Wow! So…we made it.
Marlborough harvest 2015 at New Zealand Wineries; done and dusted.
Well done team!
As promised, it was short and sharp thanks to the deliveries of Mother Nature.
As expected, every harvest moment involved hard work, commitment, passion and learning.
And of course smiles, laughter, the odd tear, a fair dose of stress, and a massive amount of satisfaction.
For some of the NZW harvest crew, the last few weeks has added yet another wonderful grape gathering experience to an already colourful winemaking career.
For others, the end of harvest has marked the first learning experience of winemaking.
Whether it be racking and inoculating white wine, punching down caps and getting down and dirty with all things red wine, making sure the grapes make it safely into the hopper, working the press, being immersed in the world of oak, or keeping numbers in order in the lab, and no matter where one came from or how much experience they had, it was all about one team having one vision…. To make the NZW 2015 harvest an amazing one.
By definition, a highlight is ‘an outstanding part of an event or period of time,’ and a bit of a roundup of harvest highlights from the NZW crew have been jotted down here.
Happiness highlights can be sought from the smallest seemingly insignificant moments, like pulling off your steel-cap gumboots after a long enduring night shift and swapping them for your soft warm sneakers.
Or taking a moment to enjoy a sweet sunset or sunrise, because nothing compares to a winery full of stainless steel to reflect and enhance the colours of that sky.
Surprise goodies that turn up in the smoko room just for the love of sweet treats always brought a flurry of excitement, as did Easter Bunnies. And let’s not forget the abundance of feijoas.
The hum of the presses and the general winery noise was always best accompanied by more harmonious airwaves, so was common for each quarter to boast its own choice of sweet tunes, often meaning four different songs playing on at once. Let’s call it a display of individualism.
The moments of harvest we liked to forget at the time, such as accidentally getting covered in wine or juice, or prematurely removing an RDV cake, can be looked back on as lessons learned and character building.
We can all relate to those days when the pending workload caused the stomach to make a flip, the throat to gulp, and a slight nervous laughter trickle through the group. But that’s what harvest is about, and when the grapes start to roll, there’s no stopping them.
It was those busiest days that brought out the best in our team, with everyone grafting together and sharing positive energy to keep spirits high.
We now speak of the 2015 harvest in past tense. Immediately following harvest comes the elbow grease hard graft cleaning, and also satisfying moments like seeing ferments finish and wine go to barrel.
It’s now time for the vines to relax and the 2015 NZW harvest crew to give themselves a pat on the back, and tuck their memories in a safe and happy place.
And moving forward into the rest of the year at NZW…. Well the work has just begun.
It's a wrap... 2015 harvest
