Hands on Harvest

Vince and I were married in early September. That means our honeymoon and anniversary trips in France always coincided with wine harvest time. We have seen grape harvests and wine productions all over Europe, toured cellars and tasted the first fruits of the vintage in many Septembers past. But we never actually participated in a harvest hands on.

So this opportunity was particularly sweet. Robertson’s Hands on Harvest Festival. We chose family run Excelsior Winery to do our harvesting. In its 5th generation of wine making, Excelsior is currently run by Peter de Wet.

We spent the evening before the Hands on Harvest in one of Excelsior’s comfortable guest rooms in the historic manor house.

our fellow harvesters

Mosbolletjies

After a early morning stroll through the rose garden, the day started at 8:00 in the Graze café. We were treated to coffee and mosbolletjies, a unique bread made with the yeast of wine must. It was good with a slightly sour dough taste.

owner Peter de Wet

Over coffee and some mosbolletjies, Peter greeted us and explained our day. We were given buckets and secateurs and led down to the field of Cabernet Sauvignon grape vines.

We were encouraged to taste as much as we like as we picked. The grapes are exceedingly sweet. About two and a half times as sweet as the table grapes we are used to.

After our buckets were full, we walked back to the “production site” and poured our grapes into stomping barrels.

First we washed our feet. Then we stomped. Vince and I in the same barrel like that episode of  I Love Lucy in Italy. It felt great! I thought it would stain our skin but it didn’t. The juice was perfectly clear. The barrels have a hole in the bottom which drains the juice back into the bucket. We were given the chance to sample our juice and of course we did.

We could have corked and kept our bottle filled with some of our special stomped juice but Peter warned us it wouldn’t last long like that. It would explode. So we opted out. I shy away from exploding mementos.

mash

Next we all shoveled our left over mash into large troughs which we would squeeze in a vintage wine press.

basket press

Vince on the cellar tour

Of course this is not how Excelsior really makes its wines. After a buffet breakfast, we toured the cellar and saw how it’s really done. Peter told us that Excelsior is the largest exporter of South African wines to America. In fact, he is going to NY next week to meet with his distributors.

winemaker Johan Stemmet

taste and blend

Finally we were given an opportunity to blend and bottle our own wine in Excelsior’s Tasting Room to take away.  The staff had set up miniature barrels of 2014 Merlot, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon in old-fashioned blending stations. We were allowed to taste and make our own blends. First we could taste some of Excelsior’s blends to get an idea of how the different ratios tasted. Then we could blend our own for a comparative tasting. We settled on 55% Cab, 35% Merlot and 10% Shiraz for our final What's Gnu blend.

put a cork in it and shrink wrap the cork cover

We could even custom design and print our own labels! 

Hippo Birthday to Ewe!

And we will drink our custom blend on our real birthdays in May.

baking homemade roosterkoeks in an outdoor brick oven

After a hard morning (not!) toiling in the fields, we were ready for lunch. One thing we were sure of was that the roosterkoeks were fresh!

winemaking is fun!

We had always regretted not being able to take advantage of an opportunity to participate in a harvest with a winemaker friend of ours in California's Napa and Sonoma Valleys when we had the chance before our move. I think that experience would have been a lot harder than the one we "endured" at Excelsior. Maybe it all worked out for the best.

the lake at Excelsior

the horses of Excelsior