SPRING IS SPRUNG IN NZ

I keep talking about our two springs in our current lifestyle. Well, it is now officially spring as DSTime has arrived in NZ and it is not dark until 7 now and soon it will still be light at 9. A lovely way to spend Oct. and Nov. The only problem with my wife's love of gardening is that someone has to do the hard stuff. Yep, that is me adding more organic (read higher priced) dirt to our garden plot. The fence is too keep the rabbits out and we do have lots of rabbits about. We have six elevated raised planting beds and today we (me working in the dirt and Sandra directing) prepared the soil. We must have the most fertile soil in NZ as it is full of compost, alpaca poo, and various wonderful soil enriching "organic" agents. YEs, we even have sea weed in the piles. "Watch this space to see how thing grow this year" I say as I will try to do a few shots over spring and summer.

I wanted to post another essay by Robin Ransom and picked this nice one from back in the NZ fall harvest time- May. Robin gives a much better overview of the harvest process than I have on this blog in the past. Soooooo, read all about it below.

More soon;

Dr JIM

LOCAL MATTERS – MAY 2007

VINTAGE IN MATAKANA

Robin Ransom

Matakana grapegrowers and winemakers have been preoccupied over the past eight weeks or so with vintage, which is the most intensely active and demanding part of the winegrowing year.

Grape varieties ripen at slightly different times and in Matakana this occurs between late March and late April. The decision as to when to pick is determined initially by taste and examination of the berry pips and bunch stems, backed up by measurements of sugar and acid levels in the fruit. These are based on juice analysis from a randomly selected sample of berries. The acid in grapes drops as sugar rises, and the rate of each is determined by the weather. Because we want to avoid too much or too little of either, the winegrower’s skill is in deciding exactly when both are optimal.

When this occurs the grape picker’s skill comes into play. Many local people have worked at grape picking for some years now, so there is a pool of experienced grape pickers in the district. Picking is not as simple as it may seem – selecting the right bunches and discarding those which are either “second set” (unripe), or have signs of rot, is not always obvious and takes skill and judgement. The bunches are picked into small bins then transported to the winery.

Processing procedure depends upon whether the grapes are white or red. The colour in red wine comes entirely from grape skins, which along with the pips contribute flavour and the tannins which are essential to give red wine its structure and stability. So the red juice, pulp, pips and skins are all kept together. White wine is a more delicate beverage, so skins, pips and pulp are discarded and only the juice is fermented.

At this point the winery workers really get going. Bunches are fed into a destemmer-crusher, a machine which removes the stems then crushes the berries. This produces a slurry of juice, skins, pips and pulp, called “must”. Red must is pumped directly into a large open-topped fermenting tank. White grapes are also destemmed and crushed, but white must is then pumped into the wine press. This allows the “free run” juice to drain, then squeezes the skins and pulp to extract the remaining juice.

The must can then be inoculated with yeast. Put simply, fermentation is the consumption of grape sugar by yeast, the main product of which is alcohol. During fermentation the winery workers need to be continuously monitoring the progress of the ferments in a range of ways, adding yeast nutrient if necessary, adjusting refrigeration temperature on white wine tanks so the must stays relatively cool, and regularly “plunging” or “pumping over” the red tanks to keep the raised cap of skins moist and healthy, and to assist colour extraction from the skins.