Vintage (or harvest) is just around the corner so of course what better time to start expanding the winery. I can’t blame Joch entirely for being lastminute.com – the council is a very slow and deliberate beast when it comes to approving planning applications and we had a few hoops to jump through. Anyhow, we are through them now, so the digging has commenced.

You can see Will Hodge’s excavator here with Darcy and Spencer in the background. We’ve had to lose a few vines during the exercise as well. Eggs and omelettes I suppose. 

This is not a Bobcat, as I thought at first, but a skid steer, apparently. ‘Bobcat’ is now used as a generic term for all of these wee machines. A bit like a Hoover I suppose….

Will is digging and leveling out the area behind the current winery shed to provide Nairn and co with a bigger area to work in, plus more barrel storage area. My guess is it will be finished just in time for the end of harvest. So, standard winery expansion operating time frames then. 

On a completely different note (see above), I think I have already found my favourite photo of 2014 and it’s not even February. Ian Adam;  cellar door, vineyard and winery man used his noggin during the hot spell we’ve just had and found the perfect cooling solution, the one tonne fermenter. Genius.