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Spring Seed Wine Co Blog

The Halfway Mark

28 February 2013

Well, Joch reckons he has ‘broken the back of vintage’ – or he will have done by the end of the week. Smaller than anticipated amounts of grapes and a burst of warm weather ensuring everything came in on top of each other has resulted in a fairly compressed harvest. We’ve still got Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and a fair bit of Shiraz out there, but a lot of the hard work has already been done. Joch, Nairn, Ian, Spencer and Brenton have been working their proverbials off. See the boys below on a warm morning after finishing off picking the Braden’s Pinot.

We didn’t dare ask what the stains were on Ian’s T shirt (on the left.) We try to pick the whites at night to ensure we get them into the winery nice and cool, to preserve their gentle flavours. The guys were picking the Semillon, below, on a perfect picking evening.

We found someone to help us out taking temperatures (of the ferments) and checking beaumes (to see how the ferment is progressing) none other that the doyenne of MYOB and our very soon to be ex-bookkeeper (she gave us a year’s notice), Leonie Broadbridge. I honestly don’t think that there is anything in this world that Leonie can’t turn her hand to. Thanks Leonie.

Despite the long hours of toil, there’s always time to relax and have a laugh at some of the days events (bogged harvester, tractor door removed without notice etc etc) and here we see Joch on his favourite, the old David Brown, looking a little bit bush ranger but managing to see the funny side of things.

It looks as if all that happens here is making wine, well no, some of us have to strike out to sell some of it! Roxie, Emma and Louise headed off to the Adelaide Convention Centre for the 3 day Cellar Door festival, where we caught up with customers old and new. A very successful few days was had. Here’s Roxie on the stand…Who is prettier, Rox or those gladioli?!

Hopefully the next blog will herald the beginning of the end of harvest and the advent of autumnal weather and some serious stews, braises and a little osso bucco action in the kitchen. Hopefully there’ll be time for one last swim of the season, too.

The Halfway Mark

Trophy at the 2013 Organic Wine Show

22 February 2013

For the second year running, the Puritan Shiraz {no added Preservative} has taken the trophy for best preservative free wine of show at the Australia and New Zealand Organic Wine Show. The 2012 Puritan won a Gold medal in the Shiraz Class (class 11), was the highest pointed wine in that class and then then went on to take the trophy for Best Preservative Wine of Show. The 2011 Puritan took the same trophy at last year’s show. Chief Wine Show Judge, Max Allen said on Twitter that the Puritan was ‘gorgeous, dark and slurpy.’ That about covers it!

Overall, Battle of Bosworth won 9 medals, including Silver medals for the Battle of Bosworth 2011 Chardonnay, 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon, 2012 Sauvignon Blanc and 2010 Battle of Bosworth Shiraz. A great result for us, well done Joch.

First Crush at Battle of Bosworth Vintage 2013

14 February 2013

We had an exciting start to the week, with the first crush of grapes at our new winery shed. The winery shed was built by Tyrrell’s (of the Hunter Valley) about twenty years ago. We bought the winery and its adjacent vineyards, both of which are next door to our Orchard block, and took over in April last year. And here we are making wine on site. This event called for Monday morning bubbles, to celebrate.

There’s Paul ‘Rowdy’ Matthews above, ‘handing over’ to Joch. Rowdy stayed and gave some expert advise on how the winery operates, which was fantastic. Rowdy ran the place for 17 years, so he has a good store of knowledge. Peter and Anthea Bosworth came along for the gala event, see below, and that’s Ian ‘the Bomb’ Adam looking both Country AND Western in the middle of them.

You can see Ian backing up the tractor and gondola of Pinot to the receival hopper below; this was the drum roll bit for us! Be careful Ian, remember to drive slowly, and no random cornering….

Quite a few locals popped their heads in to see what was going on – that’s contractor and grape grower Clint Ledgard on the left on BoB stalwart Spencer. Clint has helped out over the years – I’m never sure of how it all works, but I do see him working on the old UR harvester quite a bit. I do believe Clint was very helpful last night while picking the Semillon, Spencer? Something about not enough diesel for the tractor pulling the harvester?! Thanks Clint.

Book keeper Leonie always likes to know what’s going on about the place, she came along to check on proceedings and to help celebrate. She had a few helpful tips about operations, too – there’s almost nothing Leonie does not know, across all disciplines.

So….from the gondola into the pristine, almost virginal receival hopper with the augur thing…. (technical stuff is not my specialty). Look how clean it is! Well done Nairn.

Then up the conveyor thing to be gently crushed (we treat the Pinot with kid gloves to preserve those light cherry and strawberry flavours)

Through some red hoses….on their way…

…into the fermenting vessel. Hoorah, well done guys, first ever ferment ready to start at our place. A very exciting Monday morning.

Well done Nairn – the man in charge of the winery.

As an aside, we also hand-picked about 30% of our Pinot into these flex cube thingummies below, so they can undergo some ‘carbonic maceration’. This process (the grapes ferment from within – they don’t go through the crusher) help keep tannins soft and approachable. This ‘cab mac’ component will be blended back to the Pinot grapes which underwent more traditional process, see above.

In other news, I had to cancel my trip back to the UK to (wo)man the stand at our UK importers annual tasting, Bibendum Wines ‘A Matter of Taste’. Our guinea pig, Snowball could have told me that a netball comeback in one’s mid 40′s probably wasn’t going to be sustainable in the long term, but I insisted and ended up with a fractured ankle. Ouch. I managed to draft in a wine savvy friend of an old university mate of mine to stand in and pour the wines and talk the talk. Jim Carey (look at the spelling!) actually visited the vineyards before Christmas on a wine and rellie visiting tour of OZ with his Australian partner. Sadly both Joch and I missed him here at the vineyards, but many thanks for being such a hardworking and dedicated extended member of the BoB staff. My old Uni mate Chaz apparently turned up for the glory at the end of what is a very long days tasting. Thanks Chazzie and many thanks Jim.

Finally, from a work health and safety perspective, at long last we have proper signage on the dunny up at cellar door! Thanks Spencer for supplying and applying – much more professional than the chalk.

Upcoming events in March and April 2013

There are some great events coming up that Battle of Bosworth and Spring Seed are involved in, so open up your diaries and start blocking some dates off. First up is ‘Sips in the Country’, which is part of the inaugural Adelaide Food and Wine Festival. Sips in the Country is on Sunday April the 14th, at Glenroy Shearing Shed, 14183 Riddoch Highway in Coonawarra. It is being catered for by the CWA, and the ladies of wine are making dessert! This promises to be a belter of an event, and in a wonderful setting. For more information about the event, click here and for bookings, click here.

The next couple of events are gender specific, which means, menfolk, you’ll have to stay home and do the darning or ironing. The Fabulous Ladies Wine Society in conjunction with Aussie Wine Month presented by Wine Australia are holding two events, one in Melbourne and one in Brisbane, called Wine, Women and Shoes.

They both promise to be a whole lot of fun. The Melbourne event is on Thursday 18th April at the Prince Deck and the Brisbane event is on Tuesday the 23rd April at Rydges Southbank. Click here for more details about the events, and to make bookings. Cheers!