Day 5 (20 August 2010):
I spent the morning at the winery and this time we did two rack-returns, namely emptying wine from barrels into a huge tank while removing the lees at the bottom of the barrels, before returning the wine from the tank into the barrels, followed by the necessary topping up and sulphur cleaning of the top of the barrels to prevent bacterial contamination. The transfer of wine from barrels to tank basically involved a mono-pump and a couple of rather long and robust hoses. Again muscle power came into this!
We connected a pump with two sets of hoses, one to the tank and the other to an extractor that would be inserted inside the barrels. Before the start of the process, we had to ensure that the tank was clean, and then we would add PMS with water to sulphur it out and also we would sparge it with nitrogen. Then we started the process of moving wine from barrels to tank. We had to stop before we got to the near bottom where the lees sediment would be. Then we would repeat with the other barrels. After the barrels had been emptied, they would be turned upside down so that the sediment with any wine at the bottom would be tipped out. Then we used a barrel cleaner that would spray hot water under high pressure inside the barrels to clean them out. We waited a little while for the barrels to dry and then the process would be reversed and we would fill the barrels with wine from the tank, by reversing the pump. As we lost some wine to the racking process, topping up was necessary and as usual, after inserting the rubber bungs back into the barrels, the top of the barrel would be splashed with sulphur water to make sure there would be no bacterial contamination.
As I watched Deb turn the barrels upside down to tip out the sediment, I thought I would have a go at turning them back up the right way. It was just not as easy as I had imagined! I have to admit I looked rather pathetic!
By the time we did the second rack-return, I was already a pro! :)
I then left for lunch and packed my bag for weekend in Melbourne (aka civilization where I would have mobile phone and data reception!). Another pathetic admission!
Robert kindly drove me to Ballarat train station for the train to Melbourne. We had a good chat on the way. He used to work in the Barossa Valley before he joined Taltarni about 18 months ago. Given his background with red wine, one of his objectives was to make the red wine of Taltarni better recognized and to work with his counterparts in other wineries in the Pyrenees region to establish a wine style for the region that would immediately enable consumers to identify the Pyrenees with, in terms of regional characteristics, quality and marketing niche, a bit like what Barossa achieved with Shiraz. For the Pyrenees, Robert reckoned it would be Cabernet Sauvignon, but there’s a way to go and every winery would have to work together to achieve the same objective, i.e. that they could not afford to have one winery sacrifice quality for pricing as the potential damage could be collective. I cannot agree more with him! Good luck!
I found out that Robert had done two harvests in St Emilion. He said things were so different in Bordeaux. At Taltarni, they have around 20 full-time staff in the vineyard and winery together, including admin and accounts staff, and they would produce 100,000 cases a year. At some of the châteaux in Bordeaux, they would already have 20 full-time staff in the winery (not including vineyard, marketing, sales, admin) and the production would be 2,000 or fewer cases! Interesting?
Lesson #5: The road to success is often the road less travelled for those with the vision and the encourage to go the extra distance……..
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