Our neighbour Hendo

So it has been a while. Just letting the ferments fizz away, some pressing, getting wine squared away in barrel, its all been happening... Seems the vintage is looking up. This year there has been some small batch ferments of fruit bought from separate sub-regional sites in other parts of Tasmania to have a look at some of the interesting differences possible from these distinct areas. It's all new for us, a first.

Meanwhile, when not considering these lofty thoughts, the pride of Tasmania often comes to visit. Here is our tractor driving neighbour, Hendo, and his special friend. Look how lovingly Hendo tends to his favourite person.

Visitors

Late one afternoon a trio of likely looking lads wandered into the makeshift cellar door in the Stoney Rise barrel hall. A disturbed Mike, some 11 hours into work for the day, went through the motions for the guests, fearing that their presence was merely to come, load up on some good gear, before tyre kicking their way into another cellar door. Little did he know that this youthful mob were all winemakers. Steve and Ramses from Pipers Brook and young Duncan Lloyd, son of Mark Lloyd of Coriole fame, who is working at the moment at Josef Chromy.

Here they all are. What an afternoon! Some ferment gazing, some back vintage tasting. Look at Ramses, dude in the middle that looks shifty but enjoying his huge glass of Rose. Later that evening he managed to piss his pants... what a champ!

Meanwhile, isnt Dunc a sexy boy? And a personalised belt? Well, enough said really...

Mike, having done some full body pigeage that day, managed to leave a souvenir of his underpants on Duncan's car aerial... he drove off with them flapping in the wind.

Sometime later, after leaving Ramses with urine filled pants and Steve a stumbling, stuttering mess, we discovered that Steve's car had been stolen and the three lads ended up filling out incoherent police statements with local coppers about the missing vehicle. Great day.

Compare & Contrast

small (stoney rise/holyman)

large (tamar ridge)

Get nude and get in

It begins.

Gettin a little sexier.

Now for the German, kinky stuff.

Speaks for itself really.

Small ferments, small parcels of fruit

As one can see Stoney Rise pretty much deals in small stuff. Small ferments take place in small tanks. The process is all hands on.

Sometimes its even all body on, rather than just hands.

Small parcels of fruit come in. Rat brings them in while singing Cold Chisel and other forms of Aussie pub rock;not because it helps the grapes, but because it arouses his levels of serotonin naturally. Rat loves arousal.

More exciting is tiny parcels of clonal Pinot Noir. Here lies some separate ferments of 115, 114, d4v6, 777 spur/cane and somewhere in there is some of the famed Abel clone. One says Abel clone with a reverent awe - why, because it bloody well is part of some high level conspiracy about a slack jawed NZ border patrol guard who stole cuttings from the world's greatest vineyard site off a hapless wine enthusiast who was trying to bring it in as contraband then the rubber necked security guard flogged it back to the vine nursery in NZ. This means when you plant it, a little bit of Domaine de la Romanee Conti is produced in your vineyard. Seriously, forget the soil type and elevation, the microclimate above Vosne Romanee and the years of horse drawn plowing, if you have this clone you are FUCKIN AMAZING and your vineyard shall be PAVED IN GOLD. Actually, it just produces really nice fruit, says Joe.

Look at these small parcels of separate clonal fruit fermenting under dark, mysterious cloaks. The cloaks make the finished wines even more complex and interesting.

Joe is looking to keep these parcels separate this year to see how each clone works from his single vineyard site. Though they wish to be joined in an unfettered orgy of Pinot Noir fruit, they are for this moment being kept in a forced state of abstinence.

URGENT UPDATE!

New record for buckets stacked. Amazing effort to smash the previous record. Is there no limit to what Joe and Mike can achieve?

This of course improves wine quality at Stoney Rise by fine tuning hand eye coordination and logic skills.

Pickin'

Yup. this is the post which takes you live n direct vineyard-side.

Look! It really is a family activity! How hot is Joe's wife Lou? Even in vineyard gear she is the belle of Tasmania.

Even creepy 'cousin' Mike is involved. He is looking stern because he loves to pick with a level of concentration usually associated with chess or other intellectual pursuits.

This is why we have an adult warning. For crying out loud Joe, you're meant to have had therapy for this kind of thing. Thankfully Pinot Noir with its tight, small bunches and pert, firm fruit seems to react well to this type of treatment.

What more is there to say? No one lost a finger. The Pinot Noir looked great. Our backs felt sore.

The real heroes are the pro pickers. Day in day out. Pick pick pick. No whining, just on with the job. This is the best view of the pickers too.

As an addendum, this is a gratuitous photo of Rat. Check him out cruising for buckets. Rat is THE REAL DEAL.

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.

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...

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'.

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.

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.