Beginnings at Mollydooker

The days of aimless exploring and whimsical expeditions have finally come to a close. This Monday I started work at Mollydooker, and I've just come back from my third full day. It seems to be a really good place so far. There's a lot of good people making some really tasty wine. We actually got a chance yesterday to taste through the whole lineup of the wines yesterday, including The Velvet Glove, which was amazing. It's one of those wines that has recieved really high scores in all the magazines, having reached a 99 from Robert Parker and so far never scoring below 97, but I'm always afraid of wines with that much hype falling short of expectations. But I'm glad to be able to say that it was one of those rare things that actually deserves all the praise that it receives, as it had a remarkable combination of flavor, intensity, and finesse.

It's going to be an interesting vintage this year however, because McLaren Vale, where our winery and vineyards are located, has had more rain this season that anyone can remember seeing before. The harvesting of the grapes is being delayed by the weather, so right now all we can do is wait. The past couple of days have mostly been spent training and learning winery procedures, but when we've had opportunities to work, there just isn't much wine related work to do at this point. So what we've been doing is general cleaning and preparation for when things pick up, but we're all ready to start getting the grapes in.

Here's a shot from above some of our bigger tanks of the view from the winery:

And here's a picture of me in my high-visibility Mollydooker uniform. I gotta say, I think think highlighter is a pretty good color for me: