An Insight into my first vintage..

1. By Abigail “Bubbles” Maxwell

2. Vintage Family Rebecca Coghill Wine Maker Leith Ashworth Vintage Assistant Wine Maker Aseem “Builder” Guptar Vintage Cellar Hand Desiree Janson Lab Technician Abbie “Bubbles” Maxwell Vintage Cellar Hand Dave Camburn Permanent Cellar Hand Jack Cornnes Cellar Foreman Richard “Master Splinter” Bott Vintage Cellar Hand

3. The Vineyard 60 Hectares on Gimlet Gravel Soils, Located 52 Kirkwood Rd, Hastings

4. The Winery

5. The Stats 2010 Vintage processed 870 tonnes of fruit Combination of Hand pick and Machine Harvested Predominately Red Wine Producers Medium Sized Winery Small but very hard working team

7. Press

8. Barrel Room

11. Inside The Winery

14. The Highlights of Vintage

15. First Grapes Arrive from Northland... All hands on deck for unloading!

16. Master Stomper...

17. Squishy Squishy... Old School Styles

18. Hand Plunging Open Ferments Really Hard Cabernet Sauvignon Cap... Took a few attemptsto get it down.

19. Tank Dig outs

20. Riding the Harvester Standing in front of the last grapes to be machine harvested. Had two bad frosts this week causing the Cabernet Sauvignon Grapes to start shutting down.

22. The Low Points

23. Pump Overs, Pump Overs, Pump Overs!!!! Open pump over in action. Ferment being aerated the same time as cap being submerged. 60% of my vintage was spent doing these...

24. Cellar Rat removing stinky dead mouse…

25. Tirage Bottling 5 thousand Litres of Tirage (Chardonnay with added yeast and sugar for secondary ferment) bottled by hand under crown seal. Took 13 hours, 6+ staff members, 13 pizzas, and a badly cut thumb to complete. .... Never Again.

26. One million bottles of bubbles to bottle.... One million bottles of bubbles....

27. Wine Maker in the making...

29. But We Had Fun

30. Vintage Beards Winner!!

31. And I learnt Heaps

32. Would I Do It Again?

33. In A Heartbeat