The Wine Blokes

Jon F. 

Last night turned out to be one of those nightmare shifts for all involved.  I arrived at the office and winery at around 8.50pm ready to crush and press around 30 tonne of Sauvignon Blanc. 

Ash told me that I needed to be on the machine harvest team in 5 minutes, as Peter the main harvester driver had a stomach bug and couldn’t make it. At such short notice for everyone there was no time to find a replacement for the harvest team, so the day shift winery guys had to work later and I worked half the night on the harvester.  At Smitbrook you have to be versatile. Only Nev, Peter, and I know how to drive the harvester, so I jumped in first for about 6 hours picking Sauvignon Blanc, until a replacement was found eventually and I went back into the winery.

It was however a nice change and I actually quite enjoy driving the harvester. I’ve made a video which I will post later.  When I walked into the winery it was utter chaos, with crushing, RVD filtering, rackings, transfers, and cooling all going on at once.  The day shift winery guys had to finish up as they had worked an extremely long day, and Dave and I were left to it. 

Eventually we got through everything, and after all that, the Sauvignon Blanc that we harvested, crushed and pressed, is an absolute cracker.  Finished up around mid day this morning, before a beer and some well earned sleep.

 The harvester guys did not fair so well after I left however. They moved onto a contract harvest at another vineyard afterwards and had a number of breakdowns and problems. When you see them come back from a night like that they wander in filthy, drawn, looking utterly exhausted, as if they’d just been to war.

 Another big one tonight coming up.