NWR: Brisbane Floods

[Sam Kennard]

We intend to restore the existing cellar to operate properly, so people can continue to cellar wine with us. This is likely to be a temporary outcome, while we resolve the future more sound location for wine storage.

As mentioned in previous posts, the cooling system is working fully now.

[Michael McNally]

washed and dried and into my new storage in 2 hours.

Is this new storage elsewhere or at Kennards Milton?

A control freak? Surely not!!

Thanks for the feedback Rens and Tim

Michael

[rens]

Hi Michael
That was transported to the valley. However I gave the team a hand to pack my cellar into boxes and I only had to clean 12 bottles or so which I did myself as the team packed. Mind you I catalogued the cellar on Saturday. Gave it a few days to dry a bit and then catalogued what wine was where. That took another 3 hours. On the day at Kennards I just wanted it packed and in a cool environment and had to get back to work so I was moving pretty fast. With the amount of mud that will be on your bottles (mine had none, just a little slime)and this combined with the soggy labels, it will take you some considerable time. Unless you don’t care bout the labels and getting all the mud off but I think you will be busy for at least 4 hours with 400+ bottles.
Good luck. Let us know how you go.

[Michael McNally]

I went to clean out my storage unit at Kennards Milton on Monday afternoon. I got a time when there didn’t seem to be many other people retrieving their wine so the process was quick. It certainly was not painless. Fortunately I only lost one bottle of wine which obviously fell out of a sodden box once the water receded. A ’71 VP, but it could have been worse. Most of my labels are stickers so that meant there was little that couldn’t be identified. The wine was covered in a slick silt - yeeeuukk!!

The folks helping to clean the wine were nice. Mostly Samoans working for a contract labour hire company (I asked), they were cheerful and friendly. They knew nothing about wine – which was fine. They weren’t as “gentle” as I would have liked but they got my wine out of the locker, washed, rinsed, dried and packed in two hours, which I thought was reasonable. If I asked them to be careful with a particular bottle, they were. They didn’t remove capsules until after the washing and rinsing, which I didn’t agree with, but they did a good job. My wine is now re-packed and in cool storage there until my cellar is completed in the next week or two.

While good this was a thoroughly disheartening process. I am not sure how to explain it but it was as if my wine was being rescued from contamination, but whether it was completely “clean” or not was unclear. It was complicated. I saw a guy cleaning out his locker with lots of old Pennies labels and that was quite sad. There was a hint of sorrow (I know this sounds melodramatic, but there is no way to describe it) to the process. Yes I know there were lots of far worse losses and people lost their lives, this isn’t comparative. It’s not even in the same plane.

Anyway, I took a bottle home to see if I could get some indication whether my wine was ruined or cooked. I chose a Marius 'Simpatico' McLaren Vale Shiraz 2006 as it is a wine I know well, and if there was a problem with it there would be good chance it was due to the flood/heat. I removed the screwcap and the white plastic seal was still in place when I took the screwcap off. I wiped the bottle and took off the seal. When I cut off the rest of the screwcap seal there was some silt under there so I urge people to exercise caution and clean things well.

I needn’t have worried about the wine. It was fantastic. Saturated with dark fruit, ground spice and dark chocolate. Lovely wine and classic McLaren.

I will still drink my flood bottles under cork sooner rather than later and I will be very careful with opening and decanting wine to ensure that nothing nasty gets in. I intend to get a toothbrush and clean corks and capsules with steradent when my cellar is finished.

Another bullet dodged for me.

Happy Drinking

Michael

[rens]

Michael, good to hear all was well. Nice excuse to open the Simpatico too.

[Rednick]

A couple of very close escapes, glad all is well.

Nick

[monghead]

Good luck with everything up there guys...

Just a question, has anyone enquired from their insurer if they could make a claim?

[tim1210]

I just talked to KSS and they said they were nearly finished moving ppl out and were doing a big clean over the weekend.
We can move wine back in around tuesday
tim