Our experience at the KWV Wines harvest
We’ve returned from KWV with loads of pictures. We also had a quick catch up with the winemaker’s assistants, lovely ladies with bucket loads of useful information.
So the morning started pretty early to try and get to KWV Wines in time for the “tipping of the grapes.” This is when the trucks arrive from all over the Western Cape with a container load of grapes and literally tip the grapes in through a shoot into the de-stemmer.
Truck tipping red grapes at KWV Wines
Grapes tipped!
Grapes rushing through the destemmer.
Enzymes are then added to aid the fermentation process and we met with Jenash Topher who is the official enzyme mixer, he also assists with the grapes as they enter the cellar.
After the grapes are destemmed, they travel though a cooling pipe into enormous vats which hold between 20 000 – 60 000L of wine.
I took a quick snap of the view from the KWV Wines’ cellar of Paarl rock while I was feeling creatively inspired, if I were I winemaker this would be the kind of view I would insist upon!
After rushing through the cellar, following the journey of the grapes and meeting new people, we had a chance to catch up with the winemakers’ assistants about the harvest, in a nutshell this is what they had to say:
KWV Wines has completed harvesting the Pinotage and Chenin grapes. Both winemakers feel that despite the erratic weather conditions Cape Town and Paarl has been experiencing, 2010 looks like a promising year, especially for Sauvignon Blanc and Pinotage. The KWV Wines harvest is estimated to end during the first week of April.
More on this soon though, we’ll be uploading our video footage within the next few days so watch this space!
For more photos on the 2010 harvest, visit our Facebook gallery here.