"Bottled and Dusted"

Yesterday we bottled ~5130 un-wooded organic Chardonnay. For our small cellar this is quite a logistic and volume to manage as all is done on the farm. Murphy's law applied as the bottles from Consol (monopoly) arrived just minutes before. After sterilizing the bottling equipment with steam and hooking up the tank it was the nitrogen gas that ran out, but only right at the end so no damage done. One needs the gas to put a layer on top of the wine to prevent oxygen aging the wine prematurely. So as the bottle leaves the filler nozzle the next step is to level the bottle's volume to exactly 750ml which is done by blowing out the small excess with inert gas such as nitrogen. Every 10 bottles an identifying sticker is added and then laid horizontal into big wooden crates to rest. The wine undergoes the so called bottle shock which takes about 2 weeks to subside. Wines are actually permanent in a stage of transition but the one after bottling is quite a noticeable change of taste before and after.
Our neighbouring farmer Andris was so kind to support us with three extra labourers to help operating the entire process.

Sydney was cursing the forklift and bottling machine in tandem as my good old forklift hardly made it up the hill into the winery without a good manual push and the bottling machine loves to strike every now and then with half filled bottles (the machine takes the new health warnings way to literate)but after all the day was a success and we celebrated the first new wine of the season in bottle with ... you guessed it: a bottle of Oude Wellington Chardonnay.
The picture today shows the new label and health warnings which are now compulsory on all wines.Click on the next text for a large picture of the new label See%20label%20here.pdf

Celebration

Ines, my little daughter, received her degree at the weekend from Rhodes University. The film snippet shows the grand setup for the young people to be honored for their work and dedication. I also heard a most sincere and concerned speech from the Vice-Chancellor that I take the freedom to attach as well. It is well worth reading and I hope I am not infringing on any publishing rights by doing so. That is exactly the spirit our new academics should live by. No, what am I saying, we all should live by it. We define success only by monetary and status alone. Needless to say I am very proud of Ines and also that the event was followed by a party with crazy hats and produce made from grapes ;-).
In the winery the stock taking of SAWIS (the governing body of the wine industry) just a day before the elections. We are also getting ready for the bottling of the new organic Chardonnay and last minute setups are fitted in between the normal daily chores. GraduationCeremoniesAddressFinal-April2009.doc