Notice board

This is a wine tank on which I seem to write myself notes during the wine-making process. Our vineyard is tiny - just 5000 old vines, so to 'proper' winemakers these quantities will look ridiculously small.

Today we've been running off the Grenache wine, then pressing the must* in a beautiful basket press. I meant to take a photo of that process, but completely forgot in the excitement.

We did the same with the Syrah yesterday and we're hoping to do the Grenache and Carignan on Tuesday or Wednesday. This is a worrying/exciting part of the year. Our harvest was completed at the end of August and we've been fermenting the grapes since then. The fermentation is now complete, so the wine has to over-winter in tanks. Frankly, until it is in bottles, anything can go wrong so we have well-bitten, wine-stained nails at this time of year.

(*must is the name for the grape skins, pips and squashy stuff that you get when you make wine. It rises to the top of the tank. You run off the wine, then press the must to squash out even more.)