March 2003
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So much life running through these vines... God was talking to us. The harvest was upon us. The effort, hope and resources we had put in over the years were realized there before us, as testament to Divine power. It was elemental. It was a wonder of nature. The soil, sun, moon and rain had been filtered, absorbed, condensed, and metabolized by the vines we had planted and now the bunches of grapes were there ready to harvest. Of course J-C saw it all a bit differently. To him it was a question of pH and degrees balling, the logical result of photosynthesis and respiration. But to us it was nothing short of a miracle. We had been lucky. Early Feb had been characterized by some nice cool days and evening temperatures of about 12 degrees. Good long slow ripening, and we had been wondering if we'd even harvest before Easter! However, mid Feb suddenly heated up, and our sampling told us that optimal ripeness was nearing. By berry sampling we kept track of the sugars, acids and pH of the various blocks. During sampling we tried to get as representative sample of a block as possible, using a 300 berry sample per block. We had marked the late bunches in January so we had to sample the early and late bunches within blocks separately. In terms of optimal ripeness, we aimed for as ripe tannins as possible with in a sugar of hopefully below 25.5, a pH below 3.5, and an acidity above 6.5g/l. Initially, sampling was done once a week or so, but as ripeness neared it was done more often. Ripeness of tannins was sampled by actual tasting of the grapes and examining the pips for greenness. Eventually, on the 26th Feb J-C was happy with the analysis of the older blocks 1 and 2 and decided to harvest the following day. As the yields were very low, we harvested with our own vineyard team only. This worked out at 8 pickers and 4 people helping to load/unload the crates, etc. On the first day we did the 2 hectares of Cabernet in the older block. It took us from 6am until about 11am to harvest, with all the grapes being weighed and placed into our cold room immediately they came off the vines.
After lunch we processed the grapes. They came out of the cold room at about 10 degrees and were then de-stemmed, sorted and finally crushed into the small bins. The sorting table worked really nicely. Each cooled crate (the size of a milk crate) was carefully tipped into the de-stemmer. The destemmer separates the stalks from the berries and they drop unbroken onto the conveyor. This slopes gently upwards and the team stands either side pulling out any remaining green bits or odd looking grapes. Only pristine grapes reach the top and they drop into the crusher. We put the crusher on a soft setting and the skins were broken, the grapes falling into a pile in the open top plastic fermenter. Standing watching a moving conveyor for a couple of hours is a bit mind numbing so we kept swapping people round. The guys at the destemmer end had the most work, but Saansie always took pride of place at the crusher end as the final "quality control". 25ppm (g/HL) SO2 was added at this stage to inhibit any bacteria present. A final berry sample was taken at this stage, as well as a sample for analysis at Stellenbosch University. This analysis was to determine the types and numbers of yeast and bacteria present in our vineyard. As we were attempting to ferment using only the natural yeasts present on the grape skins (not to inoculate with a cultured yeast), we were very keen to get an idea of which species were going to do the job. Not all wild yeast can tolerate the stressful conditions in grape must (especially the high concentrations of alcohol), so it would be reassuring to know that there were at least a few alcohol tolerant species living in our vineyards. The week before harvest J-C had been to the University to prepare the growth media to isolate the various yeast and bacteria species. On the day of crushing, he drove samples from the bins to spread on the growth plates for later identification. The day following harvesting blocks 1 and 2, we harvested blocks 3 to 5, but didn't have time to finish processing the grapes, so simply left them in the cold room overnight to process the following day. This is the great advantage of the cold room. It took away all the pressure of having to process the grapes as fast as possible, and we could take our time sorting out all the little things you don't want in the must.
Pigeage (punch downs) were initially done once a day, and as the temperatures rose in the bins they started to ferment 4-5 days after crushing. This was a massive relief after a couple of sleepless nights for all concerned! There was a chance that the wild yeast would just not kick off at all and we would have to use cultured yeast. Once you use cultured yeast once it takes over the cellar and will totally dominate the wild yeasts for ever more. Fermentation visibly started at about 20-22 degrees centigrade, with CO2 bubbles rising and lifting the grape skins in a "cap" out of the juice. The idea of punching down the cap is to keep the skins in contact with the juice during fermentation to encourage extraction of the colour and complex compounds. Grape juice even in red grapes is clear, so to make red wine you need the pigment from the skins to be extracted. When fermentation started we did pigeage 4-5 times a day (including at midnight and 5am). Temperature control during fermentation is vital. J-C carefully watched temperatures, as wild yeast are not as strong as cultivated yeast. The higher the temperatures the more things like alcohol stress affect the yeast, so by keeping the temps at a comfortable level, you lessen the chance of yeast stress. If it gets much over 28 degrees the yeast will be killed and fermentation gets stuck. The good thing about our small bins and natural fermentation was that the fermentation was not too strong. The small bins lost a lot more heat than big bins/tanks would have. Temperatures averaged about 26-28 degrees centigrade, which meant a nice slow fermentation, taking about 10-14 days. If any bins did get over 28 degrees centigrade they were cooled back down by using cooling plates connected to the cellar cooling system. J-C had asked the cooling engineers to leave connection points around the cellar so the portable plates could be connected to the cold circulation system and then lowered into the fermenters. The second weekend of March was hot, and the sampling on the following Monday morning showed us that all the young Syrah was just about ripe. A manic 2 days followed getting everything harvested before the sugars shot through the roof. All ended well though and by the third week we only had the young Cabernet, Mourvedre and marked late bunches left to harvest. We also pressed the Vin de Paille. This was great fun. The children could not believe it as they covered their hands in the sweet juice as it was squeezed bit by bit out of the raisin like grapes. We had been lucky enough to stumble on some drying racks from a nearby farm that were being given away, so picked up about 200 of these for drying out the Chenin Blanc grapes. These grapes were bought in from a farm down the road. They interested J-C, as one of the secrets to a Straw Wine (any dessert wine for that matter) is a high acidity, and this block always seemed to have a higher natural acid than the surrounding farms. At harvest the analysis was a sugar of 24.5 degrees balling, a pH of 3.48 and a titratible acid of 7.2g/L. After drying them out for 3 weeks, processing the grapes was interesting. The bunches went into the cold room and were brought down to 8 degrees centigrade, were crushed whole bunch and then pressed with their stems. Crushing and pressing was repeated twice so it was a huge amount of work. We could only fill one barrel per day... with an eventual yield of 3 barrels! That is 675 litres of juice from 6 tons of grapes! With normal wine one expects 750 litres of juice per ton. The final juice analysis was a sugar of 58 degrees balling, a pH of 4.0 and an acid of 11.2g/L. So if all ferments and matures well we will have a great sweet wine, well balanced between acidity and sugar. The barrels were all second fill 225L. Fermentation and maturation will all be done in the barrels and fermentation started about 3-4 weeks after filling them. As the bins of Cabernet and Syrah finished fermentation they were pumped full of CO2 gas to prevent oxidation, and tightly closed for extended maceration. This process further extracts tannins (the alcohol present helps to break down cell walls in the skins), and also helps to polymerize these tannins so that the mouth feel of the wine is softer and rounder. As we had sorted out any greenness from the must, J-C had no fear of extracting any bitterness during this extended maceration, and some bins received a good extra 4 weeks on the skins. When he was satisfied that the wine was soft enough, we took off the covers, drained off the free run juice and then pressed the skins with our state of the art basket press. The wine is now sitting in those beautiful barrels undergoing malolactic fermentation...
The yield on the whole vineyard was less than 2 tons per hectare. Having been starved of water since veraison all the harvested blocks were finally allowed a drink, and were given a good post harvest irrigation. J-C and his team did a huge amount of work over the harvest and whatever the wine eventually tastes like it will not be through lack of hard work and dedication if it is not world class. We all expect it to be ...of course
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