Hawks Nest Wines of NZ

Hawks Nest Wines of NZ

Well, today was the LAST pressing of our 2006 vintage.!!!! Now the juice is in the barrels and the pulp is making the birds drunk as we spread it around our orchard as compost. There is nothing funnier than a flock of loud aggressive staggering Magpies fighting over fermented grapes . Above you can see John's Italian wine press with the grapes overflowing the top. Next just rolls the barrel full of juicy fermented grapes dripping with wine under the press. Once it is correctly positioned the silver disk at the top slowly is pressed down over the press barrel and the juice flows out into the catchment rim at the bottom.

In the other photo you can see the new wine pouring out of the bottom of the press. From there is gets pumped into holding tanks and then into the barrels. After that it is mostly just a matter of keeping the barrels at correct temps and topping them up so they are full so no air gets into the barrel during maturation. Air=oxidization= crap wine. We use only new French Oak or one year oak barrels as we are making primo wine and not bonk!!!! No storage in steel or plastic tanks for us like larger wine making people use. We will age the wine for 16 months at least so look for this 06 premium wine to get bottled in Sept. of 2007 and then available by Turkey Day in Tennessee!!!

More after we get our olive harvest done this weekend--Maybe I will digress and talk about that next time!!!

Dr Jim Downunder

PS: Now the fun part of this wine making business begins---- the periodic barrel sampling that is required to keep up on the progress of the wine. (it's a tough job, but someone has to do the dirty work)