NMIT Student Wine Awards- Gold Medal!!

The second year Student Chardonnay 'KID' took out the Best White at the inaugural NMIT Student Wine Awards. A great night was had. Special thanks to Martin Williams, Jane Faulkner and Ann Manning for a super tasting effort. And, of course, well done to the 18 students who contributed wines for the awards. All tasted great.

Bottling and labelling!!!

And that is a wrap people!! The student chardonnay is in the bottle and fully labeled! What a great effort by everyone, especially second years Sam and Shir. Tastes and looks great. Also thanks to Robert Paul and Mark Matthews for helping get it all together.

Finishing touches - bentonite addition

Skim milk addition

Final fining trials in preparation for the Wine Awards

Robert, Shir and Sam doing the final fining trials of the Student Chardonnay in preparation for its assault on the NMIT Student Wine Awards on the 29th of October. Special thanks for Mark Matthews for his help too.

La Trobe Journalism Student Visit

NMIT welcomed 3rd year Journalism students from La Trobe University with a BBQ, tour and Q&A session with our Winemaking and our Agriculture students. Special thanks to their lecturer Rachel Buchanan for helping get this organised! We look forward to reading their articles!!

Label assignment

The second year winemakers worked in conjunction with NMIT's Bachelor of Illustration students to create a label for the chardonnay. From a stunning selection of 12 labels the students decided on a single design for both the wine label and the invitation for the Student Wine Awards. A separate image was chosen to be monogrammed wine glass which will be a souvenir on the night.

Fining trials for the Chardonnay

Robert Paul and the second year students seen here trialling different fining methods for the student chardonnay.

Racking the Chardonnay

Winemaker Robert Paul, BVW202 Wine Production I lecturer, took the second years through the racking process transfering the wine off its lees into a vessel for fermentation.

Crushing, destemming and pressing

The 1st year students, under the watchful eye of Micah, crushed, destemmed and pressed the Chardonnay in preparation for the return of the 2nd years.

Under instruction from the 2nd years the wine was sent to be cold settled in the coolroom for 7 days. Tasting good already!

Picking

The 1st year students and the teaching staff ventured to Steve Pride's vineyard at Panton Hill, Victoria, for a morning of grape picking. In all, two bins totalling 580 kg of handpicked chardonnay were collected for the 2nd years to convert into (hopefully) award-winning wine. The speed of picking was furious, probably due to the tyrannical rule of crew-leader-for-the-day Frank 'Iron bar' Mollo.