February 2003
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Rush to wait The first week of Feb was a scorcher and if it had continued like that we would have harvested in the third week of the month. We had 22 degrees balling and would have harvested at around 24.5 balling, which would indicate around 13.5% alcohol. The big factor would be whether the pips would ripen. The Ph was good at around 3.2. We weren't expecting to get above 3.7 so we could afford to go low on sulphur. In fact on the 13th the wind changed from South East to North West and a cool front blew in from the Atlantic. Temperatures dropped to between 25 and 30 during the day, 15 to 18 at night. The grapes couldn't have had it better. Being sheltered from the early sun by the mountain really helped as well with phenolic ripeness as the grapes were still physically cold at 10.30 am, when the air temperature is already up into the 20's. The berries were small and very dark and the bunches were well distributed.
With this cooler weather the sugars would hopefully stay low for longer and gave more time for the pips to ripen. Dumisani and J-C were sampling every day now and, with the cool weather hanging around, the harvest was put back a week and then another week to the first week of March. However by the second week of Feb cellars on the warmer valley floor were practically finished their harvests. Grapes had all reached high sugar levels at the same time and everything had come in a big rush. Cellar space was at a premium. At TMV though we were twiddling our thumbs. The Super Twelves started with the big derby game - the Sharks vs. the Stormers. The staff asked if they could be taken to the match. It suited us to do so, as they had worked hard in the hot vineyards non stop from the start of January to be in this good position with the grapes. J-C could afford to take an afternoon off from the cellar too as everything had been geared to harvest a week earlier. It was good, especially to boost morale ahead of what would be a busy few weeks harvesting. The guys were, for the most part amazed. A few had never even been to Cape Town before and none had ever been in a big crowd of 40,000 noisy supporters. They were all well behaved and stuck close together so that no one would miss the minibus ride home. Maybe next time they will be a bit more confident and cocky. All in all a great afternoon out. One day while John M, J-C and Dumisani (a viticulture student friend of J-C's who was kindly helping in the cellar) were over having the very civilized "spoils of the braai" for lunch two men dressed like police turned up. It was in fact Nature Conversation, on the trail of buchu poachers operating in the National Park joining our farm. J-C explained that he had in fact given some guys permission to harvest the stuff from within the boundaries of the farm, and 5 full sacks had appeared overnight in the cellar. In fact what they had done was used our farm as an access to the conservation area and were clearing it of buchu. The scene was set, the Nature Conservancy had suspected that the rustlers were using the farm as a cover. More buchu police were called and within the hour a manhunt was on, with the aim of catching the rustlers red handed. The fact that John M was wearing a twig of the offending shrub in his hat made him feel very nervous. The rustlers were caught and the stock confiscated. Apparently this is very serious as it is so rare and indiscriminate harvesting will lead to it not regenerating. Because of its rarity and extraordinary aromatic and healing properties this little shrub can fetch high prices on the black market. While we were waiting for our own grapes to reach the point of perfect ripeness we were contacted by the supplier of the Chenin for the Straw Wine J-C was going to make. It was ready. We got the old truck fired into life and made our way off to collect it. After breaking down once we arrived, loaded it up and brought it home. We had been given some old fruit drying pallets and we laid these out under the pine tree avenue where they would be shaded but in a nice warm breeze. On top we carefully laid out the bunches of Chenin grapes. These would slowly dry out over the next two weeks to become almost raisin like. We would then de-stem, crush and press them to extract the sweet nectar. It would ferment in the barrel over the next 6 months and after a few more months in the same barrels hopefully become sweet wine with nice high acidity to balance it.
All in all February was a bit frustrating for all concerned. But the longer the wait hopefully the higher the phenolic ripeness for the same sugar level and the more interesting the wine would be. We could, however, only wait and see. Copyright © 2000 Tulbagh Solutions. All rights reserved.
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