WINEMAKING

History

Helen and Joey Estate have produced wines from our Spring Lane vineyard since 2012. Initially, all our wines were made by contract at other sites. From the 2015 harvest, we started making wine on-site in a very small micro-winery we built at the back of the old cellar, a converted farm machinery shed. We were able to process about a quarter of our grape production, with the rest still being sent off-site. This all changed with the construction of our new purpose-built facility, completed for the 2022 harvest.

Now

As befits a “wine first business,” stage one of Helen and Joey Estate’s new development, which includes our new Cellar Door, Restaurant, and Boutique Accommodation, was the construction of a new winery. Commissioned for the 2022 grape harvest, the new winery is large enough to process all the grapes we are capable of growing. Some would say that the facility has an excess of capacity, but this is a deliberate provision to ensure that winemaking decisions are quality first and not driven by pragmatic process choices about time and space. Nothing is hurried along by the urgency of making room for what needs to be picked next.

There are five parts to the new winery: the grape processing pad, fermentation facility, barrel cellar, laboratory, and lunch room.

Grape Processing Pad

A large undercover area with a built-in cool store allows us to chill our grapes prior to processing. This is important for making delicate, fine-boned wines. Two big shiny machines dominate the space. One is for removing stalks and crushing grapes. The other is for separating the juice / wine from the solid matter, such as grape skin and pips. Both of these machines are state-of-the-art, known for their flexibility and gentleness.

Fermentation Facility

A combination of open fermenters and enclosed stainless steel (static fermenters). Everything is temperature-regulated. The combination gives the winemakers flexibility of approach. The open fermenters provide the best of old-school approaches for producing premium, aromatic red wine. The enclosed static fermenters are perfect for making fruit-forward, balanced wines, with lighter styles of white wine most notable. Our premium, fuller-bodied wine styles go to barrels for fermentation… which is a perfect segue.

Barrel Cellar

This is where a lot of magic happens. The French have a term for the time that wine spends in a barrel. They call it “élevage.” The best translation in English is “to raise,” in a similar sense as “raising” children. To “raise” something, whether children or wine, requires a certain sense of order and just the right conditions. To be honest, in the old, slightly more makeshift winery, maintaining perfect conditions for the barrels was the hardest of endeavors. Temperature fluctuations (especially heat) and dry conditions are the enemy. The winemakers were always having to fight to make things right (which is sometimes just a euphemism for making things “less wrong”).

In the new winery, conditions for barrel storage are just perfect. Our barrel cellar is built into the earth, the best insulator, and then we have sensor-regulated ambient temperature control and misting systems to maintain humidity. It is here that our Wayward Child, Re’em, and Alicorn red wines mature for between 8 to 18 months, and our most premium white wines ferment and age. Constant temperature of 14°C and humidity above 70%. In the barrel, a small amount of wine evaporates and needs replacing. In our new barrel cellar, evaporation has reduced by over 80%. Our wine children are very well raised… even the wayward ones!

Laboratory

A very clever company that manufactures very clever diagnostic machines for the pathology industry invented a very clever diagnostic machine for the wine industry. We have one. We can now perform all of our own diagnostics as we process from grape to wine, including more accurate measures of grape ripeness across the vineyard prior to harvesting. This allows our winemakers to have instant access to results, meaning much more precise decision-making.

Lunch Room

Well, they say that an essential part of making wine is drinking beer, but so too is a nice and warm space for lunch. A lot of winemaking is actually “wine growing,” which takes place outdoors, which in the middle of July can be in fairly inhospitable circumstances. Don’t underrate the importance of the lunch room for winemaking.