Day 4 (19 August 2010):
At the winery, it works like this. Robert or Karina would issue the daily work sheets and the operational staff would execute these procedures. This morning we had 4 work sheets to complete. The first one was about earth filtration.
Production level at Taltarni Estate is about 100,000 cases a year and although some of the wines are matured in new and seasoned barrels, using a mix of French and American oak, most of the wine is fermented and stored in enormous tanks (ranging from 10,000+ to 30,000+ litres), until bottling. Everything takes place inside these tanks, addition, battonage, cold stabilization, fining, etc. This morning I worked with Jaye, Happy and Deb to earth filter 3 big tanks of Sauvignon Blanc (each tank over 20,000 litres!) that had previously been cold stabilized at -5°C for about 10 days (Imagine the temperature inside the winery!). First we had to prepare the earth filtration machine by coating the filters with layers of a mixture based on diatomite earth. The coating actually took quite long. The wine would be emptied from one tank, through the filter, into another tank, the medium of transportation being enormously long hoses which weigh a ton. I was just amazed at how Deb appeared so adept at moving these long creatures around the winery (at least she did not appear to be struggling under their weight and she was totally on top of the logic – they get so long and bendy and you have to work out which goes where!!). Practice makes perfect!!
Deb said that normally this would follow with pad filtering, then membrane filtering and cartridge filtering before bottling. A tank of 26,000 litres would require a double-shift to complete the bottling: 6 am – 2 pm and 2 pm – 10 pm! Rumour had it that the bottling of one of these tanks was scheduled for the following Wednesday! Yippie – I could actually see it before I were to leave!
For the next worksheet, I worked with Deb to mix some PMS with cold water and add to tank. Then I took a 200ml sample to the lab for analysis of its SO2 content, to see if we have added enough. We did the same with another tank. The lab analysis for this tank would be to test SO2 and VA (volatile acidity).
For the next worksheet, we mixed some bentonite with hot water, and it would take 24 hours to swell into a fluid paste. We would be pouring this liquid paste into the tank the following morning. Fining to remove protein.
In the afternoon, I spent some time in the laboratory and tried to find out what Chris does. Chris and Leanne work in the lab, both on part-time basis. Chris showed me the different tests: titratable acidity, malic acid, residual sugar (glucose + fructose), volatile acidity, total alcohol, free SO2, total SO2, dissolved CO2, dissolved O2, pH, turbidity (NTU), etc. Chris and I then proceeded to perform an enzymatic test for the levels of glucose and fructose of two base wine samples for the Taltarni Brut – well, he did it and I watched for the most part. Chris was a great teacher and he was very patient in explaining every step to me.
We also had some interesting discussions about various things, ranging from Sparkling Shiraz (Chris used to work at a large sparkling wine producer when he started out in the industry and he was quite keen on his Sparkling Shiraz! I told him that I hadn’t quite acquired the taste for it. He told me to try a good example and to have it with roast turkey!) to screw caps, new trends, etc.
Lesson #4: One needs to be of extreme strong build and stamina to carry out all the tasks in the winery.
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