Land n Sand Jan / Feb 2014 | Page 46

With the grape harvest about to begin I went into my archive and reprocessed some pictures in ‘opalotype’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Opalotype). The original pictures were made last year at Springfontein Winery in Stanford.   During the harvest workers are busy from sunrise to sunset. It starts with the winemaker checking the different blocks and deciding where to harvest. The grapes at Springfontein are all hand picked and the first grading is during the picking (all pickers are therefore equipped with scissors). The full crates are directly transported to a cool space and until late in the evening and even during the night staff of this winery is engaged in the second grading (quality purposes) and pressing. After that it’s all winemaker’s magic in the tanks and barrels.