Alex McKenzie will be in Switzerland at the Weingut zum Sternen vineyard — where they have been producing wine for 552 years, and is currently run by the three Meier brothers — following the winemaking process for an entire vintage. Island will be featuring Alex’s discoveries, musings, and revelations about his experience throughout his stay.
Part 3:
We had a small taste test of the saft (juice) as it began to ferment and the X5 Sauvignon Blanc smelt deliciously strongly of my grandmother’s preferred Pine Orange juice. The scent transferred me to mornings at her place before making the drive up Ben Lomond in Grade 6 for a ski in my jumpsuit, borrowed from the lady across the road. The Freddo Sav Blanc smelt of green capsicum. As in, it really smelt like green capsicum, with a little bit of fig perhaps. Like the smell of working the cold larder as a kitchen hand at Lemonthyme Lodge with token garden salads being churned out with every meal. The aromas were distinct, clear and enticing.
As these wine-focussed conversations with Chris progress and I recognise the aromas and grow my vocabulary, I find myself doing ferment checks thinking ‘Oh yes, there’s the rose water from yesterday.’ Two weeks ago I would never have done that. I would have said, ‘Oh that smells tasty and good.’ Chris would respond, ‘Well, yes, but that’s not very helpful. What does it smell like?’ ‘Lollies,’ I might reply — with treats always on my mind — to which he would explain that what I’m smelling is in fact the smell of Turkish Delight, which is made from rose water. I
’m beginning to think more strongly that one of the biggest problems with helping people to get to the position of enjoying talking about wine and thinking about it more seriously as a part of the meal is that the knowledge seems off-limits and inaccessible. Most people don’t get the joyous experience of being pushed to explain what they smell in their own words.
I can’t stand snobbish waiters or those who like to confuse with unnecessary complication just to be asked the follow-up question: ‘what do you mean?’ This patient, measured introduction that I’m being treated to is opening a door of nuances and enjoyment that is allowing me to feel like I did in Grade 5 when Mrs Kirk taught me about ‘HMS Bringdown’ and the method of working out long division. I think excellent teachers make you feel good about what you’re learning and not annoyed at yourself for finding it hard in the beginning. And often, it just feels like a chat that ends with you thinking, ‘Well, actually, I just learned quite a lot.’ It’s been a while since I’ve had that experience at a restaurant — and it’s not for want of learning. But I think the best waiters do it with ease, and quickly, not being over the top but drawing you into the kitchen’s secrets of deliciousness. It’s what Katrina used to do at Hobart’s Garagistes and Sidecar. What Emma used to do at Pigeon Hole. And it’s what Chris is doing now.
I recall reading an interview with Neil Perry, of Sydney’s Rockpool Bar & Grill fame, saying that the key to good restaurant staff is getting them to work like they’ve got the mortgage on the place, and like Mrs Kirk did with me and my classmates in Grade 5, like they’re family. I think that probably works for any business really, and wine making is no exception.
Andreas is certainly a lucky man to have the team around him that he does. As Chris and I rounded out our fortnights work, in which we managed to log over a months worth of working hours at the cellar, I realised that in order to make quality wine you need to have such a strong desire to produce something good that your own personal well-being is put on hold. Perhaps not indefinitely, and certainly not without the right employer, but at least during harvest, everything else comes second. Eating, sleeping, playing and sunlight. It’s all a secondary consideration to the habitual questions during the dazed hours of labour: when do the grapes arrive? How much? Where from? What time did you say the grapes were coming again?
If you don’t feel like you’re somehow responsible for the output of the cellar then come home-time at 6pm, as some of the staff here do, its Bis Morgen and off you go until tomorrow. When I think about every litre of juice being worth about 10 francs to the vineyard and that at any one time there could be 7000 litres charging around the building in pump lines, all of a sudden the weight of responsibility in a hectic environment seems a heavy burden on the shoulders of my friend, who slogs it out for the love of his craft and the desire to produce something great.
As with my experience on the dairy with the Roberts family, working like the mortgage is yours sometimes means pre-dawn starts and post-midnight finishes. I miss being the answer to Max and Bruce’s search for a longer arm to pull a calf from a distressed heifer — and farming grapes and producing wine has proven to be an equally challenging but rewarding task whilst observing different personalities, the management they require, and learning a hell of a lot about wine.
Alex McKenzie is a Tasmanian food writer, and has a blog, Food, fullstop. Read more from Alex about Weingut zum Sternen.