WAIHIRERE WINE IN THE MAKING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22585, 13 March 1948, Page 8

WAIHIRERE WINE IN THE MAKING

EXPERT PROCESS NO DELAYS FROM VINES TO MILL IJjI’TKESSED or glutted markets for grapes hold no fears for the manufacturers of wine. Once the grapes are ripe they start, on their way to the vats, and this operation is now going on at the vineyard of Air. R ‘Wohnsiedler, Waihirere.

Transported from the vineyard to the factory. the grapes pass a stemming and pulverising machine. The angle of I lie beaters, revolving at 500 revolutions per minutes, work the stalks to one end of the machine and the skins and pulp drop through a shaped grating and flow directly into appropriate concrete vats, which have a parraffin wax dressing. The capacity of Ihe machine in use at Waihirere is four to live tons per hour. Hundreds of Galons of Pure Juice

tn the first, vat inspected by a Herald representative this week there was 550 gallons of pure juice in the process of becoming sherry. It was being fermented without the skins and fermentation had been going on for a week. Sugar was added tbe second day afloi the milling process to remove the stems and pulvcrse the fruit. Then there were 500 gallons in another vat containing the makings of amber-coloured Madeira wine. It was being made from white grapes of the Golden Chasselas variety.

It was explained that all wines inspected were developing and fermenting in their own yeast. The contents of that vat were just starting to rise.

There was another 700 gallons of Madeira, just milled the previous day. The quantity would be made up to 800 gallons by the time the sugar was added.

Still another vat contained 800 gallons of Pinot Mennier grapes used to make Port. It was a week since those

grapes had been milled, it was explained, and for four or five of those riavs it bad been fermenting on the skins. It was usually left another three to four days in the vat to allow for the precipitation of heavy sediment and llien put into wooden vats to complete fermentation prior to fortifying. Improvised Agitator

To eliminate the tedious work of paddling the sugar into the pulp, Mr. G. Wobnsiedler. a son of the winemaker. has improvised an agitator with an eight-inch blade rotated by a quarter horsepower electric-motor. It does the laborious task more quickly and more effectively. Large vats and barrels of up to 800gallon capacity were waiting to take the wine for the completion of the ferment a lion period. It had been found that New Zealand totarn was an improvement on Canadian redwood because there was no seepage from the New Zealand timber. The intake of oxygen through the wood assisted in the ageing process of wine. Ageing in small barrels had the effect of mellowing the wine two or three times quicker because of the increased amount of wood snace per gallon, il was said. The mellowing period took an average of 18 months, according to the type of wine'. Fortifying Spirit For (he manufacture of fortifying spirits 11 10 skins, steins and residue from the vats were refermonted and sugar added. The distillation process was under die supervision of the Customs Department, and it was mentioned that (lie other processes were required to meet with the regulations of the Department of Health.

The spirit manufactured was used only for the fortifying of wines, the plant and any quantities of spirit being locked under customs bond. The fortifying process was under customs supervision. As the product from Gisborne has become wider known repeat orders have been received from people from one end of the Dominion to the other, with much of tire outside demand coming from Auckland and Wellington. Average orders were said to be two-case lots, and usually within six weeks or two months the production available for that year was sold out.