vineyards

The next week I will join Flo, the KC farm manager, for 1 week. I am really looking forward to work with him as he is in charge of many people and I will hopefully learn something about setting up shifts, dealing with workers (could be a problem as I can understand Afrikaans but can not speak it),vineyards, irrigation, ....

Pruning at KC has started last week ... by the way ..  today is 19 deg Celsius!!!!  ... and it is winter now!!

Austrian tasting

Yesterday after work I was the proud host of the first "Austrian tasting" at Klein Constantia.

25 winemakers, sommeliers, journalists and friends were keen to taste some Austrian wines.

My presentation covered the history of viticulture, facts and figures about our winecountry, soils, varieties, climate, ... and so on.

I described the different wine regions, showed some pics, played "Heurigen" music and we tasted 18 Austrian wines from nearly all winegrowing areas.

From light crisp Grüner Veltliner and Welschriesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling Smaragd, Rotgipfler, Zweigelt, Blaufränkisch, Pinot Noir and Sankt Laurent to TBAs was the tasting range and I am proud to say that my guests were stunned by the quality and versatility of Austrian wines.

After the tasting we had a braai and the wines proved once more that they are "the most food friendly wines" in the world.

my guests:

the wines:

Topsommelier Miguel and I:

Some could not get enough:

Germans ...

Today I had lunch with Thomas and his wife Albertina at the "winhuis" in Stellenbosch. I met them about 2 month ago in Cape Town and they spent the last 6 weeks or so in South America. Chile and Argentina was pretty cool but never go to Venezuela!!

They are going back to Germany tomorrow morning after 8 month travelling the world. How cool is that!!! I strongly believe the experiences they made are definitly worth the expenses and they will benefit from this trip in their new jobs.

We will see each other again as I am welcome in Cologne when ever I want! 

Carnival, I am coming!!

FAQs

Franz: And the last wine is our famous Vin de Constance. .... Yes, it is sweet. The RS is about 130g/l.

Visitor: You don´t have something sweeter??

------------------

Visitor(after discovering that I am Austrian): What!! There are vineyards in Austria???? I was in Switzerland last month but nobody told me.

Franz: There are some vineyards in Switzerland too.

Visitor: No way!! I just saw mountains.

Tasting Counter

Tuesday morning the annual audit by the government started. As Linton is busy to show them "where all the money" is, I have changed to the Tasting counter and that is more difficult then expected.

I thought to talk about wine and pour some samples is quite an easy job. Wrong! That´s not easy for me as I am thinking differently as most of the consumers. I tend to be to technical in wine descriptions or just to detailed and by some of the questions of our visitors I am just stunned.

Most favourite FAQ yesterday:

Franz: Our Madame Marlbrook is a blend with 60% Semillon, 37% Sauvignon Blanc and 3% Muscat.

Visitor: Does the Muscat make the wine taste sweet?

(I did not know that Muscat is linked to sweet as one can make every wine in an off-dry style!)

As I find it really interesting/amusing I will try to post my most favourite FAQ everyday this week ... because we all should finish our day at work with a smile!!

Cheers Franz

wine of the month May

Late again, but anyway. The wine of the month May can be found on the "wine list" link.  

Export

This week I have worked with Therese. She is in charge of all exports (Klein Constantia Estate exports about 60% of the annunal production all over the world). 

I have learned to issue invoices, Export Certificates, Certificates of origin, Transfer forms, ...

Glady, I took "Aussenhandel" (Prof. Ambichl) at the BOKU. I was not completely lost with INCO terms as FOB, CIF, ..

We had to load two 40ft containers for Denmark and two 20ft containers what was rather difficult as the container were skew and the floor was really worn. It took 4 men (including me) to push and tow and squeeze the pallets in.

Next week I am supposed to work with Linton from the Accouning Dep. That´s going to be fun as I am "completely" plain about accounting. But it will be a short week as Monday is a public holiday. Yeeehhaaaa!! 

Comments ...

Nachdem (abgesehen von Claudia !!) die Comments ziemlich eingeschlafen sind, ist wieder mal ein Weckruf nötig. 

Diesmal in Deutsch! Da , auch wenn der Blog in Ausländisch ist, immer noch Deutsch meine Muttersprache ist und ich auch deutsche Comments beantworte. Ausserdem braucht niemand afraid sein, wenn sein English a little bit schlecht is. Meins is too schlecht!! (As my german is!) 

Cheers

Franz

Next week ...

Next week I will work with Therese. She is in charge of Export and ?? I do not really know what she is doing, but I will find out! I think she is responsible for the PR too.

As my second focus in my master study, besides viticuluture, is wine marketing and PR this is going to be a very interesting week. 

Bottling ..

We started bottling SB this afternoon. After a few starting troubles with the timing of the line (the input star hates me) we were on full speed when the time was up, but as the bottling line and I became acquainted today, we are going to fall in love tomorrow, ... hopefully ;-)

Labelling

After 2 days labelling Noble Late Harvest Rhine Riesling bottles by hand I am able to tell if a label is skew just after one quick glance. But with Jimi Hendrix and Co. from my fancy iPod touch (thanks Ulli for this gorgeous Christmas present!!) it is rather relaxing to work on my own at my own pace.

Change ...

This Friday was my last day in the cellar. Next week will start a kind of job rotation for me. 

I will move from now on through the different job positions within the estate.

First week: stock and bottling line (yeehhaa!!! ... 60.000 L of SB are waiting for me!)

Tasting counter, deliveries, marketing, .... and so on are the upcoming the next few weeks.

As my master study is focusing on wine marketing too, it will be a great experience besides the art of  "New World wine making" I have learned by now. I am quite sure that both sides will benefit from this new partnership (at least I hope so)!!

Cheers, Franz

Swartland

Last Thursday Adam, Stiaan, Manu and I made a small study trip to Lammershoek winery near Malmesbury in the Swartland region.

The estate is owned by Mr. Paul Kretzel, an Austrian from St. Aegid near Mariazell, who lives in South Africa since 36 years. It was very cool to discover that he is an Austrian and he knows lots of Austrian winemakers (Knoll, Pichler, .. and Weinpfarrer Denk!!), of course. His wines will be available at Wein&Co soon.

My fellow student Lena Fink will do her internship at Lammershoek estate next year!!

We tasted some wines out of barrels and visited the vineyards. A big part of the farm is bush vines and they have maybe the oldest and biggest vine in South Africa (according to Adam and Stiaan). 

A 50 year old, maybe Chenin Blanc, vine but nobody knows exactly what it is.

Lammershoek:

Perdeberg wine area:

Bush vines: