Winemaker turns to ancient technique, turning grapes into wine in just months

Amphoras have been used to ferment and age wine for 1000’s of years.

Now one Mudgee winemaker goes again in time to the traditional approach.

David Lowe has been making wine for greater than 40 years, however his new pursuit has led him to one of many oldest winemaking methods on this planet. 

“We have harvested by hand bunches of grapes and simply threw all of them into this 600-litre pot, which is now buried within the floor,” he mentioned.

“This kind of fermenter was used 1000’s of years in the past to carry liquid, it may have been water, it may have been olive oil and infrequently it was wine.

“This was the oldest technique to retailer wine as a result of it stored it fixed in temperature, so you set them on this and it used to have oil on high of it, which sealed the wine off from any air.”

It’s an historic approach that dates again to the early Greeks and Romans, but it surely has grown right into a thriving counterculture in winemaking over the previous decade.

“We harvested on the 14th of February and it has been there ever since,” Mr Lowe mentioned.

“How lengthy it will be there you would possibly ask? Nicely, we do not know as a result of it is a new factor for us.

“However we have additionally bought the identical pot outdoors in a cage within the vineyard so we’re evaluating one within the floor to one out of the bottom each couple of weeks to do the slurping and testing.”

Why are historic pots so particular?

The key to amphora containers is within the substance they’re manufactured from — clay — which will be considered the center floor between metal and oak barrels.

Stainless-steel permits for an oxygen-free setting and doesn’t impart any flavours into the wine whereas oak, then again, permits for ample oxygen to succeed in the juice and the wooden’s tannins additionally have an effect on the wine’s flavour and aroma.

“A wood barrel shops wine in an setting the place you decide up oak character and there is a softening due to somewhat little bit of air that goes by the wooden because the wooden is porous,” Mr Lowe mentioned. 

“What we’re doing is we’re trying on the impact of not solely the temperature, however from a biodynamic viewpoint, it is choosing up all of the forces of the earth.”

“So if you happen to bury it within the floor, it picks up the entire issues that undergo the earth and the earth being the supply of the microbiology of the crops, the vitamins that feed the crops, and feed life kinds.”

Not so simple as it seems to be

Mr Lowe even stunned himself with the early outcomes from his subterranean experiment.

“The wine is a fantastic crimson in color, it is fairly clear, it is settled and it is bought a very nice engaging, barely peppery shiraz character,” he mentioned.

However getting it out of the bottom and right into a bottle is proving somewhat more difficult for Mr Lowe.

“I’ve bought to bottle it up, however I simply do not know the right way to empty it,” he mentioned.

“It is solely two months outdated, typically wines want two to 4 years to be tender and mature. Right here it is able to drink now.”