Passing Clouds

by Graeme Leith

  Why do we do it, though? What makes it an ongoing adventure is probably hard to explain. What makes us work with an almost fanatical zeal, for long and often inconvenient hours and for little financial reward when we could be doing something else—something less taxing on our minds, our bodies, our relationships? It is a constant journey that really has no end, for it is a succession of journeys, from vintage to vintage, each one promising something different from the one before, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different and always with the enticing, tantalising possibility that we can make a wine that is better than any we have ever made before, perhaps better than anybody has ever made before.

  Just as a landscape gardener may never live long enough to see his plans reach glorious fruition, so winemakers (elderly ones, at least) are making wines they will never live long enough to see reach maturity. But still we do it.

  Are we seeking some sort of immortality in a bottle? Probably. We seem to approach each new vintage with hope tempered by trepidation, for every one is a new challenge to be met. Sometimes when vintage approached, I used to relate myself to a line in Banjo Patterson’s The Man from Snowy River—‘And the stockhorse snuffs the battle with delight.’ Vintage is a battle, always.

  But vintage is more than merely a battle, for the winemaker must orchestrate the whole operation from grape picking to bottling. Indeed, he or she is like a conductor of an orchestra.

  The instruments are assembled—the picking buckets, the trailer, the tractor. At the winery, awaiting the arrival of the grapes, the crusher lies in readiness like a giant bassoon asleep but about to wake and unleash its sound. The press is a torrent of brass restrained. The fermentation tanks are ready, waiting to be filled, the press crouches hungry, too. The barrels, freed of last year’s vintage and now cleansed, lurk in the shadows.

  The musicians are assembled—the pickers with their snips and buckets, the men to collect the grape-filled buckets, the winery workers waiting to receive them, and the winemaker about to weave his magic—or more accurately perhaps, to assist nature in the wondrous alchemic process that turns the prosaic grape into the poetry that is wine. When the hydrometer, in consultation with his palate, tells the winemaker that all is ripe enough, then the baton is flourished and vintage commences. And there’s no stopping it until the last grape is fermented.

  Vintage is an exciting and all-consuming time, and when the last strains of the music fade and the winery floor is cleaned for the final time, we return home to reconnect with our truncated lives, hoping, selfishly, that our family is still there for us. We may have been away from reality, as it is generally known, for some months, but we weren’t counting the days.

  10

  Making wine

  Vintage

  Winemaking, or vinification, is the production of wine, starting with selection of the grapes and ending with bottling the finished wine.

  Vintage (the harvesting of wine grapes) is one of the most crucial steps in the process of winemaking. The time of harvest is determined primarily by the ripeness of the grape as measured by sugar, acid and tannin levels, with winemakers basing their decision to pick based on the style of wine they wish to produce. The weather can also shape the timetable of harvesting with the threat of heat, rain, hail and frost, which can damage the grapes and bring about various vine diseases. Spraying the foliage and bunches against the likely infection of mildew becomes a significant and time-consuming chore throughout the season; winemakers practising organic or biodynamic viticulture have a particularly stressful time of it during conditions that are favourable to disease.

  At Kingower, grapes are usually harvested in about mid-March, and at our cooler-climate Musk winery as late as the first week in May. For us, vintage usually lasts about two months.

  As vintage time comes around, we order in the yeast, along with some tartaric acid in crystalline form in case the wine requires additional acid. This is usually the case with very ripe fruit, because as the sugars in the grapes increase the acid falls away.

  Ironically, perhaps, the tartaric has often been extracted from the residue of vintage, from the by-product ‘marc’—the leftover pips and skins. Being so cool, our Musk vineyard does not require the addition of acid to the crushed grapes (‘must’). There is plenty of it retained and it is one of the reasons why the vineyard is where it is, for naturally occurring acids seem to be superior to added tartaric. On the other hand, super-ripe shiraz may require 2 or more grams of tartaric per litre to ensure that the wine is not flabby or flat on the palate. The acid also has the virtue of being a preservative and explains the longevity of, for instance, cool-climate pinots and chardonnays compared to those from warmer climes.

  In preparation for the harvest, as vintage time approaches, we clean our fermenters and move them into position inside the winery shed.

  Our friends, the fermenters

  Fermenters come in all shapes and sizes, from the humble but effective ‘large saucepans’ to the high-tech rotary fermenters that receive the grapes in one end and after several days of slow rotation—providing maceration without the need for plunging bulk or pumping over—eventually emit fermented must (the pulp of crushed grapes) out the other end, ready to be poured into the press.

  At Passing Clouds our fermenters are all old stainless-steel milk vats of differing shapes, open (without lids), acquired over the years. They were all given girls’ names, a more informal and pleasant way, we thought, of identifying and referring to them than numbers.

  Anna, the largest, takes about 3 tons three times each vintage. Thus over the years—since 1980 when my partner Sue Mackinnon drove to Shepparton in the Telecom ute and brought her back to the winery with half an hour to spare before she was put into service—Anna has probably fermented 180 tons of grapes, or 108,000 bottles of wine, or comfortably more than a million dollars’ worth(even at $10 a bottle).

  In all, Passing Clouds uses twelve fermenters. As well as big Anna, there are Beryl, Claudia, Dionne, Esmé, Francine, Gertrude, Harriet, Ina, Marilyn, Olivia and finally Pamela, so named because she is such a masterpiece of the stainless-steel craftsman’s work that I could not bear to cut her outer sheath off and remove the insulation as we had done with the others. There was a curvaceous and beautiful television actress named Pamela Anderson, and our new fermenter had beautifully rounded and voluptuous curves on her interior that conceal the cooling pipes within. On her flanks was a plaque showing that she had been proudly made by the Anderson Company. So, inevitably, Pamela.

  All the open fermenters (except those that may be in use for whole-bunch foot-stomped treatment) are hand-plunged twice daily to force the floating ‘cap’ of skins down into the liquid wine beneath. The plunging tool we use has a shaft, or handle, welded to a stainless-steel plate, with an additional small handle set halfway up the shaft and at right angles to it, to allow for extra purchase.

  Then, in 2002, we acquired two new 5000-litre variable capacity upright tanks. These can be used for either fermentation or storage so they are pivotal to our operations. As they have a water jacket they can be hooked up to the chiller and the ferment can be cooled. We can even wrap them in insulation and take the temperature down to sub-zero for cold stabilisation prior to bottling.

  Our dedicated Japanese assistant at the time, Miwako, named them after the oldest women in Japan, 105-year-old twins with the Japanese equivalent names of Silver and Gold. Finally, Jill Burdett, from Old Loddon Wines at Bridgewater, lent us two other variable capacity tanks, hence they became Jill and her daughter Alisa. Although they are holding tanks, Silver, Gold, Jill and Alisa can also be used as fermenters if required, as they often are.

  As noted, Anna is the largest of the open fermenters, holding almost 3 tons, and the other girls hold 1.5 tons down to about a half a ton in the case of Ina and Francine.

  All of them can be moved with a forklift, so they are brought into the winery shed for the two-month vintage period. Then, when no longer required for fermentation
purposes, they are taken back outside and parked under the peppercorn trees for the other ten months of the year, to allow the vacated part of the winery to be used for barrel storage.

  The used barrels are thoroughly washed with the highly sophisticated barrel washer, a wheeled implement attached by hose to a large pressure washer. A rotating nozzle, slender enough to fit into the bung hole of the barrel, is inserted and the machine energised so that the nozzle turns, powered by its electric motor, every which way inside the barrel. The jet of water thus released can be varied in temperature from cold to steam and the force of the jet is powerful enough to dislodge unwanted tartrate crystals from the wooden staves of the barrel which then wash out of the bunghole of the upturned barrel. It wasn’t always like this; in my early winemaking days I cleaned them using a piece of plastic pipe with slots cut into it at various angles. This was attached to a water hose inserted into the barrel and jiggled about, which was then rolled over on wooden rails and drained. This process was repeated until the water ran clear, but it was always an imprecise procedure, even later when we had a forklift and could raise the inverted barrel to a respectable height and insert the pressure washer lance. After washing, the barrels are then given some form of sulphur treatment (we burn sulphur rings inside them) to protect them from spoilage.

  Selecting barrels for purchase is a complex business, as there are so many combinations and permutations: French, American or Hungarian? Barriques, hogsheads or puncheons? No toast, partial toast or full toast? Australian or French made? One-, two- or three-year air-dried timber? What forest—Vosjes, Limousin, Troncais, Missouri? How much are you prepared to pay?

  You generally get what you pay for, and an extra tight-grained French oak barrel made by a reputable maker costs a lot. We are now in the age of the ‘celebrity cooper’!

  From berry to bottle

  After the decision to harvest has been made, the grapes are usually hand-picked into plastic buckets then tipped into half-ton plastic or wooden bins and transported to the winery on a trailer or the back of a ute. In the case of mechanically harvested fruit, the harvester pours the grapes into the bins, travelling along beside it on a truck or trailer.

  Usually, the grapes are lifted up with the forklift in half-ton boxes onto the bin tipper 2.3 metres above the ground. They are then tipped and raked out onto the stainless-steel slide and so down into the crusher/destemmer below.

  We have had several crusher/destemmers over the years, of increasing sophistication. For instance, our current one can be adjusted to crush and destem in various ways. For basic winemaking it can be set so that the grape berries are fully crushed and the stalks are flung out the end by a series of paddles, like an Archimedean screw with arms. But its internal workings can be altered so that the grapes can be only partially crushed, or not crushed at all if whole-berry ferment is required. If whole-bunch fermentation is required—that is, the bunch goes into the ferment fruit, stalks and all—then we usually put the buckets onto the trailer instead of tipping them into the half-ton bins, and at the winery pour them direct from the buckets into the press hatch. This is a time- and energy-consuming business, but necessary if we want delicate treatment of the whites; so we usually do this with chardonnay.

  For whole-bunch fermentation of pinot, we tip the grapes from the picking buckets directly into an open fermenter, say, Beryl or Dionne, and possibly leave them there for a couple of days under a plastic sheet lid and a protective C02 cover, for what is called a cold soak. They are usually given a dose of sulphur to eliminate any potential nasty bugs, then fermentation occurs naturally with wild or indigenous yeast or with the addition of one of the commercially available cultured yeasts.

  As fermentation begins, the grapes—either whole-bunch or destemmed, depending on the winemaker’s preference—are normally foot-stomped once or twice a day by people with very clean legs and feet. At Kingower the ‘All-girl Foot-stomping Team’ would get off the school bus, wash their feet and legs, then stomp away to the music on the ghettoblaster delivered by the bands or singers of their choice—as years went by, it was the Seekers’ ‘Georgie Girl’ then, eventually, Aqua’s ‘I’m a Barbie Girl’. Foot-stomping is a traditional and gentle way of crushing the grapes, and still perhaps the best, especially for pinot noir. Large wineries with an eye to ultimate quality have alternative mechanical devices that replicate the work of the stompers.

  If the grapes are being crushed/destemmed, then the must falls into the must pump below, under the crusher that delivers them into the various fermenting vats via a large hose. When each vat is full enough, or when changing batches, the hose is swapped over to another vat.

  As with the crushers, we have had several presses over the years to press out the must after fermentation or, in the case of whole-bunch treatment, before fermentation. We began with a basic basket press, consisting of a cage or basket made with wooden slats sitting on a metal base, with a large threaded metal rod rising from the centre of the base onto which was placed a wooden lid. Then a very basic and very heavy metal ratchet device, with the aid of the handle, would be progressively cranked down as the juice was squeezed out into the stainless-steel tray beneath—a process that would take an hour or two until it was considered that enough tannin and colour had been extracted. The pressure would then be released by reversing the mechanism and cranking it up, at which time the two halves of the basket could be separated and removed, leaving a solid cake of skins and pips that could be pushed or forked onto the trailer to be taken out to the vineyard and spread beneath the vines as mulch. (In France, the skins and pips are often re-fermented with the addition of water and the resulting poor quality wine distilled into cheap brandy, or for the ubiquitous marc de Bourgogne.)

  We finally ended up with three of those hand-cranked presses but our production became too much for them, so we purchased a second-hand Giaguaro Press that had a much larger basket and a hydraulic motor to force the lid down via a powerful ram. We really felt ourselves to be in Rolls-Royce country as the press automatically went about its work.

  Later again, when we began harvesting serious quantities (for us) of chardonnay from Musk and began purchasing more red grapes, we bought an airbag press with a 1500-litre capacity. This meets our requirements, although even it is stretched at times, with the press—and the boys feeding and emptying it—being flat-out during the 2013 vintage at Musk.

  The airbag press works on a simple principle and consists of a large horizontal drum, perforated on one side to allow the juice to run out. Within there is a large bladder or bag which lies deflated while the press is filled, either from the must pump or the buckets. The hatch is then closed and locked and the pressing cycle begins. This can be manually or automically controlled after the timer is set to the winemaker’s requirements to take over the operation. From then on it cycles in a similar manner to a domestic clothes-washing machine; it rotates then stops with the perforated side facing down and begins to drain. The bag then inflates to force more juice from the pips and skins within. After the predetermined time, the bag deflates and the drum rotates, rolling the contents around for the set period; then it stops again and the bag inflates to a higher pressure and so on until the operation is complete. Towards the end of the pressing cycle, the winemaker observes and tastes the wine, now a trickle, and decides when to call ‘full stop’. It is a truly wonderful machine. Comparing the resulting wine to that from the basket press we have no reason to prefer the basket-pressed wine with reds, and with whites the airbag press is, to our minds, definitely superior.

  As fermentation progresses, if the temperature begins to rise towards an unacceptable level, the stainless-steel cooling coil is inserted into the must through which coolant is pumped from the moveable refrigeration unit, the ‘gelati machine’ as it is known here, for it makes things very cold and is made in Italy. In earlier times we had a little crusher/destemmer that just sat across the vat and we fed the buckets into it directly from the trailer as it arrived from th
e vineyard. Silver and Gold both have cooling water jackets built into their sides so the cooling unit hoses are connected to these, and this small but very effective machine can control fermenting temperatures in them as well as in the open fermenters. If required we can wrap the fermenters in insulation and cold-stabilise the whites and pinots down to –2 degrees Celsius. If this cold stabilisation is not carried out, then the bottled wine can drop crystals of tartrate—not harmful but not aesthetically pleasing to some.

  Prior to bottling, the white wines are ‘fined’ or clarified by the addition of various clarifying substances, from isinglass (gelatin) to milk, most of which, perhaps surprisingly, have been used for centuries. At Passing Clouds we fine our reds with egg whites, which also soften the tannins.

  Our Big Daddy is T1, a 13,000-litre holding tank where we put finished wine (blended in the tank if required) to be readied for bottling. Silver and Gold are usually put into service in their other role of holding or blending tanks at this time, as are Jill and Alisa, often Bertha and Little Silver. Cameron has recently purchased some more, so now we have Tessa and co. as well. The bottling and labelling is done by the contract bottling company, Portavin, which uses a semitrailer packed with high-tech machinery and conveyor belts—a veritable factory on wheels. After this the bottles are put into cartons, which are then folded, closed and pushed through the taping machine, after which the description of the wine is spray-painted onto the side of the carton. It then goes down the gravity roller conveyor to be stacked onto pallets on the ground, then wrapped and forklifted to the warehouse shed.