When the Festival's over....it's back to the vineyard

The past month has gone by so fast. In between my last post and this one we have had the 2009 Barossa Vintage Festival, numerous days of grape-picking and even my first drive around the Barossa in our newest acquisition with friends from the city. The Vintage Festival was a huge success and the weather for the week-long event was truly the Barossa at its beautiful best. The Valley was full of people attending many events. It was great to see everyone still enjoying themselves despite the current economic climate. That was the best thing about the Festival - there were events that were free to attend and ones that were well over $100 per ticket and everything price range in between so there really was something for everyone.

During the Festival a few of James' friends, John and Annette, stayed at Nuriootpa for a couple of days during which I took them on a tour to a few unique places in the Valley in our recently restored classic old Holden. They met some of our Collective counterparts - Steve Kurtz and Wayne Ahrens - for a private tasting, and it was wonderful to finally bring them to our place and sit in the old stable having a few glasses of wine. After a few extra stops we ended up having dinner with them at The Branch in Nuriootpa.

This week has been spent doing part days hand-picking of our Eden Valley Shiraz - a half tonne picked on Monday to pool with grapes from Colin Sheppard (from Flaxman Wines) for a Sparkling Shiraz. On Tuesday we picked our old vine Eden Valley Shiraz (about half a tonne only) for our own BullFrog Flat Shiraz and the last of the young shiraz was picked yesterday for our Red Blend. A very busy week indeed. James has taken leave from his full-time job at ETSA to be active in making our reds and today is picking up some Eden Valley Cabernet which we have sourced from David Brown (Mountadam Winery). In between all of this we have still been visiting Rocland (see the photo below of James and Juicy in front of the tank) to see how our riesling is progressing and so far, so good. All in all, in a few weeks time life should resume some normality and then it will be time to start pruning!

Finally, other news is that we have a new distributor for NSW, ACT and VIC - Single Vineyard Sellers and a new venture about to start in Tasmania so things are quite hectic on the paperwork/despatch side but very positive. I will also be attending a dinner in Brisbane at the end of July with many other Barossa winery representatives hosted by The Purple Palate. I will post more info regarding the Brisbane dinner and our own Barossa At Home dinner as things are confirmed in the coming weeks but for now, on this lovely rainy afternoon, I am heading to the kitchen to make a batch of scones and open a bottle of red which will be consumed watching the AFL match on television later tonight. It's been a huge month and it is certainly time to kick back and relax for a day or two.

Look out, there are scarecrows about!

Autumn must be the most beautiful season in the Barossa for our visitors. The parching heat has gone and the days are warm still but comfortable. The trees and vines have slowly begun to turn the prettiest shades of red, gold and brown. Even the birds are hopping around happily. Personally I prefer winter here in the ranges (I just love being inside - especially reading or cooking - with the fire roaring, rain pounding on the roof and the wind howling through the trees) and I do hope that this year the rainfall is much higher than in the previous years.

There has been much postive anticipation leading up to the 2009 Barossa Vintage Festival, which is only held every second year. The wine industry has had it's fair share of bad news and economics recently and recent talk of the government removing the WET tax will make things worse for some so it is good to see and feel the vibes of the Festival lifting at least some peoples spirits. Usually I am working too much to enjoy the festivities and although we are still having our own vintage (the grapes are picked later here in the ranges) I think I may have a little spare time to at least visit a few of the activities. Karra Yerta, as a winery, is not participating in any event this year mainly due to time constraints and the fact that I am in the midst of organising other exciting things for us in the very near future. I will however make an effort to see some of the heritage exhibitions and sample some of the fine food and wines produced in our beautiful area as there are still many wines that I have not tasted despite my best efforts:) One of my favourite events is the Yalumba Harvest Market which will be held this year on Tuesday April 14 and Wednesday April 15. The grounds of Yalumba provide a magnificent backdrop and there are always many stalls with samples of some of the Valley's finest wares.

During the past week I have been stopping to take photos of some of the scarecrows on display throughout the area. It is amazing how much time and effort some people put in to create their scarecrows. Here are a couple of scarecrow photos: one was taken in the Tanunda Foodland and the other is of Demolition Dave (the nick-name of a local who recently won on the television program "Wipe-Out"). I am sure that this year's Festival will be a great success and by the look of things, the weather is going to be sensational so to any of you who visit the area for it, have a great time and enjoy the special things our wonderful area has to offer.

A Winter Wine Event - watch this space!

This blog entry is to give you advance notice of a special event that will be happening in the Barossa on the last weekend in June. Some of you may be planning to visit the Barossa this winter (what better time for a Barossa Shiraz??) so if you are, please make a note in your diary so that you may attend a very exciting and indeed enticing new event.

The Barossa Wine and Tourism Association has come up with a new concept called Barossa At Home. The idea is for wineries to open their homes to limited numbers of guests (ten per winery) for a personalised evening of Barossa food and wines. Guests will have the opportunity to meet and speak with the people behind the wines. In our case, you will be dining with the three winemakers from the three wineries involved.

We are planning on having a combined dinner party at Karra Yerta with two of our three Collective offsiders: Gumpara Wines and Kurtz Family Vineyards. At this stage, and it is early days, we are looking at having three tables of nine guests with one of the winemakers at each table (we are allowed to have more guests as there are three wineries joining up for the event). A delicious home-cooked four-course feast will accompany our splendid range of wines and any wines that we produce that are not on the menu (food and wine matched) will be available for tasting on the night.

Please email me if you would like to be kept up to date with this event. I will also post information on this blog as it is finalised.

Breakfast at Rocland

After a hard day's picking, in the early hours of Monday morning James had a 4.30am start and I was not too far behind at 6.30 am. The grapes were on the trailer and Steve at Rocland Winery was awaiting our two loads to be checked in at the weighbridge. On the way I did an emergency stop at the best place for breakfast in the Barossa - Blonde Coffee - and picked up a toasted cheese, bacon, egg and tomato sandwich and two lattes to go - good sustenance for a morning crush of our riesling. Despite the chill still in the air from a very cold night, it was a very exciting morning to be standing at the weighbridge munching on our breakfast as we received our cartnotes from Steve. After the worry of the possibility of it being a non-vintage (heatwave) we had managed to pick our largest ever Eden Valley Riesling crop - 2.75 tonnes.

I worked at Rocland last vintage as a laboratory assistant and the first thing I noticed this year was that it was much more relaxed. The late and long heatwave of 2008 caused much drama and panic with last year's processing throughout the industry and it was really different to walk into the winery and see the boys (and girls) looking refreshed and happy. Only someone who has worked an eight to ten week stint of twelve hours a day under the incredible pressure of a horror (weather-wise) vintage will understand what I mean.

By the time I had popped around the place to say my hellos to past workmates, James had the bins waiting by the press and Aaron was on the forklift and ready to start unloading them. Juicy (Peter Gajewski) was out and about heading in our general direction and before too long, the bunches were being pressed and the wine glass was out so that we could taste the fruits of our labour for 2009. Delicious! Apples.. that was the most significant thing we could all taste.

By 10am it was all over and James and I went back to our respective jobs for the rest of the day quite happy knowing that the juice was pressed and already in a tank. It really is a terrific feeling to watch your grapes start the process of becoming wine. I can't wait to follow its progress and see how it turns out.

And another load bites the dust....

Today has been a superb autumn day with perfect conditions for harvesting our Eden Valley Riesling. Our crew of ten along with our own family of four (plus dog) had an almost six hour day of hand-picking as the crop was heavier than we expected despite the February heatwave.

We were lucky to have a great crew of German, Belgian and French pickers with a few Aussies and even an Englishman thrown in for good measure! Thanks guys - you did a wonderful job considering it was starting to get a bit warm in the sun by the end of the day. I hope the beer and riesling soothed your aches and pains:) Even the dog is worn out after his effort today. Our teenage sons, Daniel and Matthew, bucket-carried all day and did a fabulous job. The dog, meanwhile, just moved along behind us and basically did nothing of great excitement until right at the end when he got caught in some of the bird-netting laying on the ground. The hazards of being a "watch-dog" ie obviously not watching where he was going!

Presently the grapes are sitting under the shade of our old gum tree, waiting to be delivered to Rocland Wines tomorrow morning to be processed. James and I are going to be there to help and I can't wait to see it as I have never been at the winery for our own "crush" before (James has but I have always been unable to for one reason or another). Anyway, it's a short blog entry tonight but I was keen to post the photos of yet another wonderful day.