3.  Wine maker's Report
by Roy Cook

Harvest 2006 - Lightning Speed, Drama and Grapes Galore

        Back in mid-September anticipation was running high. New vineyard manager James and his assistant Adam were just itching to start snipping off the golden ripening grape bunches which they had spent all year looking after.  Warm sunny days were spent laying straw under the Regent red grape vines and spreading anti-bird netting over the top of all 6 acres of vines at our Bodiam vineyard.  Pre-harvest preparations had been meticulously planned and included checking over and oiling the grape cutting secateurs, buying extra gloves for pickers to wear to prevent wasp stings, or cutting their own fingers (easily done!); cleaning vats and barrels, adjusting and greasing crushing machines, as well as painting the tray underneath the press with a special paint to ensure the juice flowing from the press does not come into contact with metal.  New stainless steel chain links were sourced and purchased via the Internet and fitted as replacements to the inside of the press where they act to break up 'the cake' after each pressing.

        Readings of grape sugar levels and acidity were done weekly so that we could pick when the fruit was at optimum ripeness.  A list of nearly fifty
names and contact numbers of local people who had responded to our advert for pickers was at the ready.  Crop estimate of the 500 Solaris vines was done by carefully counting bunches on the vine and multiplying by the number of wines and then rows of vines.  Estimate was 1to1.5 tonnes.  In previous years I had done crop estimates on our other main varieties, but not this year.  I knew the grapes looked plentiful and berry size was above average, so guessed the harvest would be somewhere near our previous all time best in 2004 which was 17,000 bottles.

        This year however, the grapes kept coming and coming, vats were filled up as fast as they could be cleaned and prepared.  Vineyard plots that I guessed would yield one  tonne, yielded two tonnes, or more!  In the end we were simply overwhelmed.  All vats were filled - including several outside the winery which just could not be fitted into the space inside.

The drama of the harvest unfolded from day to day. Your author and wine-maker was put out of action for several days with a badly sprained and
swollen wrist following a nasty fall backwards when the trailer side I was tugging on suddenly gave way. So others had to be taken off picking duty to help load and unload the press.  The biggest drama of all however, happened on the 16th of October.  I had left the press to finish its automatic cycle while I had taken my 9 year old son Danny to his regular tennis lesson in Hastings.  On my return I was alarmed to see the press had stopped and seemed to be stuck.  Then thin strips of metal were noticed which had fallen into the tray.  When these were identified as pieces of thread from the inside of the press plate, which actually exerts the pressure on the grapes to squeeze the juice out of them, it was clear we faced the one emergency every wine maker fears the most - a totally crippled press right in the middle of harvest.  And, of course, they always breakdown during harvest because that is the only time in the whole year that they get used.  Our trusty servant of the past 15 harvests had sometimes let us down in the past, but it had always been something relatively minor and repairable. This, on the other hand, looked terminal.

        What to do? 

        We still had about 3 tonnes of Seyval Blanc grapes destined for our white bubbly to pick, about a tonne of Pinot Noir for our flagship Rose Brut
Sparkler, as well as about 5 tonnes of Reichensteiner and others hanging on the vines desperate to be picked.  We needed a press.  We needed a working press!  And with both sugar levels and acidity levels of the grapes falling quickly due to the seemingly incessant rainfall, we needed a working press -- FAST!



        What to do?  Take the grapes to a neighboring winery for pressing?  Not really an option.  They're not licensed for organic production and probably have more than enough work dealing with their own huge harvest.  No, we would have to find the finance to buy a replacement press and get it installed in our winery - and do it quickly!

        Suddenly the solution was obvious.  Battle Wine Estate, just a couple miles away were closing their winery and their press was up for sale.  A quick phone call confirmed we could buy it.  Not only that, their wine making son David Sax, who was the only person around who knew how to operate this monstrous beast, just happened to be back in this country for a week from New Zealand (where he works) to collect the award he had just won for 'best Sauvignon Blanc in the world' for his Grove Mill Winery.

        The next four hours were pretty hectic as we set about planning and getting the press moved and installed at Sedlescombe.  But, within 48 hours of the old press giving up the ghost we were back in business squashing grapes on our new 4 tonne Willmes tank press - or rather, Adam was! 

He had obviously been listening more attentively than me to David Sax's instructions.  My head was reeling from the sheer speed of events unfolding before me.  Usually the decision to buy a major new piece of equipment like a new press is formulated over many months, taking in cash flow considerations and perhaps a loan from the bank, but this decision had to be fast and we could pick up the pieces later.  In fact, looking back the whole harvest had been gathered in at breathtaking  speed, and now seems just a blur.

        Just as you thought, dear reader, that I had somehow forgotten to mention the weather.  Harvest 2006 will be remembered as much for the weather as it will for the new press and the huge yield. September sunshine quickly turned to October rain.  With fruit quickly deteriorating, sugars falling, acid falling too quickly, tractors getting stuck in the mud, pickers having to pick in appalling torrential rain - those were the conditions in which we had to graft to get the fruit of our year long labour root safe and sound under the winery.  It was a race against time.

        The end result was astounding, almost twice as big as our previous harvest, a total of thirty thousand bottles (or it will be next Spring when it is bottled).  In my "meticulous" planning  I had not done proper crop estimates of any varieties except Solaris.  In line with my calculation this variety yielded 1.3 tonnes.  Crops harvested from all the other varieties far exceeded my guesswork.  The press had been checked over, but not in the one area that eventually proved its destruction.

        Writing now in early December the old press stands in the corner of a field waiting for a scrap metal merchant to collect it, the new press occupying its place in the winery.  The young wines are almost ready for pumping off the yeast sediment into a fresh vat to begin the process of clarification ready for bottling next year.  The intense drama of the 2006 vintage will be long remembered by all of us at Sedlescombe.  We sure hope our customers will enjoy drinking it, because it was the mother of all battles bringing it in!