Diary from the Pyrenees August 2010 - Day 3

Day 3 (18 August 2010):


I was assigned to the disgorging line. Today we disgorged Clover Hill Vintage Brut 2005.
After the making of the base wines, the winemaker would decide on the blend (the composition of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier). This would be followed by “tirage” when the blended wine would be bottled, with the addition of a mix of wine, sugar, cultured yeast and a substance called alginate to prevent the lees from sticking to the side of the bottle. The wine would commence its second fermentation in the bottle. At this stage, the wine would be stored horizontally (using the French term “sur lattes”) for a minimum of 3 years for Clover Hill Vintage Brut, building complexity, weight and texture during this autolytic phase (the yeast cells breaking down). At the end of this period, the wine bottles would be loaded into a pallet (each big enough to take 42 dozens bottles) and 4 of these pallets would be fitted to an enormous gyro. The gyro is programmed to turn at pre-determined angles at pre-determined intervals, during a 2 to 5-day period. When the bottles are all upside down, the riddling process is completed. The pallets would then be unloaded and each bottle carefully removed from the pallet to be slotted into a turntable-looking machine filled with glycol solution to freeze the dead yeast plug near the crown cap, all the time care must be taken to maintain the upside down position of the bottle. If accidentally this position were upset, then the bottle would need to be riddled again, something best avoided!

So the first station of the disgorging line was the loading of upside down bottles into these turntables. It was actually much more physically demanding than I had imagined. Imagine reaching to the back rows and the bottom rows of the 42 dozens of bottles inside a giant pallet! Only the first and last stations of the disgorging line were technically manually operated, the rest were all automatically operated (until some technical hitch that required human intervention to resolve). The freezing of the bottle neck in glycol solution would take about 10 – 15 minutes. Then the bottles would be manually inverted (to the right way up position) and put onto a conveyor belt, one by one. This conveyor belt would take the bottles first to be disgorged, with the crown cap removed and the frozen dead yeast plug popping out, then filled with the liqueur d’expédition (or dosage). The bottles would then be fitted with corks, then muzzle wires. The bottles would then go through a mixer (basically a machine that works by shaking the bottles a few times to make sure the liqueur is well mixed into the wine). After this, the bottles would be washed (just like in a car-wash) to make sure the cleanliness of the outside of the bottles, and then dried. The bottles would then be fitted with a hood (the capsule), followed by back and front labels. Then the second manual operation on the line – the packing of bottles into cartons. QA is important here to make sure there are no funny looking labels, capsules, etc. After packing about 100 cartons, I felt like an expert already, thanks to my mentors Helen and Anita! There was almost no time to stop to talk. The bottles were coming at you at a consistent and high pace and the two packers would work opposite each other, packing two different cartons at the same time! Intense! Finally the packed cartons would be put onto pallets and would lie in storgae until they were sold and removed from the warehouse.

At 3:45 pm, the whole line stopped and we all had to pack up, count unused dry materials (such as corks, muzzle wires, hoods, labels, etc.) as well as any unlabelled bottles for storage or other use, and clear out the rubbish. The floor would be cleaned to get ready for the following day’s work.

All the workers on the production line carried out their work with much discipline and rigour, all the time respecting hygiene and complying with standard operating procedures. There was a military-like precision about it!

When I retired to my cottage at 4:30 pm, I was totally exhausted, with stiff shoulders and arms about to drop off. I wonder how Helen and Anita do this day in, day out!

The next time I see a bottle of 2005 Clover Hill Vintage Brut, I am going to feel so proud that I was part of this team, even for a day!

Lesson #3: If a man or woman regards his/her job with a sense of pride and ownership, then he/she is able to see beyond the routine and embrace his/her work with love and respect. This man or woman becomes an integral part of a team with a common objective – to deliver high quality work all the time!