Rain, Rain, Please Don't Go Away.

Just a cat I found on my front porch, hiding from the rain.

Rainy Wednesday for us over in the Barossa.  Other vintages I have worked, rain is a huge deal and they try to get as much fruit in as possible to avoid bunch rots and berry splitting etc.  On the up side, it slows down the crushing.  We received fruit on the rainy day, but the next day, a beautiful day at that, there was no crushing in sight.  The mechanical harvesters would not be able to get through the vineyards, and the rain would have lowered the sugars of the grapes.  Therefore, we got a relaxing day! It was nice to catch out breath.  The previous days were pretty busy; I was running around all day with very little time to relax.  Tuesday, I sat down to lunch at 1:30 and at 1:40 my supervisor came in, in a panic, asking me to save her.  It just all of a sudden got busy so I helped, duh.  Then Wednesday I sat down for lunch at 2pm.  Now, if I was not starting at 5 am this would not be so weird, but I start at 5, so it is tough.  The lull of a day helped us to sit back, take a deep breath, and clean all the stuff that had been neglected during the 2 weeks of 24 hour shifts.

I did get a chance to talk to the winemaker, Toby, about how the rain affected things.  He did not seemed to stressed about it at all.  In the Barossa, bunch rot, such as Botrytis, is not a big issue.  The grapes that are still out on the vines can handle a rain or two. If there were a few more big storms coming, there would be a lot more of an issue.  But this storm was not a big deal...PHEW.

On the forecast of harvest, we have crushed about 2000 tonnes and have 700 more or so to go.  The end is in sight, and so soon too.  I feel it was yesterday that we had our first grape samples! Now, we are about to see our last?!!?! Crazy talk.  Time flies when you are working hard, and having fun :)