Some video of Central Otago Fruit being dumped into the receival bins... 10k kilos total being dumped.

Quick Harvest for Marlborough

vineyards at yealands




It seems the Harvest is over before it began. The vines are changing colors and the leaves are falling. Its full blown Autumn down here now. All of the grapes on Yealands 1000 Hectares have been in for about 7 or 8 days now, with the last being harvested around the 23rdish of April. Yealands is located in the Awatere Valley, which is a cooler area of Marlborough which tends to "ripen" later. A gentleman working the cellar door at Dry Hills in Blenheim (the "heart" of Marlborough) said it was one of the shortest vintages in his memory, although I have no idea of how good his memory is.


vineyards @ dry hills

With that being said, there is obviously a lack of grape and juice related tasks to complete in the cellar. Yes, no more lees filtering either as of today. So, that means lots of cleaning. Its a full blown cleaning party at Yealands, and tonight may be the pinnacle being that there is absolutely NOTHING to do other than clean in the cellar.... if I am lucky there may be a racking to perform. We'll be scrubbing to the soothing sounds of techno music probably, courtesy of local guy Bob, who has worked the crushpad this vintage and loves his techno. Well, wine making is 90% cleaning as they say, but its the scope of the winery that takes this cleaning to the next level.

Fortunately we will have some pinot coming in over the next 5 days or so, so there will be a bit more grape related work to perform. Also, as the fermentations progress and finish, there will again be more wine related work to perform. So, for now, we clean. Cheers.


Yealands Estates

Family Style Dinner

I had a chance to sit down to a family style dinner with some friends of a friend whom I work with at Yealands. Everyone at dinner works vintage down here in Marlborough, and they all like food and wine. There were a few guys from Italy, and a few California boys (Santa Cruz, San Diego). We got a chance to do some serious wine tasting, with the star of the night being Stonecroft Hawkes Bay Syrah, which had some nice peppery cool climate components to it.

In my biological warfare mask ready to play with some D.E.

Fresh "cake" on the RDV, ready for filtering some lees.


All the fruit from the estate has come in. There was a total of 7000-8000 tonnes that came in, which is about 2000 tonnes short of what was predicted. As a result, Yealands purchased about 500 tonnes of fruit, and may end up purchasing additional fruit to meet their production totals. Word is that there is a lot of excess fruit in the Marlborough marketplace (as a result of over planting and folks without contracts to sell their fruit), so they have not had any problems finding the fruit. Yealands is also processing some fruit for other wineries. This is typically referred to as crushing/custom crush, and is done quite a bit in the industry. We are not exactly a "custom crush", but with the size of the winery there was an opportunity to fill up some tanks to make some $$$$. After all, it is all about cash flow, isn't it?

first bin of pinot ready to get crushed and destemmed. This bin can handle 20 tonnes of fruit at a time! It literally gets dropped/dumped off by the truckload.



Things have slowed down a bit; we are now getting 2 days off a week, and the shifts will cut back to 9 hours. This is turning out to be a very short vintage, and they will start to cut staff in about 1-2weeks. I am hoping to stay on board until the 20th of May, which may be a bit of wishful thinking. I am spending all of my time on the RDV which is getting old, but we will only be running it for about 1-2 more weeks. At that point, all of the white grapes will be fermenting or finished fermenting, and we will be working with reds only. We actually took in our first Pinot about 10 days ago, but it is for other wineries. This is a very small portion of the production, with 75% of production being exclusively Sauvignon Blanc, and then there is Pinot Gris, Gewurtz, Viogner and Reising too. Yealands will be purchasing their pinot fruit from Central Otago, which is regarded as one of the best pinot growing regions in NZ.
A truck waiting to unload mechanically harvested fruit at sunrise.


sunrise from Yealands.

Seddon

Here are some pics from my current "hometown" Seddon. There is not much going on in this "town", but we did have some nice sunsets about a week ago.



Sunset across the street from the house.



Here is a pic of the current living quarters from the outside.




colorful sunset in Seddon.

Friday 4/16

nightime mechanical harvesters in action

Tonight's shift will be day 11 of harvest for me. I had last night off, which was a much needed break in the schedule, and a chance to get some good rest. I stayed off of my feet and watched the local TV, which had some American shows like southpark, cops and Friday night lights... then as it got later and nothing was on I ended up watching the local "super dog" competition from the mid 90z (at least it looked like it), with some not so well trained dogs doing relays. It was also the first time that I have drank any wine since I started, which is probably the longest "drought" in years. I ended up getting a cheeseburger and fries for dinner (a nice break from my daily potatoes, sausage and eggs meal), and paired it with a bottle of Penfolds Cab/Shiraz (flat and forgettable but enjoyable after the second glass) from the Seddon market which has a very small wine selection. For my next night off I will be purchasing wine from the market in Blenheim, which has a very nice wine section of kiwi wines. The weather over the last few days has varied from sunny but cool and windy to overcast/light rain and windy, with most of the weather falling in the sunny category. Yesterday was very windy, with gusts around 30mph.... its a very rough growing region out here. Temperature has been around the mid 60z-high60z/low 70z. Last week we actually had a little bit of frost at night, but it has warmed up at night over the last 5 days or so. The rain is never good for grapes at this point of the year, but it hasn't been enough to cause any damage. The mechanical harvesters have been running throughout the night, and the grapes have been coming in around the clock. For the last few days Yealands has processed 600-700 tonnes daily. At some points in the night, trucks have had to wait up to two hours to unload their grapes. With more fruit coming in there are more things going on in the cellar: more RDV filtering (we fired up the big RDV, so now there are 2 going), inoculations, additions, rackings, punchdowns, pumpovers, and of course, cleaning. My time has been consumed by the RDV. I actually get quite a bit of walking in with the RDV's because they are on the opposite ends of the cellar. They are about 180 steps away from each other, and I probably make the round trip about 30 times a night... so, I think I am walking about 5-6 miles a night in the cellar, plus frequent trips up to the catwalk (the walkway above the tanks), which can be quite high at times. I figure its enough walking to burn off the burger and chips and then some.

Internet Problems...

Hi All,
This is a guest post from Amanda (Taron's girlfriend for those of you who don't know). The internet has been having problems so Taron hasn't been able to update the blog or upload all his pictures lately, he asked me to post this note so people didn't begin to wonder.

I've talked to him a few times, he is working very hard and having a great time! Expect some updates tomorrow or the next.

X
Amanda

Proba Boots

I made it into town last week to get my proba (which I have been informed is the correct English pronunciation of proper) pair of steel toes. I managed to hitch into and out of Blenheim with ease, as some friendly kiwis picked me up in less than 5 minutes both times. Unlike the states, hitch hiking is considered normal and safe down here, which is a nice option if you really need to get to town.

Comfortable footwear makes all the difference when you are standing on concrete for 12 hrs. I managed to get the last pair of steel toes in my size at the "Warehouse", which is the local discount store, and thank goodness I did, because I don't think I would have been able to work another 12hr shift in the rubber boots. Now I am able to work at "full power" (in Austrian accent), as my roommate Alexander said.

Beautiful Sunrise

The best part of working the night shift is watching the sunrise. Not only is it visually pleasing, it also signals that the shift is nearing an end. I am in the cellar most of the time, but the doors are always open, so we can see when the light begins to break into the night sky. The sunrise over the last couple of days has been spectacular, and here are some pics (the internet connection is painfully slow here, so I could only get 2 up... Ill get some more up ASAP).

Between sleeping, going to town, and places being closed on Sunday, I havent had much time the last few days to get online... I will get some more posts up shortly.

Working on a Night... Shift.

The night shift has commenced. After a couple of shifts, my feet are a bit sore but otherwise doing good... Ill have to grab a "proper" pair of boots when I hit town next (as my English roomies would say). I was happy to get the night shift because it gave me the days to go to town, on the internet etc., but it does take a little getting used to. After the first night I was only able to get about 4hrs sleep, but managed almost a full "days" after last night, so I am definitely getting adjusted.


With the scope of Yealands production, they need to train people on one specific task to be there "go to" job during harvest. They will have about 2-3 people trained on the task so that they can have a rotation going on. I got given the duty of running the RDV filter. What is an RDV filter you might be asking yourself.... RDV stands for rotary drum vacuum, and the medium that we are using as a filter is diatomaceous earth. The vacuum drum is coated in the diatomaceous earth in a very slow, tedious and dirty process (proper breathing apparatus must be worn), which involves mixing the DE with water in a mixer, then slowly pumping the water through the RDV machine... the drum catches the fine particles and forms an almost clay like substance around the drum. After the DE "cake" is formed, the filtering process begins; slowly pumps lees into the tub that the drum rotates in, the lees are picked up by the rotating drum, and the juice is sucked through the DE. Then, the dirty portion (lees) is scraped off by a blade that is on the apparatus. (Are you getting excited, b/c I know that I am ;) )

This filter is used to separate pressed grape juice from "lees" (pre-fermentation), which are the settled particles (skins, seeds pulp etc) that settle down to the bottom of the tank when the juice is chilled for a couple of days. When you "rack" (remove clear juice off of solids) juice and wine, you are always left with lees on the bottom of the tanks, so this is a way to really extract everything you can, which adds up big time when you will be doing 8000 tonnes this year (roughly 600-700 thousand cases! (they will eventually be doing 15000 tonnes when the vines mature). They are able to get about 70% juice from the total volume of lees, which really adds up.

So, that is the job I will know how to do with a blindfold on within a few days, although, I must admit that training doesn't soak in quite so well at 4:30am... Its not the most exciting task, but that's how things work in harvest at big places. You have to be a team player, and be willing to jump on board and help out to achieve an end goal, which is to have a safe and successful harvest with no mistakes.





This is a shot at 7am after work... interns having a smoke and beers. Beer never tasted so good at 7am, well... its come close before.

Settling In

I have had a chance to settle in, and am feeling a lot better now then when I arrived. We headed into town to do some sheet shopping and get banking and tax needs taken care of (I now have a NZ bank account, so no more US fees!), and also did some wine tasting at some of the cellar doors on Monday (the NZ term for tasting room). We popped into Fromm, Cloudy Bay, St. Claire, Yealands (of course) and Grove Mill. All the fruit was from Marlborough for all wines tasted with the exception of a little Otago fruit in a Pinot. Some of my favorite wines tasted were LaStrada Syrah (produced by Fromm), Chardonnay from Grove Mill, Viogner and Pinot Gris from Yealands, and Cloudy Bay had a very nice lineup, including some killer botrytis infected late harvest Reisling and Gewurtz. I also really liked their Chardonnay... Maybe on the next day off we will hit some more up, that is if we have the energy.

Its on

All the interns have arrived, and the harvest has officially started. The entire crew, including interns, permanent cellar, lab and winemaking staff, is 35! There is a total of 26 interns from all over the world, including Brazil, Chile, France, UK, Germany, Australia, Italy and the US. There are only about 8 of us in the intern house though, as the others are living in and around Blenheim.

From this point on, Yealands will be running on a 24/7 schedule through around mid May. Yesterday was our first day of work at the winery, but it was more of an orientation. We filled out some paperwork, did some safety training, learned about sustainability and green practices Yealands employs, took a tour of the winery and had a BBQ at the end. Its been rather cool and windy lately, even raining lightly at times, so we all ate indoors. The forecast calls for some clear and sunny weather beginning tomorrow, so we should be getting lots of fruit coming in around the clock shortly.

I will be working on the night shift beginning tonight. The shift will run from 7pm-7am 6-7 days a week, somewhere between 72-80hrs a week. I am not quite sure how the tasks will vary on a nightly basis, but it is safe to assume that there will be lots of cleaning, transfers, racking, working the crush pad, and cleaning (did I say that already?). In general the night shifts clean more than the day shift, but we will be doing much more than that with the scale of the winery. Malcolm, who is one of the permanent cellar staff, said that they typically process fruit through the middle of the night, until about 2am depending on the volume. With mechanical harvesting being employed by Yealands and the majority of NZ vineyards (New Zealand has been very innovative and efficient with their winemaking approach since the 1970's), it makes it easier for them to bring fruit in at all times.

I was actually happy to see that I was on the night shift because there are more things open during the day, including using the internet at the info center down the road. At this point some of the blokes (hehe) from England and I are looking for a new place in Blenhiem. We will "hitch" into town this morning/afternoon to check out some of the available housing postings at the train station. Yes, I said hitch as in hitch hike, which is considered very safe and normal in New Zealand. If we can find a spot in town for a good price we will be moving within the next few days.

My Walk to Yealands

I decided to take the 6km walk out to the winery when I arrived in Seddon, as there was not much to do and I was getting a bit stir crazy just sitting around in the house. It was a long walk, but very beautiful. About 4km in the ocean became visible in the distance, with the never ending vineyards in the foreground. Yealands is Massive! 1000 hectares of vineyards around the winery.. Thats roughly 25,000 acres! Massive. The winery looks massive from the oustide too. Very state of the art, effecient, green and industrial looking in an artistic way if you will. I tasted through the menu of Sauv Blanc, Pinot Gris, Reisling, Viogner, Gewurtz and Pinot Noir, and grabbed a couple bottles for the house. The wines from this area carry some very bright acidity, minerality and lower alcohol than you get from California wines.



On a side note, it was nice to sit on a stool in the tasting room after the long walk; a luxory that we do not have in CA, as you are not allowed to have bar stools in tasting rooms.

The Town of Nelson

Nelson was my final destination via Air New Zealand.

It is about 2.5 hrs (west and slightly north) away from Seddon, which is where Yealands Estates is. Arriving in Nelson reminded me a lot of California.... the small town of Capitola in particular, but smaller and surrounded by hills more closely. Nelson is right on the bay, the skies were blue, and it was sunny and warm. I threw some shorts on as soon as I arrived at the Green Monkey, which was the hostel where I spent the night; A very nice and clean location with friendly folks.

I arrived on Friday, which happened to be Good Friday. The kiwis take this holiday very seriously; lots of stores closed, and NO BOOZE sales. Fortunately I had caught wind of this prior to arriving and had grabbed a couple of bottles in the duty free store.





I took the opportunity to take some walks and do a nice hike during my short stay in town. There is a hike that takes you to the "Center of NZ", and along a very nice ridge with excellent views of the small, quaint town. I also headed into town, by the beautifull cathedral they have, and out to their harbor. It was a very short stay, and I headed off by bus at 9:30am to my final destination: Seddon.

Settling in at the "Intern House", but there is NO INTERNET

Like the title says, there is no internet right now at the intern house. I will make sure to get up a post about Nelson and my travels as soon as I get a chance to get my laptop connected so that I may upload pics along with the posts that I have saved to the hard drive.

So far so good, just ready to get working in the winery... It is a bit weird settling in to be honest, but I think that another night or two will help. It certainly doesnt help that we dont have sheets on our bed, something that I didnt think to inquire about ahead of time, but guess I shouldnt have assumed. We have the necesseties, like dishes, utensils, kitchen, showers, bathrooms etc, but the dorm/hostel style rooming downright sucks... I am not a fan of the bunk beds, and the sheet situation blows. Im sure that I will get over it as soon as a get a chance to get some bedding, which was def unforseen. Anywhoo, the interns are nice; a couple of Americans, an Italian, couple French are who I have met so far... more will be arriving shortly.

I did have a chance to check out the winery yesterday which I will elaborate more on later, and also take some nice pictures, which I will get up ASAP.

Just Landed

Just landed in Auckland, New Zealand around 5:30am kiwi-time.... they are 21 hours ahead of PDT. So, right now it is Friday April 2nd down here. The flight wasn't bad at all; good food, friendly service, entertainment (tv with multitude of shows/movies), and free wine! The wine really helped to get a good nights sleep, and I pretty much slept the whole trip.

In a few hours I will board the last plane ride to Nelson on the south island, and from there I will take a bus to a small town called Seddon, which is where Yealands Estates and the intern house is. Apparently it is a brand new house, and I am very excited to get there! As soon as I get settled, I will be able to start getting some pics and vids up, but as of now I have been using kiosks for internet.

I have already made my first wine purchases at the duty free store. Since it is Easter holiday down here, I feared stores with booze may be closed, so I grabbed a couple bottles just in case. 1 bottle of Villa Maria Merlot/Cab blend from Hawkes Bay Region (18NZ), and a bottle of Moncellar Pinot Noir from Central Otago (32NZ). Always skeptical on the pricing at airport stores, but I needed my Vino! I am sure they will go down quite quick and smooth as soon as I can get settled.

Gotta run, feeling like it's beer thirty.