A slightly different Wednesday

Welcome to the world of vintage. I’m at Cirillo Estate in the Barossa at the moment getting a serious taste of what a a winemakers life is really all about. Sure, I’ve been in shedloads of wineries at vintage time, and dabbled in my own shitty shed wines, but this is different. It’s dirtier and wetter, for a start.  But also, it reminds just how much of a difference there is between backyard winemaking and commercial scale production – that gap between homemade and professional is more giant than many people realise.

What’s more interesting is the process itself. Or, more accurately, the choice of processes. Do you destem or include whole bunches? Open or closed fermenter? How warm do you want the ferment to get? Plunge or pumpovers (and how often)? Basket press or airbag? Then filtration – yay or nay? Decisions decisions! Every option has a distinct impact on the finished wine, an impact that is often difficult to see immediately. Factor in just how un-winelike fermenting grape juice tastes like and little wonder winemakers can get it wrong…

But that’s also the lesson here – experience is so important for delivering wine that tastes delicious. Experience and wisdom delivers the goods.

By the same token, experience can also breed laziness and a reliance on shortcuts – ‘what normally works’ rather than embracing innovation.

Thankfully I’d never accuse Marco (Cirillo Estate vigneron/winemaker/owner/everything) of cutting corners – ferments here are cool and natural, pressing is deliberately slow, everything gets washed twice… and Marco’s days are long. 12 hour days are the norm and days off are things that happen some other time of the year.

Did I mention how much harder this winemaking gig is than I first thought?