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'.