The joys of harvest 8 March 2008

... but look out for falling tanks, warns Francois Haasbroek

Dear reader, as you all know harvest has dawned upon us in all forms and guises, good and bad.

As for the inherent qualities of this year, I for one am never eager to jump the gun and make statements about quality being up or down compared to any other. Wait and see ….  The weather has sent us some unexpected delays and scratching  heads, but as my late grandfather would have said: 'Deal with it!'. And that is what is happening all over from Bamboesbaai to Nottingham Road, we are dealing with it! And having a lot of fun (our special term for 16-hour days, seven days a week).

There are certain things which you apparently can’t deal with, it seems – or should have dealt with if you knew about it.

A winemaker who did a harvest at Waterford last year has been in Australia for the last month or so working at Wirra Wirra winery in Mclaren Vale. Until yesterday that was, when eight or nine suspended tanks full of grapes came undone from their cement tank bases and gravity took control of the 250 ton falling structure.

Unfortunately one young man doing his first harvest was caught out and couldn’t evade all the tanks coming down and suffered a couple of broken ribs and a collapsed lung; by all accounts he’s lucky to be alive. As far I can follow the story, the winery has been closed down for now. The staff are undergoing counselling and those eager to get back to winemaking have been taken in by the surrounding cellars of the area.