Showing posts with label barossa valley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barossa valley. Show all posts

Friday 26 February 2021

Is it picking or shaking grapes?

Earlier this week, wife Christina and I were invited to see a grape picking machine at work on a friend's vineyard. It was a new experience for both of us.

You see, we've only lived in grape country for just over three years and although I've contributed a significant amount of money to the wine industries over the past 50 years or so, I've never seen under the bonnet, so to speak.

But this night was different. We gathered at our friend's vineyard around 7 pm, just before darkness set in and watched the monster roll up and stop just in front of the first row of grapes. In the next row to the right, there was a tractor towing a hopper that has the amazing ability to raise itself to tip truck height so it can tip its load into a semi-trailer.

When the yellow monster starts, plastic "blades" (for want of a better word) move up and down and shake the grapes off the vine after which they are sucked up into a funnel that spits them out into the back of the hopper.

Incredibly, the non-fruit part of the vines, although scratched a little, are still intact and these have to be trimmed off by hand later.

The hopper carries a couple of tonnes of grapes and when full, transports them to the semi-trailer and tips them into the back.

I've always had a great respect for those people, much smarter than me, who make these types of machines - mechanical engineers. As I pondered the design of the machine, I couldn't help but wonder how many grape vines were destroyed trying to get the prototype working. Trial and error is always the way with new machines.

Apparently all the grapes in the Barossa Valley are shiraz grapes. They tend to be a bit smaller than those you buy in supermarkets. 

They are picked during the evening when it is cooler since the grapes are a bit harder and less likely to be damaged. Warm, soft grapes can split and lose their juice,

Next year, every time I open a bottle of red wine, at the back of my mind, I'll be wondering whether the grapes I saw picked on this evening helped to make the bottle I'm drinking. Statistically, the probability is probably less than zero, but I'll still think it. Wouldn't you?

Robin




Tuesday 7 July 2020

Barossa Valley's Chocolate Company - a Great Attraction

thisboomerslife.blogspot.com
Who doesn't like chocolate?

I'm sure everyone likes chocolate, I know I do but I purposely avoid it most of the time.

Despite so-called "scientific" reports suggesting chocolate is good for us, it is chock-full of calories and a challenge for some of us watching our calorific intake.

If you're one of those lucky people who can eat whatever you want, or young enough for the rot not to have set in, you'd be able to pig out here. There's certainly plenty of variety.

Although the Barossa Valley Chocolate Company is only a few kilometres from where I live, I've driven by numerous times but never visited. Today on my daily walk, I thought I'd walk in and take a look now that businesses are returning to normal.

The Chocolate Company has a wine-tasting centre that was closed and a restaurant that had the government proscribed maxima of attendees, so I couldn't buy the flat white coffee I'd intended to. Next time.

I took a few photographs of the nicely decorated and laid out areas inside. The different colour scheme for various types of chocolate is visually attractive as you can see from the photos.

I don't know where one would start here, there are so many choices.

There are also small packages for gifts set up to make the task easier eg, one gift has a mug filled with chocolate options.

I think a good strategy for buying chocolate would be to visit the cafe first and buy lunch. After lunch when you are no longer hungry, then go look at the chocolate.

That way, there's less of a chance you'll overdo the chocolate purchasing and blow your budget.

One of my favourite chocolate recipes - that includes peanut butter (I love both) I got from Chocolate Covered Katie (Doesn't the name say something?)

Love chocolate? Visit the Chocolate University Online.


Robin

PS: What's your favourite chocolate? You don have one don't you?