My alarm goes off at 4:45am. It is black, I see nothing, and the ringing chime tightens its grip on me and pulls me out of a deep, pillowy sleep. I sleep well here. It is a dark, sinking and hollow sleep, devoid of dreams. The long hot laborious days allow me to sleep sound and fast.
So waking up this early is unwelcome. I groggily move through the motions: jeans on, shirt, jacket zipped, left boot, right boot, hat. I am still waking up and I stumble into the kitchen and quickly brew a cup of coffee that I bring with me out the door and into the black night. A white pick up truck is idling outside, waiting for me. I take a quick sip of coffee, lock the house door and hop into the truck. Our head winemaker is behind the wheel of the truck, and he greets me with a lively grin.
We begin the drive out of the Barossa, north bound, on snaking indigo roads canopied by a dark sky studded with stars. Night begins to fade into day, and as we drive a thin rose blush is dusted over the horizon, back-lighting eucalyptus and gum trees a long the road. I look out the window and two almond shaped eyes flicker back at our headlights. It is a kangaroo, a young doe, her fur is a velvety crimson as she absorbs the early dawn colours. I watch the sun slowly, sleepily, levitate above the horizon and soon darkness has surrendered to light and as we arrive at our destination the stars have dissolved into a washed out blue sky. All that remains of the night is a thin layer of glistening dew on green vines.
It is only 6:30am and already the pick has begun. A team of fifteen workers labour up and down vine rows pruning off whole bunches of Riesling and dumping them into baskets. These baskets are then dumped into a large bin where myself, our winemaker, and our vineyard manager hand sort through the bunches, tossing out clusters of grapes which have botrytis rot or berry splitting. I am enjoying the late morning sun warming us up, the fresh country air, and the tranquility of the vineyard, when a loud voice cuts through the morning vineyard quietude.
âWhat is going on here?!â
The snappy comment makes me jump. I look up out of the sorting bin and my eyes meet a short, slim man. He has a clear complexion, and a full head of chestnut hair. His powder blue golf shirt  has a popped collar and is neatly tucked into slim designer jeans which are punctuated by python skin boots. His hands are clean and soft looking. I suddenly become aware of how dirty I must look. My baseball cap is splattered with wine, there is dirt crusted on my left cheek, and my old brown work boots are caked with mud. I look down at my hands and they are sticky and filthy, with thin crescents of dirt beneath my nails.
But it is the strange manâs polished look which seems out of place today in the vineyard among the workers. His perfectly manicured hand is clutching a cluster of Riesling which has been badly infected with botrytis. We are slightly startled by his outburst and we both blink back at the peculiar character. The man is still gripping the Riesling, confused and upset.
âWhat is all this fruit doing on the ground!?â
Our winemaker replies calmly, explaining our sorting process. âWe need to sort out the grapes which are poor quality. We canât make high-quality wine with rotting grapes.â
The small man huffs at us. He is visibly angry, refusing to throw the bunch of grapes back on the ground. âBut this is cash. And youâre throwing cash on the ground!â His perfectly plucked eyebrows are furrowed and tense over his squinting brown eyes.
I begin to piece together the situation. This small feisty man is the owner of the Churinga Vineyard here in Clare Valley where we are picking today. We purchase his Riesling and Shiraz every year, and he gets compensated for his crop by each tonne of fruit we take with us. Whatever grapes we leave behind, or sort out, translates to a loss in profit-Â or âcashâ- for the vineyard owner. What I am witnessing is the business side of winemaking: vineyard owner versus winemaker. It can be a strained and complicated relationship during a poor growing season.
Unfortunately because of the severe rain much of this crop is damaged, and because of this we will not buy as many tonnes from him this year as we did last year. We will only purchase fruit which is of good enough quality to make good wine. This year will be a less profitable year for this vineyard because of the rain damage to much of the crop. Realising this, the owner stomped off, grumbling and upset.
 In  2011 Clare Valley saw a rain storm so severe, it washed out this entire vineyard. That year, our winery did not purchase any fruit from the Churinga Vineyard. It was a colossal financial loss for all of the growers in the region. This could explain the anxious and paranoid behaviour of a vineyard owner who still has a fresh and prickling memory of the year that he did not sell a single berry. This year will not be as bad. Of all the grapes we are picking today, about 15% are damaged with rot or berry burst. We will purchase the remaining 85% of the Riesling and transport it back to our cellar in Barossa.           Â
By late afternoon five tonnes of Riesling have been hand picked and hand sorted from the Churinga Vineyard. The bins of fruit are forklifted onto our truck, and transported back to the Barossa to be crushed and pressed into juice by nightfall. After a long day of hand picking, hand sorting, and dealing with a difficult business man, we follow the truck full of Riesling out of the vineyard and towards the winding road back to the Barossa Valley.
While South Australia was enjoying the last weeks of summer, nestled beneath sunshine and azure skies, a weather pattern began to form hundreds of kilometres away that was headed in our direction. Tropical moisture from the northern coast began collecting and spinning, producing some small storms and cyclones in the Northern Territory of Australia. The northern wind carried this nascent storm across the country and parked it on top of South Australia, where it had now matured into swollen clouds and heavy gales; engorged with rain and fuelled by powerful winds. The timing could not have been worse. After weeks of relentless, record-breaking heat, the mercury on our thermometers began to slide down. The clear, blue South Australia skies faded to a steely grey, casting a great ominous shadow over the sun kissed Barossa Valley.
One hundred millimetres of rain were unleashed on us over a soggy and tense two days. This is more rain than the Barossa Valley had received in over a year. The town roads transformed into streams of murky and muddy water which created road blocks, halting traffic, and  producing a series of wet and grumbling drivers. Vineyards were flooded with large puddles of water, a stressful scene for vineyard growers and winemakers. Flooding was our immediate concern during the storm, but once the storm had moved out, we had many more problems to assess.
The power of the storm had caused many vineyards to suffer from soil erosion. The torrential rains were so strong, they dug great gaping holes out of the red Terra Rossa soils, exposing delicate and thin vine root structure. Berry burst was another concern for us post storm. Large juicy berries packed with sweet sugar and tart acidity began to explode; they could not process the influx of water. The roots of the vine will continue to pull the water out of the soil, but have no where to transport it, except into the berries. This excess of water pushed into each grape causes the skins to rupture and burst, ultimately ruining our precious fruit.  After assessing soil erosion and berry splitting, our next concern is botrytis. Botrytis, or noble rot, is a bacteria rot that occurs on berries in the presence of excess moisture. Some regions invite this phenomenon into its vineyards, such as Sauternes in Bordeaux, to make succulent and sweet desert wines. But here in the Barossa Valley, this rot is unwelcomed: it  will spoil and thus ruin the grapes. The rain has caused vineyard managers and owners throughout the Valley fear of losing their precious crops, vines they have tended and nurtured for months. It was not just fruit that was lost: it rained so cruelly that one local farmer lost over one hundred and fifty sheep. Their wool absorbed so much water that the sheep became too heavy to escape a swelling quarry.
We spent the next few days zigging and zagging up vineyard rows, pruning and dropping large clusters of grapes which were damaged by the rain, either by berry burst or were infected with botrytis. As I snip away large bunches of damaged fruit from the vine, I think how unforgiving the weather has been to The Barossa Valley so far this vintage.
The storm has finally passed through, and the extreme heat is now behind us as well. Temperate weather is finally being restored in the Valley. The days are now cooler and the skies are blue and dry once again. This week we will begin harvesting aggressively, picking fruit every day for the next six weeks. Even though Mother Nature has not been kind to our fruit this growing season, we still have the ability to rejuvenate the grapes and make great wine. The grapes have finished their time in the vineyard and now we will bring them into the cellar. Our fantastic cellar team is ready to make outstanding wine. One should never underestimate the power of Mother Nature. However one cannot be remiss to realise the magic of The Cellar.
                                     The extreme heat that we had been experiencing since I arrived has finally pulled out of the Valley. The vines are now enjoying warm, bright, blue-skied days book ended by cool breezy nights: a perfect remedy after suffering from the staggering heat wave. The grapes have begun to recover which presents a perfect opportunity to begin picking. Our first pick commences at dawn and by late morning our vintage crew is anxiously assembled around our quiet crusher and sleepy press. Both man and machine are ready to process the first fruit of Vintage 2014.
Frontignac is an aromatic white grape varietal that I have never worked with before, and admittedly, know little about. I conduct a light Google search and soon realise I know more about Fronti (itâs Aussie nickname) than I think. Muscat Blanc Ă Petits Grains is the traditional name for the variety, the label which I am more familiar with. Considered one of the oldest grape varietals still being planted, it is believed that the ancient Greeks and Romans had grown and vinified this fruity, aromatic grape. Today, it is a popular varietal grown in Australia under the pseudonym Frontignac-Muscat. It ripens earlier than other varietals which is why it is the first fruit we receive. Its light, fragrant, and tropical characteristics make it an approachable wine which we will eventually turn into a sweet, low alcohol, lightly sparkling Muscato dâAsti style aperitif. Eventually. But for now, it is still fruit in a bin.
The bins are fork lifted in twos and carted to the crusher where they are gradually tipped into a wide and hungry mouth of stainless steel. Whole bunches of Frontignac roll and thump and bounce into the silver hopper. All fifteen tonnes are loaded in, where they are weighed, destemmed, crushed, and pumped into our bladder press. The bladder inside the press slowly expands, pressing the berries against the sides of the press. They gently burst, releasing sticky juice which begins to flow into a catch tray. I hurriedly dig a scoop of dry ice from a cooler and dump it into the juice. The steaming carbon dioxide hovers over the must, a billowing and misty cloak protecting it from oxygen. From here, we pump the must into a fermentation tank where it will sit and chill overnight. Someone swoops a wine glass into the juice and we all take a sip of the sticky thick must. It tastes sweet, juicy, and tropical. We congregate around the press with sticky hands, dirty boots, and exhausted eyes, but we are revelling in our first press of Vintage 2014. After a slow start to harvest, everyone is delighted that we have finally received grapes.
However we are about to receive more than just a shipment of Frontignac-Muscat. During the several hours of focused work processing our first press, we didnât notice that thick charcoal clouds had followed our delivery truck in that day. The clouds hovered ominously over our fermentation site, and all of the Barossa Valley. Thin streams of rain began to drop down on us, and glassy beads of water curled down the fermentation tanks. By nightfall, what began as an innocuous drizzle turned into a powerful and persistent downpour; a desert rain storm. The subsequent 48 hours twisted into a tense and nervous scene in the Barossa, as every vineyard manager and winemaker watched uneasily as aggressive and unrelenting rain crashed into the vineyards and pounded down onto the Valley.
Our cellar crew eagerly congregates on our first day at the winery. A flurry of nervous smiles and handshakes and light chatter fill the cellar. Names said, repeated, learned. We are a mash up of Canadians and Americans, most of us with Napa Valley or Niagara on our resumes. None of us have done a vintage in Australia before. We are all keen to get our hands on some Shiraz and Grenache and start making wine.
The fermenters sit outside in a field, where they are hammered with hot Australian sun rays. I begin to roast inside the fermenter, my body temperature moving towards medium rare while I scrub and buff and rinse every nook and corner. We have to ensure everything is clean and sterile: if any bacteria is present it will contaminate the must that will eventually fill these tanks. Â The most common bacteria to spoil the palate and aromas in a wine is Brettanomyces, commonly referred to as âbrettâ. This bacteria wonât always ruin a wine, but can certainly alter the flavours and smells, something we want to avoid happening to our final product. Eliminating any brett that may exist on the site is one of our greatest concerns right now.
When I was hired as a cellar hand in South Australia, the news was greeted with lots of love and support from family and friends. However most people were unaware of what the job actually involved. The romantic notion of traveling south of the equator to somewhere exotic, floating and breezing through an immaculate cellar, tasting wine, stirring a vat of juice, or picking grapes in an enchanted vineyard are visions that exist only in an oenophileâs fantasy. To many, a cellar hand is ostensibly a vacation within an utopian cellar: this is an absolute fallacy. In reality, the cellar is a place of hard work, sweat, and long hours. There is nothing glamorous about it. Because wine is a luxury item it is often coupled with an elitist lexicon. But those who make wine are humble, hard working, smart, agricultural and industrial specialists.
By the end of the week, my skin smells like bleach, I have dirt under my fingernails, my fingerbeds are cracked and raisined, and all my work clothes are soaking wet from sweat and hose water. Our entire team looks this way. But the fermenters are immaculate. The twelve foot silver vats glisten and sparkle in the sunshine. They smile at us. They are ready to be filled with sweet, sticky grape juice. It should be any day now that we receive our first shipment of fruit. Our team is ready, our site is ready, all we need are some grapes.
The Barossa Valley is 75 kilometres inland from Adelaide, deep within the Southern Australian country side. Rolling fields undulate around me: some bare and dry, while others are striped with rich green rows of bush vines. The verdant vine canopies present a vast juxtaposition to the dehydrated yellow-brown fields. Eucalyptus trees stud the sides of the road, their wispy diamond shaped leaves tickle the grassland with some much desired shade. The odd Rosella or Kookaburra swoop by, lending a bright and exotic palate to the rows of thick barked bush vines which twist out of the rust coloured Terra Rosa soils.
Unless you really did your research on the Barossa Valley, you probably wouldnât know- or expect- that there is a very large German influence here. In the middle of the 19th century, Lutheran Germans fled to Australia to avoid religious prosecution. They settled the area and began planting vines in the 1860âs. Many of the Australian locals here have German surnames and German ancestry and the Church is still the backbone of the social community. Riesling is the most widely planted white varietal, shnitzel is found on every menu,  and pastoral German architecture freckles the country side. It adds a unique spin to the culture in  the Barossa Valley while also influencing the style of the wines that are produced here. It is incredible to think that this history generated a region which today, grows some of oldest vines in the world.
This is what I will call home for the next three months. Having just arrived, I know that I have so much more to learn and explore within the Barossa Valley. First impressions mean a lot to me, and Barossa passed this test with flying colours. I think it is safe to say that the Barossa Valley is one book I can judge by its cover. Hereâs to being the Barossa Valleyâs newest resident!
Heat. Incredible, inexorable, persistent heat. It wobbles and waves around me as I exit the airport. It is 8pm, the sun is heavy and low, glowing and hazy, casting a sandy peach glaze over the parking lot where I locate a taxi. It is about 50 metres away, sitting behind a waving wall of heat.
It is 43°C in Adelaide, South Australia. That is 13°C warmer than Sydney, New South Wales, where I had just vacationed for a week enjoying breezy beaches and turquoise foaming surf pebbled with surfers and swimmers. It is 68°C hotter than Toronto, Ontario, my home town which is currently ensconced within a polar arctic air mass and buried beneath snow.
Sitting in the taxi sweat forms under my knees, rolling down my calves. My elbows are housing small pools of sweat and my palms do not stop perspiring. The heat is unbearable even for the locals. Some people have stopped going into work, schools have been suspended and shop keepers have elected to not open their store fronts. Southern Australia is experiencing one of the most severe heat waves to date. Temperatures in the low 30s are expected for this time of year- the dog days of summer here- and today it is 10-15 degrees hotter than average. Even the beaches in Adelaide do not provide cool reprieve: today the sand is so hot you cannot walk or sit on it, and the shallow waters of the Gulf of St Vincent have warmed to feel more like bathwater than the cooling South Pacific.
I wonder how the grapes and vines are coping with all this heat. A few days ago I received an email from our head winemaker to delay my start date by one week. âThe heat has been so intense, the vines have shut down. They are under severe stress and have stopped ripening. We have to hold off picking for another week.â
Curious as to what the 2014 vintage will hold for the Barossa Valley after this historic heat wave, and with an extra seven days ahead of me to do with as I please, I set off an hour north east of Adelaide, inland, into the hot, arid and dry Barossa Valley.
""Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober, and sometimes I write sober and revise drunk. But you have to have both elements in creation, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, or spontaneity and restraint, emotion and discipline.""
