Wwoofing at Remarkable Wines

Kia ora!

Making wine!

Wwoofing in New Zealand is very different from that in Australia.  It has apparently gotten much looser in recent years in allowing hosts who want general help unrelated to farming.  Many hosts want help with childcare, cleaning, shop/cafe tending, building, or other handywork.  I personally don't like having to wade through all the casual worker ads.  I want to learn or improve skills related to agriculture, mammallian or vegetative.  Many hosts are specific about the length of stay, ranging from 2-4 days only to minimum stays of 1 - 4 weeks to several months.

WWOOF NZ is online!  Hosts and Wwoofers have individual profiles that members are able to peruse and short list.  I am able to search by geographic area, host name, or keyword which is very handy.  Each profile has areas for description, previous experience, additional info, photos and comments; most comments are positive.

So I've wwoofed at 4 places so far.  My first wwoofing job was for Remarkable Wines, a vineyard and boutique winery, in Bannockburn about an hour from Queenstown.  (One of the primary mountain ranges in the area is called The Remarkables - LOL).  I took a local bus to Cromwell ($15), 10 minutes from Bannockburn where my host, Richard, picked me up.  It was a little strange in that Richard already had 7 young wwoofers and no bed for me.

He asked if I would do some gardening over the weekend for his neighbors in exchange for staying in their caravan for a week.  So I did some garden design, divided and replanted clumps of tussock grass and euphorbia/spurge, transplanted thyme and other culled plants and did some general cleanup.  The Browns were really happy with the results and I enjoyed working with them.  They also had Richard and his whole crew over for dinner one night.

Bird pecked grapes

On Monday, we went to Richard's vineyard in Gibbston, halfway back to Qtown, to pick Pinot Noir grapes.  About 12 - 18 of us picked for about 12 hours over 2 days.  I don't know how many tons of grapes we picked - 30? 35? 40?! After  a day off, we picked Riesling grapes in front of the house/winery for over 8 hours; we were so close to the end that we decided to finish picking the last rows that day. Richard handed out Cadbury Nut and Raisin chocolate bars which was enough to motivate me!

Each picker has a pair of snips and a large (20 liter/6 gallon) bucket.  A few crates are in each row for overflow.  I wore my gloves while picking.  Your hands get really sticky when you try to take bad grapes off.  The fingers of the gloves got stuck together; better than my fingers!  And the mornings were frosty so at least my hands were warm(er).

Generally, you want large clusters of big grapes.  Grape pickers are usually paid by time (we did have casual workers with us - $13/hour) and small clusters aren't worthwhile. You snip each cluster and inspect it.  If a cluster has a few bad grapes, cut them out; more than a few, discard on the ground.   I got more proficient the longer I picked.  Oh! the waste!!!

2 tonnes of Pinot Noir

We only want undamaged grapes.  We look out for wasp or bird pecked grapes and grapes with phytophera or botrytus.  Wasps and birds make a hole or slit in the fruit which can be hard to see.  But if you squeeze the grape, it will squirt.  The hole lets in air which changes the sugar content and the taste of the grape.  Phytophera damage is moldy  but can occur near the stem sometimes making it hard to spot.  Botrytus can discolor the grape and make it pucker. Sometimes they can be difficult to distinguish from raisins which, if few, are acceptable.

Each row of grapes is protected with bird netting that is clipped at the top and bottom with the rectanglar clips used to seal loaves of bread.  We just yank up and out on the netting, the clips pop off, and we hang the netting on the support posts.  So if the netting was lifted, the area would be picked.  But some vines produced very few/small/unripe grapes and the netting was not lifted.

Apparently there are two ways to protect grapes from birds.  This side netting is less expensive and much easier to put on and take off but because the netting is fairly tight, birds can still reach the grapes.  The Pinot grapes had a LOT of bird peck damage.  Some areas were so badly damaged that we left them unpicked.  The traditional method of draping the netting probably results in much less bird peck.

We were instructed to have several pickers in each row, pick 2-3 bays (vines planted between support posts) and leapfrog each other.  Sometimes several pickers would work one bay all together so that they could talk to each other.  That probably worked out okay.  Other times, I would guess that pickers were in adjacent rows and wanted to continue conversations so they moved on without finishing a section.

Crushed and destemmed Pinot Noir in oak barrel

The first day of grape picking seemed chaotic to me.  The Gibbston vineyard is odd-shaped and hilly so sometimes the rows are short or you can't see down the row.  Between unlifted netting, damaged areas, purposely left small clusters, skipped sections, and inconsistent leapfrogging, sometimes it was difficult to tell if an area was done, especially the short rows.  The Riesling picking seemed to go smoother.

The picked grapes are collected by a worker on a tractor pulling a trailer with crates.  They dump our buckets into the crates which in turn get dumped into huge (2 metric ton?) bins.  The bins, two fit on a trailer, are taken to the processing plant where they are made into wine and bottled with the Remarkable Wines label.  Richard keeps 2 bins of each type of grape for his hand bottling.  There were at least 10 bins of Pinot and at least 6 bins of Riesling.  I don't know how full the  bins were.

Cranking the press is hard work

Richard was disappointed with his yield and said that he would probably have to buy grapes in order to reach his targeted production.   The Marlborough region, the northern part of South Island, has a grape glut with some vineyards leaving their grapes unpicked because they aren't sold.  The Marlborough area specializes in Sauvignon Blanc.  I don't know if vineyards in the Central Otago area, where Richard is, have the same problem.  Central Otago specializes in Pinot Noir.

Helping Richard process the grapes for his home winery was optional work. Since most of the other wwoofers had been there for a month more or less, they had already processed grapes before (or they just weren't interested).  Anna and I hadn't, so Richard didn't have to do it all himself.

We used the crusher/destemmer on the Pinot Noir grapes.  Richard shovelled the grapes into the machine while Anna and I took turns cranking the wheel.  We tried to pick out leaves, moldy grapes or other debris.  Stems fell out the back end while the skins, juice, seeds and a few stems went down into a plastic bin.  Then we dumped the crushed grapes into an oak barrel.  Cranking is hard work!!  It was really good that there were 2 of us cranking so that we could rest our arms every 2 dumps.  About 4 tons of grapes only filled the barrel less than 2/3 full.  You need a lot of grapes to make wine!

Fermented Pinot - ready to age

Sugar and yeast will be added to the concoction as necessary and allowed to ferment.  There were already three giant tubs of wine in process.  At least 3 times daily, the crust of skins that forms on the top need to be stirred back into the gloop (my word) and the whole thing aerated with a shovel/fork (shork? lol).  After fermenting, the liquid is drained into holding tanks.  The pulp can then be pressed for "wwoofer " wine.

Some of the girls said they wanted to stomp the pulp and Richard was going to let them but the girls were leaving the day after I did and I don't think time permitted.  I would've stayed to watch that!  Participate?  I don't think so.  I'm glad I wasn't put to the test.  I'd have had purple feet for days!

Richard tried a new method with the Riesling grapes.  He put them directly into the oak press.  After cinching the press down, which gets harder and harder, more grapes are added at the top.  The idea is that the pressure breaks the grapes and the juice flows.  I guess the weight of the grapes on top squeezes more juice from the grapes on the bottom?  It didn't make sense to me since all of it gets dumped into the barrel anyway.  I think the crusher/destemmer is MUCH more efficient.  Anyway, I left Richard to it and went back to Queenstown.

I enjoy tasting/drinking Remarkable Wines' Pinot Noir, Riesling, and Aromatics (Pinot Gris, Riesling, Gewurztraminer mix) and the Browns' Bannock Brae Pinot Noir, Dry Riesling, and my favorite, Cathy's Rose.  Wwoofer wine wasn't as smooth.  I find that wine tastes better as I age; I can even enjoy reds now.  But my head/body still can't handle very much of it.

Didn't like the wwoofing set up, but I did learn how to pick grapes and get my hands dirty (sticky too) in learning how wine is made.  My first wine tasting/making education was for a Marketing group report while I was in college; I was the only underage member of my group but they weren't as vigilant about carding back then.  And wine tasting and tours were free of charge back then.  Cellar door visits are still free in NZ.

Bottoms up!
Cheers!
Cyn