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.