25 April 2010Vintage 2010 - Being a Vintage 'Intern'

Currently I’m in the middle of an ‘intern’ vintage role with our wine makers at Maude Wines. Being rather older than the last time I did this and not necessarily that much wiser it has been a bit difficult getting back up to speed with the hard yakka of a full sized winery vintage cellarhand’s life.  But its all been more positive than negative.

The good things from the first week – seeing my own grapes in the fermenter quietly cold soaking, and all those lovely fruit aromas; being right on site to make critical decisions regarding the fermentation of our Pinot Noir; finding out (again) that vintage work is really good at helping shed the kilos – it’s the best diet – eat as much as you can because the physical work load will burn off anything you can eat and then some; great people to work with, dinners made by S-K (she is a fantastic cook).

The not so good things – feeling stuffed at the end of the day, being so tired that my thought of writing something each day went out the window for the whole of the first week.  But now I’m into week two I’m feeling up to speed.

So with a bit of luck I can write a little something on each of the remaining few days as a vintage ‘intern’.

PS –fermentation of the wine that will become ’36 bottles’ Pinot Noir 2010 is now well and truly ‘kicking’; and the aromas and flavours are very nice.  Fingers crossed!