Crunch day, Hoffy, spiders and similar
Not such a good start to the day when the neighbour manages to reverse into my hire car … despite the road being around 15 metres wide! We’ve all done it … or nearly I suppose, but …
On arrival at RedHeads, met Hoffy, aka Adrian Hoffman, provider of dark delicious Barossa Cabernet. Unfortunately not quite as much dark, delicious Cabernet as Dan had hoped for – .7 tonnes rather than the usual 3 tonnes. That was due to bit of trouble with frost early on in the season. It’s a tough year for growers (even worse in parts of the McLaren where lack of water meant some of the vines went on strike, that is they closed down and the fruit shrivelled up), and for Dan. He’ll be scouting around for some top quality Cabernet grapes now.
A good two hour warm up with plunging, a little bit by (washed!) foot when the going was really tough, hence the red sock look!
Met a white spider – didn’t risk it and I’m afraid I squashed it! That was just the first of the wildlife for the day. Alpacas, big sheep (were they really, very long legs!) and a few bobbing kangaroos amongst the vines.
On the hunt for good Cabernet, Dan and I took off for the edges of Eden Valley to John Erkhart’s vineyard. He was a man full of interesting tales. His vineyards are in a marginal area – the crop is certainly not guaranteed every year, but when it does succeed, well, it’s great stuff.
We had another important vineyard stop on the way back – to Robin Day’s (Aussie guy, not the former presenter!) vineyards. It’s quite an impressive array of largely Italian grapes – Garganega, Sangiovese, Nebbiolo and, not Italian at all but Georgian, Saperavi! It was quite an array we tested for their sugar level with the refractometer!
Interesting day … and less sticky!