in. Idea is that these whole bunches will undergo their own carbonic maceration within the ferment, and will be foot-treaded to crush after about a week.

 

[blumentopferde]

Put all the grapes through crusher/destemmer, ended up with approximately 65% Grenache, 35% Shz. I helped myself to about 25L to take home and make myself, the rest of it is currently sitting in a shed slowly starting its own wild ferment.

Do you have experience with wild fermentation? I've heard it would only work if you already had a "regular" fermentation in your cellar. Otherwise you wouldn't have the right yeasts around and the fermentation would lead to something undrinkable...

One interesting thing: the winemaker put a layer of whole bunches at the bottom of the fermentation vat before crushing the rest in. Idea is that these whole bunches will undergo their own carbonic maceration within the ferment, and will be foot-treaded to crush after about a week.

Now that's really interesting! I wonder if fermenting the whole bunches affects the taste negatively. Usually one wouldn't want to have stems in the pulp..

 

[REDRUM]

Do you have experience with wild fermentation? I've heard it would only work if you already had a "regular" fermentation in your cellar. Otherwise you wouldn't have the right yeasts around and the fermentation would lead to something undrinkable...

This is the way my father in law & his father-in-law do it ... peasant wine, like in the old country...! Some years the wine is pretty good, some years it's borderline-undrinkable. I took my own small batch this year so I can control the ferment & inoculate with wine yeast rather than a wild ferment.

Now that's really interesting! I wonder if fermenting the whole bunches affects the taste negatively. Usually one wouldn't want to have stems in the pulp..

Apparently when you do 100% whole-bunch fermentation the stalks all need to be fully 'ripe' (brownish rather than green, apparently) otherwise you get too much bitter herbaceous stemmy flavours... if it's a small percentage of the ferment it's a bit less important I would imagine.

This is a good article on carbonic maceration : http://www.wineanorak.com/winescience/carbonic_maceration.htm

 

[blumentopferde]

This is the way my father in law & his father-in-law do it ... peasant wine, like in the old country...! Some years the wine is pretty good, some years it's borderline-undrinkable. I took my own small batch this year so I can control the ferment & inoculate with wine yeast rather than a wild ferment.


Apparently when you do 100% whole-bunch fermentation the stalks all need to be fully 'ripe' (brownish rather than green, apparently) otherwise you get too much bitter herbaceous stemmy flavours... if it's a small percentage of the ferment it's a bit less important I would imagine.

This is a good article on carbonic maceration : http://www.wineanorak.com/winescience/carbonic_maceration.htm

Thanks for the link!

Was totally new to me!

 

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Here are some photos...

Day 1: Shiraz

 

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Day 2: Grenache

 

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The crush!





And my little baby:

 

[blumentopferde]

Wonderful pictures!

Makes me yearning for the forthcoming season!

EDIT:
Btw: Is there a reason why Grenache is under a net and Shiraz is not?

 

[JohnT]

REDRUM,

Thanks for the pics! looks great. Right now we are in the middle of winter and harvest time is a long way off.

 

[REDRUM]

Is there a reason why Grenache is under a net and Shiraz is not?

Grenache is from my father-in-law's backyard - he put the netting / chickenwire over the block to protect the grapes from birds.

Shiraz is from a much larger, commercial vineyard.