I spent the day starting a big batch of Shiraz though. Leaving early, we drove to nearby Willunga and picked up 350 kilos of nice grapes, perfect in fact. On the way down, I read in the paper that 2010 is said to be one of the best vintages for years, which was very fortuitous!

After spending hours and hours manually destemming a trailer full of grapes (hiring a crusher with a de-stemmer next year!) we ended up with 300 litres of grape must, ready to add potassium metabisulphate before pitching the yeast tomorrow. Incidentally if anyone is into wine-making, I found the most useful collection of calculators ever at this site.

We are making the main batch a bit lighter by leaving it on the skins for just 4 days or so – this should be quite drinkable in 18 months or less. I am also doing a small batch using a technique called extended maceration, which means leaving the wine on the skins for longer. The idea is that this produces a more full bodied wine, but the drawback is that it will need longer cellaring before it is ready to drink. I think though that this will be wonderful in 2-3 years from now, and I am already thinking about what pizza flavours to match it up with