Students celebrate first of the summer wine

Click to enlarge
Students picking grapes

Media release from Otago Polytechnic
30 March 2009

Students celebrate first of the summer wine

Students and staff at Cromwell’s Otago Polytech stepped out of the classroom to celebrate the first of the summer wine last Friday (27 March).

Cromwell’s Otago Polytech campus turned out ‘en masse’ to help their fellow Viticulture students harvest white wine grapes on the Polytech’s vineyard block on Bannockburn Road.

A post-harvest barbecue and an ‘India versus New Zealand’ cricket match, which was the source of much hilarity, were held after the first day of harvesting to celebrate.

Raewyn Paviour, Otago Polytech’s viticulture lecturer, said students had been nurturing the vines for the past year.

“Hands-on learning is an ideal way for students to learn and it was exciting for them to see it all come to fruition,”she says.

She believes that while summer wasn’t as warm or predictable as usual, 2008 will produce a "very good" vintage.

“The quality and condition of our fruit is superb this year. It won’t be a bumper year like last year though. That one was really one out of the bag – the New Zealand market was bulging at the seams. This year we’ll be producing about 110 cases of Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris which equates to 1,400 bottles.”

Click to enlarge
Sreekamur Chellickal Narayanan picking grapes

While Otago Polytech runs its own vineyard and harvest, its wine is made commercially through Bendigo Partnerships under the label ‘Bannockburn Road Vineyard’. Individual bottles and cases are available via the Polytech or locally through supermarkets.

The Polytech’s Pinot Noir grapes will be picked in a couple of weeks, bottled in a year and on the shelves for sale in two years’ time.

Ms Paviour says the celebration barbecue and cricket match were a great way for the students to let off some steam after working hard in the lead-up to harvest time.

The cricket match was brainchild of a group of Indian students here on a pilot horticulture training scheme developed by Otago Polytech, Immigration NZ and the New Zealand Horticulture Industry Training Organisation.

They issued the challenge to the Kiwi students and then spent the week closeted away working on their strategy. Showing their true cricket-mad spirit, they even appointed a cheerleader and came up with a “morale boosting” song for their fans to sing.

Click to enlarge
The Indian Horticulture students singing their 'boosting' song before going in to bat against NZ team, with Sebastian Karuthara Thomas leading on guitar

Unfortunately it didn’t work out quite to plan as, contrary to popular expectation, the Kiwis took the match in convincing style. .

The afternoon was full of laughs and cheering from the onlookers and was rounded off by a typical Kiwi barbecue – an experience the Indians thoroughly enjoyed as they’d never cooked or eaten barbecued food before.

ENDS

© Scoop Media