Barrels, Drama & We're On The Air WSCS 90.9FM

[here's Anton (left) and me (Paolo) with French Oak loaded up]
The French Oak arrived on Tuesday - and so did the snows. Mid afternoon Anton and I did a sanity check - do we just get them because we're excited and will do it under any conditions, no matter how bad, or do we wait. We decided to get them but not take the trailer and risk it sliding all over the place pulling the back end of the pickup all over the place.
In the end we loaded 6 barrels on the pickup and secured them with straps. They were held in place by a stand on the end. The remaining barrel and two stands when in the Explorer.
Marty was at the winery to help unload.

[above - here we all are with our pet cellar rat in middle - left to right, Michael, Marty, Cellar Rat, Paolo, Anton]
Drama.
Since the flextanks won't be here for the weekend there's no rush to do the Bordeaux so all we did on Wednesday was the Shiraz. Everything was going fine but then Marty said that the barrel we were filling was creaking. Was it the wood responding to slightly warmer wine? Was it the barrel settling on its rack as it got heavier? Creaking? So I turned the pump off and went to go see. Just as I arrived Marty pulled the hose out of the barrel and the wine exploded out of the bung hole!
What had happened was that as we were filling there was no air escaping and so the barrel was creaking as the pressure built up inside. You'd think the hose would have popped out of the bung hole. So a good thing we didn't keep on as we may have burst the barrel itself. Has that happened before?
We couldn't start the pump after that until after we disconnected all hoses and stripped the impeller housing down and then took a look at the drive pulley. We got it going again.
After we filled 2 barrels (@158gallons or 790 bottles) we then decanted the Shiraz in the demijons. This will be used to top up the Shiraz barrels.
On Saturday we'll do the Bordeaux blend, and next week the Sangiovese Pinot Noir.

Friday we're On Air at WSCS 90.9FM New Hampshire - I think they broadcast on the web too. We'll be talking at 2.45pm EST on the Kitchen-sink program. Soap-box time! We must behave.

And this is John who came by to lend a hand. He's siphoning the Shiraz in the demijon.