Reds

Winding up the busy period of harvest leads us into quieter times, making for seemingly longer nights. The lack of pressure of the arrival of grapes every half hour makes it feel like you are working longer. Fortunately, I have been able get my hands well and truly stuck into some red wine making.



The process for the making of red wine is a much different and more labour intensive than that described previously for whites.

The grapes have usually come from the Mud House vineyards of the Central Otago area of NZ, which is about 6-8 hrs south of Marlborough. The grapes have tended to be hand picked, meaning that they are still in their bunches and therefore need de-stemming. This means hand-loading them into a crusher / destemmer machine, which then connects to a line taking the grapes into tanks. The tanks are smaller than the whites, with the largest being 20,000 litres. Avoiding using the presses that are used for whites, the skins and seeds of the reds are kept together with the pulp and juice, allowing for the colour, flavour and tannins to be kept.

The grapes are pumped into open tanks where they are left to sit on their skins and are manipulated 3 or 4 times a day. The most common of these methods is plunging, where the skins that have formed on the top of the tank are pushed down using extra long plungers to mix them back in with the juice below.





Another method of doing this is 'pumping over'; a hose is attached to the valve by the door of the tank and the juice and skins that sit at the bottom are pumped over the top to mix in with those on the top.



This process has taken place within the first few weeks of the grapes being in the tanks. After that the wine that has begun to ferment, and the skins are separated to allow the wine to ferment more. This is done by draining a tank. It's rather long winded, but you are constantly touching the grapes and i feel more of a connection to the process. You empty into a large bin the wine, filtering the skins into another bin, and pump the wine into an empty tank. The skins and seeds that are collected in the bin are gathered so they can be pressed to increase extraction.





Once the juice has stopped running freely, you have to open the door and scoop out all of the skins, seeds and mulch to add to the press. This is great fun, as you have to jump inside the wet, slippery, and most of all, potent tanks that depsite being open topped, are full of CO2 from the fermentation that has taken place already. It is essential that someone is outside monitoring your progress of the digging out of the tank to see that you've not passed out!





Once the tank is cleared of crap, you press the skins and collect more wine to pump into tanks or barrels (barreling down).

The wine that is kept in the tanks and barrels has the necessary additions and monitoring that the whites get, and are left to ferment for longer.