An alternate reality Story by Corrina Wright.
Above: Mark McCarthy takes a bath with Charlotte Dalton and Ben Cooke during one of Mark’s @bathtimebevvieswithmacca sessions. Photo by Miah McCarthy.
‘Well that’s going to be a bit boring,’ comes the quick reply from a local wine executive when I ask how his work has changed during COVID. ‘What would I be doing if COVID didn’t happen? Going to work. What am I doing now we are living with COVID? Going to work!’ Smartie pants! (Note to self: get better at framing interview questions.) Technically, what he’s saying is true: there’s still plenty of work to do in our ‘essential’ industry. The vines don’t stop growing, the wines still need to be cared for, our cellar doors are mostly back open and we still need to get our wine out to people all over the world. But for our local wine community, the form of that work in 2020 is in some cases vastly different than it would usually be. 28
Vintage time, when all the grapes are being harvested and wines made, is relentlessly hectic. It’s all-hands-on-deck to make the best wine possible from the grapegrowers’ yearly toils. Once the last fruit’s been picked and the year’s income tallied, grapegrowers and contractors can enjoy a few moments of semi-relaxation. All the harvest machinery is cleaned and stripped down, cover crops are sown in the mid-rows, sheep are redeployed on mowing duty, trellis maintenance jobs are ticked off and the irrigation gets shut down. Then pruning starts in earnest and the seasons roll on. Winemakers look back at their vintage creations, allocating wine and blends, making sure the reds are safely tucked away and perhaps bottling whites or previous vintages. Everything is cleaned and then cleaned again, and staff take a few days in lieu to reacquaint themselves with their loved ones. The bean counters take stock and prepare the budgets.
