More "wine dogs"

Zac and Karli having a momentary rest from inspecting the rows in Woollaston's Mahana vineyard.

Cellar hands at work

Here are my cellar hand buddies who have been teaching me all the tricks of the trade. Doug is looking after the press. Michael is on the fork-lift. This is the last day of Sauvignon Blanc processing. Next week it's Pinot Noir.

Easter Sunday

The unlikely event happened, that Woollaston gave us the entire four days off for Easter as the Sav Blanc is now processed and the Pinot Noir picking will commence in earnest this coming week. Although I worked Saturday afternoon at Fresh Choice and Trina had a day of My Pie at the Mapua Festival today, most of the weekend involves gardening. The weeds have taken over and so we have undertaken to pull back the old tan-bark, pull out the weeds and then put down some weed mat before replenishing the tan-bark and making it all pretty again. Also, the long awaited vegie garden will evolve in a quiet corner. 

After collecting Trina from the festival this afternoon, we drove home via Richmond where we took the dogs for a walk up the hills. I just happened to pack a bottle of Pinot, glasses, chips and dog treats and we all stayed and watched the sunset over the Tasman Ranges. 

A few winery shots

Zac and Karli made it to work today...not much help though.

The Lees Filter

This filter can turn the muck at the bottom of a tank into pure clear juice...if you connect it up correctly. Those filter plates can go in two ways, the right or wrong way. With a 50:50 chance of getting it right, I managed to get it wrong today. After pulling it apart to fix it, we didn't lose too much juice, but, it makes me think of the efforts of all the people involved the steps along the way to get it to this stage and so the importance of keeping every precious drop gains magnitude. 

Every day is a learning process and today's mistakes will lead to tomorrow's success.