Saturday, March 27, 2010

Spot it

Here is our Winemaking 101 table for a cool wine maker who came this morning with a tonne of his own Pinot Noir. He wants to make his own wine, so we gave him a head start with this smorgasbord of wine making paraphernalia.


Of course beer and lubricant and Bryce Rankin's tome for winemakers 'Making Good Wine' are all *hilarious* additions to the table.

Can you identify all the other crap on the table? Most of it is unopened and never used at Stoney Rise as Joe believes in wild yeast ferments, whole bunches, low impact winemaking and other things that dont involve powders and potions - but we don't discriminate against mates who love that gear.

It was a most beautiful Tasmanian morning

Sunrise over the vineyards. Like any other morning...



Then, disaster struck...

Look what Joe did with that huge tub of water. Bloody hell. It bloody went everywhere.


Mike has a moment

Pretty much most lunatics have a pic or two of them holding a gun. Ivan Milat looked pyscho in a broad brim hat holding a rifle. Sarah Palin, well, pretty similar. Now Mike? Sure its a high pressure hose, but he could become unhinged with it.



Where the stalks go when the grapes get destemmed if they get destemmed

To Hendo! Hendo lives next door to Stoney Rise and has an amazing, magical barn and some cows. Loves a tractor or two, too. Look at Hendo! He takes the stalks! Shovels them up and serves them for dinner to the cows. Man, Hendo loves them cows.



Equipment

As a brief interlude from endless pics of two fairly average looking guys shoveling and admiring grapes, here is a rundown (to be added to from time to time) of some essential winemaking equipment at Stoney Rise.

The Probe:

Great for turn overs. Gets them juices flowin'. Watch as Joe expertly inserts it. And read as our innuendo becomes even more rife.



The Winery's main work space:

Feels more like a gentleman's lounge or decadent retreat than a winery. Beyond the barrels is the billiards room, the gaming lounge, the gladiatorial arena and a turkish bath.

Large tubs:

Perfect for doing small clonal ferments. This one contains Clone 115. This means little to many, but much to us. We love clones. Especially the episode where Anakin Skywalker lightsabres up some people. We also like Dolly the Sheep. That's also clonal.


Steel buckets:

Essential winemaking equipment because it looks fuckin awesome filled with dry ice and Hendricks gin. Note our beaker for measuring pours.


Plastic buckets:

Behold the tower of picking buckets. We believe this may be a world record for a stack of grape picking buckets but will settle for 'Largest In The Southern Hemisphere' or 'Pretty Big For Tasmania'


Hoses:

Haha. Is that Mike making it look like his hose is a penis? No way! That guy is crazy. Oh, no, its just a hose with Pinot Noir juice gently flowing over the cap. It's only done a few times before plunging starts up anyway.

Industrial 'accidents':

Well, that's what we told the insurers when we got fed up with our picker bringing back bad bunches...

If you are reading this and freaking out, which you could be for either the brilliance of the blog or the innuendo to a murder, please be aware this is just delicious Pinot Noir juice being washed down a drain. Lucky drain.


The Winery Dog:

The Winery Dog is ubiquitous enough to make an entire series of books out of this type of winery equipment. Though the books are a bit of a yawn fest, we do defer to the reasoning that you make crap wine unless you have a dog hanging around the winery. This one is called Ralph, even though it's a girl dog. Go figure.

We can't show you her face as she is The Winery Dog.

*Disclaimer, Ralph is actually in Wine Dogs II and though it says 'likes chasing tennis balls' in her profile (and so many other profiles) she really actually enjoys sniffing other dogs asses and rolling in dead things.


To be continued...

Breakfast

One of the reasons Mike is here for vintage at Stoney Rise is so he can make Joe breakfast. Joe stays with Mike in Sydney sometimes and his breakfast burritos have become something of a legend. Most mornings Mike fiddles with Joe's new Weber and makes breakfast stuffs.

This is an integral part of vintage and harvest.







You're bloody dreamin'

Handling two tonnes of Chardonnay takes 14 hours? Bloody dreamin. But not for us. Basket pressing was the order of the bday. Shovel in, press gently, dig out, turn, shovel in again, press gently.

Fisting also helps. Chardonnay loves a little of the rough and kinky stuff.


How good is shovelin'? Dude loves to shovel. Dude loves Occupational Health & Safety too. How good is a forklift?


This is Pete below. Pete is holding Chardonnay grapes. Though he is in awe and amazement at the quality he is trying to remain calm about his emotions towards these grapes.

In this pic he kind of looks like Colin Firth in that movie where Firth is a homosexual, directed by a dude who makes suits. Pete works at Josef Chromy Wines so he may be acting as an infidel at Stoney Rise by visiting and spying.


Here is Joe shoveling grapes into the basket press. This is laborious. So laborious. But it makes final wines taste really good. Small ferments follow this process to make WINE THAT PEOPLE LIKE TO TYPE IN CAPS LOCK ABOUT. Small ferments can also make sommeliers and wine retailers aroused.


Close up of Chardonnay. Sexy Chardonnay.


So the Chardonnay is now partly in barrel and partly in tanks beginning the long, slow ferment process. Joe makes a 'funny' joke about his Remond barrels because they sent him two free t-shirts after purchasing heaps of barrels. His joke is 'Check out my t-shirt, it only cost me $20,000'.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Early start

There was rumour abounding that Joe had shat the bed this morning, but in fact he had just let Mike sleep in 15 minutes to ensure he had some quality time with Rat The Vineyard Guy before Mike arrived at the winery. When Mike roused, Joe was shocked.

That shock quickly turned to awe, and there was a brief moment of man-to-man admiration of the view; before the Stoney Rise winemaking team 2010 got back into the action.


Skip to lunchtime at Stoney Rise today - check out Joe's collection of Bordeaux wooden box lids. Joe loves eating off them to remind him how lowly his esteem is of the Cabernet grape and how glad he is that he ripped out and burnt all the Cabernet vines on the Stoney Rise property when he bought it.


Tonight's action includes a tasting and dinner with the Launceston Wine Appreciation society. Established around 25 years ago, this is one of the first times someone like Mike has been let into the inner sanctum, and probably the last... Reports tomorrow. Chardonnay picking is the order of the day for Wednesday the 24th of March.

Project X

Project X is a Code One classified project being undertaken by winemaker Joe Holyman and his sidekick Mike Bennie. Leaked information has indicated that 100% whole bunch ferment is taking place after a technical bunch selection process. An insider had played turn-coat to snap these pictures; sadly the insider 'fell into the destemmer' shortly after the images were leaked.







Rain Delays and some Duckworth/Lewis winemaking

Rainy mornings turned off our Holyman pickers over the weekend... which meant for some slow days, but also some regional exploration to check out how other vineyards and winemakers are doing.



We got some fruit off in the early rain anyway, but when it all got a little too heavy, play was stopped for the day. Mike looks amazing tipping stuff. Just watch him tip up a storm.


Which meant when the sun came out, it was off to the Pipers River Store for bacon and egg sandwiches. A regional speciality, and delicacy savoured by such luminaries in the wine industry as Nick Ryan, known for his finely tuned palate for take away food stuffs.


It's just down the road to Jansz and Delamere from the Pipers River store, so we dropped in to see Nat Fryar at Jansz who had just decided to play chicken with her Subaru and her vineyard managers 4WD not long before we arrived. Nothing a schooner of Hendricks gin and tonic wouldnt fix though.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Classic plays on words like The Good Juice are lame

We got some good juice in today. Our first pass through the old block Pinot Noir yielded some pretty awesome whole bunches with lots of nicely ripened fruit and stalks. This anonymous hand is picking a berry to eat. A delicious, juicy Pinot Noir berry. Destined for our Holyman wine. Destined for glory.


Meanwhile we got our first decent harvest of the indigenous Austrian grape variety of Gruner Veltliner. Popular for its minerality, citrus profile and fresh, fruit forward style, Gruner is an exotic variety with loads of potential in Tasmania. We at Stoney Rise are the first to produce it in Tasmania in THE HISTORY OF THE WHOLE FRIGGIN UNIVERSE EVER OH MY WE ARE SO SPECIAL ITS INSANE.





Holy moses the Gruner Veltliner is in the Stoney Rise basket press. Look at it! Its Gruner! GRUNER. Not groaner, Gruner. Its blowing our mind so much that we shovelled it out of the basket press and then back in. We wanted a little more juice because we pressed it so gently, so sensually, so erotically. Look at Joe and Mike the erotic workers.




First harvest for 2010

With Stoney Rise's crack team of dedicated pickers at the ready, day break saw the first fruit come in to the shed. What better a way to bring in fruit than a trailer of buckets? We love buckets. Rat, yes, his name is Rat, is a picker plus the trailer and bucket guy. Man Rat loves a bargain - he just picked up two cases of beer for $64. He loves bargains more than buckets, even though the buckets are great. Look at Rat's love of buckets below.


With idle time between trailer loads of fruit we decided to name the Stoney Rise tanks after industry luminaries. Here are the look-alike tanks...

Ryno (Nick Ryan) - The tank is big, real big, bold n shiny, solid, a monster of a tank with a very loose and gushing valve...


Ricco (Ric Brockhurst) - with the frame of a sportsman, this tapered-at-the-waist-and-broad-at-the-shoulder sex machine keeps the good juice flowin...


The Old Grey Mare (David Matters) - its old, its grey, its has a nice sheen to it and is aging gracefully. Sure there is some rust around the edges, but its holding up well...


Mike Bennie - For a tank, it's weird shaped. It looks weird, acts weird and is kind of weird. Sometimes even smells weird...


Canty (Simon Cant) - short, squat, round, seedy and very fruity, the essence of the man, just add a wacky tshirt and it's pretty much him. Next to Canty is Sputnik, because it looks like Sputnik, right?


And of course Lou, AKA Mrs Holyman. Svelte, lithe, trim, taught, tint and terrific.




Here is the whole motley crew -




Friday, March 19, 2010

Premature excitement


Well, there we go. After all the excitement we awoke to light drizzle at Stoney Rise, that was persistent enough to stop us picking today. Everything is ready, and if I clean anything else again I will potentially rub through the stainless steel. Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to keep you informed of us doing something that is productive.


The fog hung around all day too. Looked pretty cool in the Stoney Rise vineyard though. And allowed our vintage 2010 assistant Mike to do some nude jogging around the vineyard. The camera broke for those shots, so we just have these ones of vines and trees.