http://burrumboot.com/blog The Mount Burrumboot Blog, full of thoughts about wine and winemaking. Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:45:01 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Someone ought to tell second children that they don't have to try to prove that they are as good as the firstborn! Not content with studying Anthropology on exchange in Spain this year, in Spanish, our middle daughter Matilda has decided that she needed to do something a bit ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=12 Phew! Another vintage almost over... we still have Petit Verdot burbling away in the vats, but now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. All those days and nights, plunging, plunging, plunging... finding that your ferments have started racing and are getting bloody hot, ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=11 I really think that 2008 is looking like being one of our best vintages. Although it is early days yet, the 2008 wines are really showing excellent varietal character; outstanding colour and flavour, really ripe without being overly so. I reckon that the vines ( and ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=10 I love it when I get to this time of year in the winery. I have been racking the 2008 wines over the last few weeks, and it is a really good time to have a look at the wines, and also to compare the effects of the individual ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=9 We are having a new release dinner on October the 2nd, at Church St. Enoteca, Richmond, Melbourne. It will be great. Ken, the sommelier, and their chef, are working out a degustation dinner that will complement our wines. We will send invites out in the next week ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=8 Something that I dread as a winemaker is when I come to a wine that I haven't looked at for a while. It always seems to be that, just when you were happy with the last taste you had of a wine in barrel, say... the next time you ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=7 I always hate these tanks. They are only as good as the seals around the lid of the tank. For those who don't know, these tanks have a lid that floats on the wine, with a blow up tube, like a bike tube, around the rim of the ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=6 I am ashamed to say that I am the worst blogger in the whole of cyberspace. So apologies to anyone who has been checking. However, here I am at last; we have had a great trip to South America, which was both restorative, and incredibly interesting, with ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=5 The recent rain and warm weather have caused the vines to grow like weeds, with the Shiraz, Sangiovese, and Marsanne particularly verdant. The shoots on these vines have grown very long, very quickly, and some of the vines in the younger block don't have the strength to hold them ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=4 The last couple of weeks, the weather has warmed up, and the wines in barrels have warmed up too. This causes any microbes in the wines to get active as well. Malolactic bacteria are microbes found in unfinished wines . Often they are added, in dried form, by ... http://burrumboot.com/blog/?p=3