The Wine Blokes

Last night was one of those nights.  My offsider in the winery couldn’t work for various reasons, and it all started fromt there.

It was meant to bet a short sharp shift.  10 tonne of Chardonnay for Sparkling base.  In and out of the winery in a few hours. I should know better. 

I was on my toes as I had to unload bins off the trailers, reload, weigh bins, tip into the reveival bin, and run the crusher and pumps all at once.  Toward the end of the pick I had a little more help with one of the harvest crew accomodating the forklift. 

So with all fruit into the press, and only washdown to go all was looking cruisy. Nev from maintanence needed to complete a five minute welding job on the heat exchanger, which ended up taking 3 hours, after a complete dismantle of the unit. 

Then the air compressor which runs the press decided to short it’s 3 phase plug, resulting in  a massive bang like a gunshot, and scaring the crap out of everyone in the winery.  With only one plug for both the press and the air compressor, I had to change the plug each 5 minutes to start the compressor up again, whilst still opertanig the press.

So 15 hours on, we finished, put the juice to bed, and had cleaned up.  The fruit actually looked pretty good by the way, and was the last of the sparkling base.  The little extra ripeness has added a bit of extra flavour, but the acids are still up there.  

walked throught most of the blocks today, and table Chardonnay is still at least 3 days away, and so is the Sauvignon Blanc. Still not full steam.

 Time for a beer.