Atop the Sabre Tanker Truck: another Vintage 2012 panorama

Today we brought our Chardonnay base from the Macedon Ranges up to our Pyrenees winery where it will embark on a journey toward becoming our Sabre sparkling.
The Pinot base is already fermenting well, and it looks like a good vintage for sparkling wines this year...

Click on the image for a closer look....

Mitchell Harris Macedon Vineyard Panorama

Another little panorama, this time our Macedon vineyard with it's nicely laden Chardonnay vines, which we'll be picking tomorrow for our flagship sparkling, Sabre by Mitchell Harris.

Click on the image for a larger view...

Stomping the Mitchell Harris Shiraz

Getting in the whole-bunch spirit, Johnno gets right into stomping our 2012 Pyrenees Shiraz.

Warning: may contain scenes of whole-body pigeage!!!

Off and Picking... another cool panorama

Another cool panorama of a short lunch break as we kick off Vintage 2012 picking our Sauvignon Blanc.

Beautiful vineyard here in the Moonambel Hills...

JH

PS Click on the pic for a bigger, better view...

Vintage 2011...Bringing in the 2011 Cabernet

Getting toward the end of our long, late, cool vintage of 2011 and it's time to head up into the Moonambel Hills again for a look at how the 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon is travelling.

Some brilliant work in the vineyard throughout the growing season has kept the floods and the rot at bay, and we've got some gorgeous big black bunches hanging there, ready for picking.

Always hard of course to judge what this season's weather will do over the next week or so, so it's time to work out whether to take the leap and start picking.

Johnno checks the sugar content on the refractometer, basically a prism that reacts differently according to the sugar content of the sample inside it. With the Cabernet at 12.5 Baumé, and the weather ahead looking let's say, a little dodgy... 

It's time to get in the fruit, about 7 tonnes, and start the fermentation for our 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Picking the Pinot... Vintage 2011 gets underway

After our 2011 summer of discontent, it's finally come time to start on Vintage 2011! First off the rank is our sparkling fruit, which, after surviving a season of floods and humidity, has benefited from a nice slow ripening period.

The (finally) ripe bunches of Pinot Noir.

As you can see, our Macedon Pinot Noir fruit looks terrific, thanks to some hard work in the vineyard, nestled in the northern foothills of the Macedon Ranges.

Mitchell Harris gathers its Pinot Noir near Kyneton in the north of the Macedon Ranges.

Pressed and processed, it's then back up to the Pyrenees for fermentation and to have Johnno work his magic on it over the next few months.

John Harris surveying the 2011 crop

At that stage, the Pinot will be blended with our Chardonnay fruit, and tiraged into bottle to spend the next three or more years on lees, after which it can be disgorged to make our "Sabre by Mitchell Harris" sparkling.

Those with less patience will see the Pinot Noir pressings blended with our Pyrenees Sangiovese to create our second Rosé release, later in 2011.

Mitchell Harris Cabernet 2010 - a work in progress...

A few snaps from this week, showing that winemaking isn't all sitting on a verandah watching the sun set over the vineyard.

The 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon in our open-top fermenters.

If you look closely you can probably even see Johnno breaking a sweat in some of these shots!

Things look promising for a top vintage 2010...

Winemakers: 24 hour party people... Songs for Vintage 2010.

Ah vintage... those heady few weeks present many opportunities to unleash the inner DJ, with some hard core down and dirty tunes to get you through a long night of well.. hard core down and dirty vintage work.

Your particular brand of aural stimulation may of course depend on your job in the vintage team, and the time of day.


I like to ease my way into the day (usually starting at about 4 am) with some mellow tunes. 


When the fruit comes rolling in and the jobs start piling up we can then crank it up a notch with some good rocking tracks. 


Don't forget those out in the vineyard in a tractor, or whizzing the forklift round the winery ... they need a good selection of driving tunes to keep the revs up.


After refueling at lunch, it’s time for a sing along tune to keep the spirits up. Some classic old school rock, think Stones or The Who, or some kicking Oz rock a-la You Am I to rock away the afternoon. 


By the late afternoon as you are clocking up 12 hours and the feet are heavy and the mind is losing focus... it’s time to start thinking about beer o’clock. Mix it up for the cocktail hour with some latin beats? 

For those on the night shift you need to keep the spirits up all night long. You need to warm up with some easy modern rock with a little twang such as Wilco, Weezer, or some old school Weddings. 


Then as the darkness sets in and the evening’s presses are emptied its time to rock it out until ‘dinner’ some time around midnight – 2am. 


After dinner its time for your power tunes and sing along tracks, to get you thru the wee hours before fading into some smooth grooves or even some classical gas as the sun rises to welcome in another day of grapes, ferments, near misses and the birth of potential wine greatness. 


Coopers pale ale for brekkie anyone?


Johnno's Job-Specific Top 5 (albums and tracks.)


Lab work : Needs some laid back alt-country...Wilco - Hotel Yankee Foxtrot
Marc Shovelling and Red Ferment punch downs : Wicked thumping beats...The Prodigy - Firestarter
Press Driving : Keeping the mood up for the team...Eels - Mr E’s Beautiful Blues 
Hose Dragging : Needs some good beats: Underworld - Beaucoup Fish
Blending : Needs some vintage wine rock ... Blur – Charmless Man - ‘…he knows his claret from his Beaujolais’


And Mitch's Top 5 picks for some new beats for the 2010 Vintage:


Weezer - (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To
Eels - Gone Man
Gin Club - Rain
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros - Home
Ball Park Music -Sea Strangers (I Don't Really Know You)


What's your Top 5 for Vintage 2010?

Not long now.

A bit of recent heat has brought out some colour amongst the reds throughout the Pyrenees. Looks like about 3-4 weeks until we'll start picking, and the Vintage bandwagon will roll out.

A last bit of respite before the madness begins...