So you think you can wine?

Have you ever wondered what it's like to make wine? We have .... a lot. Darren Brown from Puddleduck has also been doing a fair bit of wondering. In fact he wondered so much that he decided to enrol in a wine making degree and spend a lot of money.

While picking grapes at Puddleduck recently we learnt that Darren and Jackie had decided it was time they made their first pinot and we decided to go along for the ride.

Over the next 12 to 18 months we are going to follow 

these grapes

from here

to here.

By the end you will know exactly how the 2010 Puddleduck Pinot was made. "We expect it will be available around June 2011" Darren told us. Since we will be 'helping' along the way we bags the first bottle.

Step one - grape picking

Annoyingly grapes do not grow in bottles. More annoyingly the best way to get them on their way is to hand pick them. Most annoyingly this involves physical effort, insect attack and bleeding. Still the Puddleduck Vineyard on a bright sunny Friday morning is a pretty wonderful place to be ...

Before you can pick the grapes they have to be ripe. So how do you know? "If they look ripe, taste them" Darren advises. So we did. They tasted sweet, juicy and num num num (sorry about the technical jargon - Ed). Our opinion was supported by Darren who commented on the breadth and intensity of the flavour. 

Having decided that the grapes are ready the first job is to remove the nets. If you want a crop you have to  protect it from the local bird population. You'll see from the photo that the nets are pegged into the ground. This is to stop critters from getting underneath and help prevent them from blowing away. Some vineyards join their nets together which saves on pegging but if the wind catches them the whole lot can go ... seriously!

Once the nets are either removed or lifted you can start picking. Unlike white grapes, which are green, red grapes, which are red, can be seen easily. There were fewer leaves so it was harder, but not impossible, to miss bunches. However picking was complicated by the need to look out for wasp damage, unripe grapes and spiders. A lot of wine appears to be made up of crushed spider's webs. "Adds protein" commented Darren "good for you mate".

Darren and Jackie don't own a forklift yet so we left the grapes in their picking buckets and loaded them into the ute. Darren then headed for the winery narrowly missing people and dogs along the way.

Step two - De-stem and crush

The first step in the wine making process proper is to remove the grapes from the bunch stems. This is done with a machine called a de-stemmer/crusher.

The grapes are weighed, put into the top shute of the machine and at the touch of a button the magic begins ...

The machine works by rotating the bunches and pushing them through a circular piece of metal that has holes in it. The grapes can go through but the bunch stems get caught. The newly separated grapes are sent into the crusher and then fall into a bin. The stems are pushed out the end of the machine and fall into another bin.

Despite the name 'crusher' the grapes come through remarkably intact. "The crusher really just breaks open the grapes so the juice can start to come out" Darren explained. 

Step three - The start of fermentation.

In order to kill any wild yeast that may have settled in the grapes as a result of the wasp damage (wasps eat grapes using the holes created by bird pecks) sulphur is added. Darren also checks the sugar levels in the juice which indicate the level of alcohol that will be present in the finished product. It looks like the 2010 will have similar levels of alcohol to previous Puddleduck pinots.

Seeing the juice we had to try it. It was quite sweet and very rich. If you've bought high quality fruit juice you'll know what we mean. Frankly we wanted to take some with us. 

Finally the desired yeast is added to begin the fermentation. The amount of yeast required depends on the weight of grapes that are in the bin. This is why all the grape buckets were weighed twice. Once full and then again when they were empty. 

A lot of thought goes into selecting the yeast. There is an enormous range available and picking the right one is a bit of an art. Yeast can and does affect the ultimate taste of the wine. Getting the combination right can take awhile so while Darren intends to experiment in the future for now he is using the one that has gone into previous Puddleduck pinots.

Of interest to us is the fact that it is the addition of yeast that begins the conversion of the grape sugar into that most wonderful of things .... alcohol!

Step four - Rest and reward

It was a pretty long day all up and so we thought we deserved some sort of reward. What we didn't know was how special that reward would be .....

A bottle of 1993 Grange. Sure we didn't follow the very strict instructions that come on the label. Penfolds are very particular about letting the wine breath through proper decanting before you drink it but it still tasted absolutely amazing. Some times reality does match the hype.

Next time ..... the wine is pressed and put into barrels

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