Sauvignon successfully picked, eventually……

It was a cool and foggy start to the day (Wednesday 16th Sept). Ideal conditions for picking (keeps the grapes nice and cool) but maybe not quite so ideal for the pickers. Sauvignon are always the trickiest to pick, firstly because they have very short stems so finding them before snipping them off is difficult and secondly because they need to be carefully picked to avoid any rotten grapes. Good start though, very little botrytis (rot) and lots of grapes. In fact so many grapes that we couldn’t pick them all in a day…. As the day went on it got warmer and warmer, increasing the possibility of oxidation but eventually we filled one of our larger tanks and called it a day. Thursday we needed to press the grapes after their skin maceration but before that we had to get out there again and pick and press the rest of the crop. Success. Very very long day and we’re all exhausted but the juice looks really good. This year we’ve nearly 7,500 litres compared to just 2,000 litres last year when the weather severely reduced our crop! Here are some pictures taken during harvest