WE completed our wine grape harvest with the last three trucks of Lambrusco Maestri last week.
We are happy with the result and only had to harvest a small amount onto the ground that couldn’t be sold.
Fertiliser is being put through the irrigation and I’m about to spread about spread 170 tonnes of compost under the vine rows.
My confidence in the industry is still not great so I’m already on the marketing band wagon out there, really pushing for next year’s fruit.
With so much red wine in storage from previous vintages, there is quite a lot of red wine being put through an elaborate process to change it to the more desirable white wine – and the demand for no alcohol wine is still growing and that process is even more complex.
To produce a non-alcoholic wine, the grapes are fermented normally to capture the desired colour, flavour and aroma levels, and before the alcohol is literally spun out of the wine through elaborate spinning cone technology, the aroma and other components are captured, stored and added back later to make the resulting wine taste more like a normal wine.
I haven’t tried many yet, but have to report that the first ones I have tried were not much chop.
Lower alcohol wines, such as a Moscato are simply not fully fermented, and the fermentation process is stopped about halfway through the process and retain sweetness from juice that isn’t fully converted to alcohol.
The Queensland fruit flies have adapted well to our region during the past few years and have adapted to the cold winters by watching a few of the locals make their Grappa wine (rocket fuel).
The flies make some for themselves with the leftover bits of fruit around the district and have a few drops when they feel cold – and it is helping keep them as warm as toast for about a month.
The creatures in the vineyard are in election mode and are excited about the Greens’ policies, such as the outlawing of snail pellets and the crows and starlings housing packages of ready-to-assemble delivered nesting packs.
Our granddaughter has been asking and asking to come and see the tractors on the farm and her first visit is this coming weekend.
Although 12-week-old Alaia may not quite be big enough to drive a tractor just yet, perhaps by Christmas time she will be raring to go.
Have a great Easter and talk to your mates.
