Monday morning began with a 5:45am start.

Ken Bray assembled a great crew including a couple locals and a couple backpackers a friend and myself and we all assembled in the Chardonnay block of the vineyard at first light. Armed with buckets, nippers, hats and gloves we began to harvest the 2 acres of Chardonnay. It was apparent from the start that we were going to have higher than expected yields and that the fruit quality was outstanding!!! That was exciting. But, we soon realized that the three ¾-tonne bins we had on the back of the tractor would be over their capacity. In the end, we improvised, adapted and overcame this obstacle using several spare large rubber bins which I loaded in the back of my ute for the excess capacity. After more than 5 hours we had completed the Chardonnay harvest. We then transferred the grapes to the winery and proceeded to start the magic of making wine from the fruit we harvested that morning.

Chardonnay harvest

In the vineyard – first harvest

Picking bins