Strange Days…

First day picking was at Cornish Point, several rows of Chardonnay. I got up in the dark, donned all my cycle gear, put my head-torch on, switched on my rear light and headed off to work. I can cut across a field and down a short little downhill trail before joining to road which turns to dirt track. It’s makes for one hell of a commute. I was first there so got the number 1 snips, which you have to guard with your life. Loose one and you’ll replace it and suffer beer fines in the pub on Friday. Leave it in the bucket where you place the grapes, and it goes into the press and you cause $4000 of damage, cost the winery several days and suffer the wrath of an Otago lynch mob. I was suitably sacred as Gareth gave us the pep talk that first morning, but also gradually lapsing into a sub-zero state. There was a frost on.

                 Unseasonal frosts are one of the reasons that Otago was initially disregarded as a viable grape-growing region. They can strike in the spring or autumn and unchecked they can devastate the crop. Many of the vines are planted on north-facing slopes, which means the colder air drains away. On flatter sites the grapes may be sprinkled with water, which freezes around them and insulates them. Another way is to put blooming great propellers in the middle of the vineyards and they literally blow the freezing away off the vines. These fire up maybe 4 or 5am when a frost is due and sound like a swarm of helicoptors. Close your eyes, put on a Doors song and and bang! you’re punching mirrors.

                 And so we were there, 8am listening to Gareth tell us the ins and outs of grape picking stamping our feet and rubbing our hands in an effort to keep warm. I was wearing leg and arm warmers bought in Queenstown (an elegant and cheap solution rather than buying a long-sleeved t-shirt and trousers), lycra shorts, baggy shorts, merino base layer, t-shirt, cycle shirt, soft-shell and buff. By 4pm, when I got back to the hut, I was down to shorts and t-shirt and was stretched out on the sun-lounger. Within the span of the day I experienced an early English winter and by the end of it I was in mid-July. Surreal but amazing and an illustration of what makes this region make such special grapes. The diurnal temperature variation, i.e. the difference between the temperature at night and the day, is extreme and contributes complexity and flavour to the developing grapes. It also makes picking them complex, as you gradually peel off during the morning as the sun grows in strength, and soon us pickers and often the ends of the rows, are festooned with various items of excess clothing. Smokos, the mid-morning and afternoon break (although nobody smokes) gives you opportunity to chuck these in your bag. They one hell of a good bunch of people here abnd an eclectic bunch. Kiwis of course, but Germans, French, Czech, Aussies, Brits, Yanks and Swiss all add to our melting pot. Some are on exchange programs, from vineyards in Muscadet, Burgundy, the Valais and California. Others, like me, asked and have been invited to join the merry crew. As Gareth said, we are here picking some of the best grapes in the world. I think he followed that by ‘so don’t fuck it up’ but it does feel like a real priviledge to be here.

                 And lastly the grapes themselves. So far we have picked Chardonnay at Cornish Point, then Chardonnay and Riesling at Calvert, then young Riesling vines at Elms, before moving on to the famous Block 6 Chardonnay vines, 15 years old and bursting with fruit. You frequently taste the grapes for quality. As Nick said, if you’re in doubt try it, if it tastes shit throw it away. There’s a beautiful simplicity to that remark. Occaisionally there are errant vines in the rows, and best of this was when we found Gewurztraminer amongst the Chardonnay. It tastes incredible, sweet but intensely floral. Yummy. Finally we were picking Pinot Noir in Calvert. All the time I’m asking questions and hopefully learning something. Apart from the taste of a grape there are other things you look for; smaller berries which give a higher pulp to juice ratio, the berries should be crunchy with seed, the flesh should be beginning to brown, the skin should be opaque. And the biodynamism is evident all around you, from the weeds and other plants left to grow alongside the vines, to the spiders and other insects that live amongst them. One fellow picker bemoaned the fact she had just sliced a earwig in half but there is sometimes no avoiding it. I’ll cover biodynamic viticulture another time, when I have fully understood it, but for now just consider what herbicides and insecticides are: toxins, which when sprayed on the vine anter the vine and so enter wine it eventually produces. Biodynamics taps into a more ancient understanding of growth and nature that does not rely on chemical agents to promote growth but instead utilises natural compounds that bring out the strength and industry of the vine. My inner-hippy loves it.