ROADBOSS heads to the Barossa to unearth how South Australian grapes are plucked, transported, squashed and crafted to produce our favourite bottle of plonk
I like trucks, and cars and knowing what horsepower is under the bonnet, or a can of beer at the footy with the lads.
This would label me as a simple man? I’m fine with this because I’d like to think I can be sophisticated as well – I sometimes swap the horsepower figures for current affairs and that can of draught for a bottle of wine.
Recently, while enjoying a lovely bottle of plonk and reading of its origins, I began to wonder how South Australian grapes were plucked, transported, squashed and crafted to end up in my glass.
I love grapes, they’re easy on the eye, and I’ve always described grapes like this – you can’t kill them but it doesn’t take much to upset them – they’re very resilient.
Remembering that the Romans would transport grapes via ships or carts and wagons to keep their soldiers quenched in ancient times, why have I never paid the same attention to our modern grapes and their horsepower-drawn carts?
Curiosity conveniently found me in South Australia for grape harvest and the subsequent journey from CMV Farms’ vineyard in Langhorne Creek to a major Barossa production facility.
Trembling grapes
Vintage 2025 has come early; the warm summer that South Australia is under has brought forward harvest by two weeks.
And with consecutive high 30-degree days, harvesting 138 tonnes of Pinot Gris grapes must be done through the night. It’s better like this.
Vintage has come early; the warm summer has brought forward harvest by two weeks
Mirroring Tim Smith, the property manager for CMV Farms, I pluck a lightish-purple Pinot Gris grape from the 20-year-old vines and pop it in my mouth; sweet juice follows.
Tim nods and acknowledges their ripeness, and the two mighty grape harvesters roar down the rows, tractors in behind. The stubborn grapes that survive the harvester tremor on the vine as if frightened.
More juice follows.
For the eight lads working the harvesters and the tractors, this block of Pinot Gris will be completed by 3:00am.
“I guess it all started for us last May after we ran the machines over the block and cut off the year’s growth,” Tim explains to me amongst the vines.
You can have 60 kangaroos bouncing through the rows. It’s a poetic sight.
“We prune them up, pretty the place up and then wait for the first bud-burst,” a term they use for when the first leaves come out.
“From then on, we just water this block and keep them healthy and disease-free until the time is right to knock them off and send them away on the road trains.”
Last week was Chardonnay, this week it is Pinot Gris and over the next few weeks, the many other varieties on this 415-hectare farm will find their way to the wineries of South Australia.
Harvest can be short and sweet at five weeks or stretch out to eight or nine weeks, depending on the year and the different varieties.
Harvest can be as short as five weeks or eight-nine weeks, depending on year and varieties
And with every block harvested Tim’s stress levels go down. “I’ll certainly be corking a bottle of something to celebrate once we get through to the other side of this vintage,” he says.
“It can be a stressful time, harvest especially – my favourite part is getting them off,” Tim laughs.
The fickle nature of grape growing, a poor export market and the changing palates of drinkers make for a demanding job.
But Tim knows no different; his entire life has been amongst the vines. His grandfather had a vineyard back in the day in the famed Clare Valley region. His father also worked his entire life in a winery, while his uncle used to manage a vineyard in the Clare, a job his brother does now.
I’ll certainly be corking a bottle of something to celebrate once we through to the other side of this vintage.
Tim’s son is even behind the wheel of a tractor, his first job since finishing high school and his first taste in the world of wine.
Hours later, as the orange orb of the sun lowers below the horizon, and a blinged-up Kenworth kicks dust in arrival, the trucking element of the job takes over.
JET Trucking
It’s 3:30am and the last of JET Trucking’s three Kenworths has arrived ready for the day ahead, a 200-odd kilometre journey to Dorrien Estate in Tanunda, one of Australia’s famous winemaking towns.
Over 55 boxes of grapes have been loaded onto Freighter flat decks during the night, the last 15 now on the back of a beaming blue 2023 T909.
Justin Jaensch says driving through vines, with a blue-top bonnet and sun setting, is “fantastic”
I’d say it’s not my cup of tea, but who’d listen? I know I’m the odd one out. Whatever isn’t painted striking blue is chrome and no amount of early 3:00am darkness could extinguish its lights.
I was pre-warned. “Wait till you see these Kennies mate, they’re pretty bloody good!” says Tim, in a rare moment of vigour for the quiet, no-fuss operator.
I firmly believe that transport and its overheads make it one of the hardest industries to make a buck. Throw in extravagant trucks with chrome similar to a rapper’s grill, and margins shrivel even smaller.
Yet, JET Trucking owner Justin Jaensch’s never been in it for the cash, he just “bloody loves trucks”. “Yeah – stick it to those money-hungry bastards,” I catch myself thinking.
I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it for the cool trucks. Driving through the vines, with the blue-top bonnet and the sun setting … it’s fantastic.
Justin’s managerial justification for “wanting to build and own cool trucks” works for him. “More to the point, I do think you retain your drivers and attract them with cool gear and we’ve had some fantastic people work for us.
“You can take this with a grain of salt, but everyone told me when I started out there’s no money in trucks, that you won’t make money in trucks, you’ll break even, and when you sell them you might get a little bit back or whatever.
“But I’m not really in it for the money. I’m in it for the cool trucks. I’ve always loved trucks – even the rickety K100 I used to have,” he jokes.
Justin landed in the industry by accident; a mechanic by trade working on a farm, the opportunity to get behind the wheel came after needing to get his licence to shift grain.
Justin says he’s not really in it for the money but rather the cool trucks!
After a few changes at that job, he ended up buying his own truck about eight months later, he explains. It wasn’t a hard decision for Justin – he and his wife had always pictured themselves doing business together.
Since the launch of JET Trucking in February 2013, the Murray Bridge-based business has grown from one tipper combination to a diverse operation with eight truck and trailer combinations and a few subbies.
Mostly in general freight and tipper work, the opportunity to buy Schubert Haulage 18 months ago gave Justin his start in the grape game.
“So, we did vintage with him last year (the previous owner). He stayed on and he helped us through the period teaching us how he ran the system and then this year we are wholly and solely on our own.
When you get to the top of the hill after the twists and turns, you can see forever. It’s spectacular.
“It’s been exciting to sink our teeth into it,” Justin says.
“Driving through the vines, with a blue-top bonnet and the sun setting – you’ve seen it, it’s fantastic. I absolutely love the grapes.”
The truck’s driver, Joel Hanlon, greets me with a big smile poking through his bushy ginger beard. He quickly stops what he’s doing and ushers me from the trailers to his prime mover for a tour.
“Do you wanna jump up and take a look?” he asks enthusiastically.
Kenworth river Joel and his 37 tonnes of grapes make their way to Dorrien Estate in Tanunda
So immaculate inside, there was a reluctance on my part to jump in. I made sure to not take any offence when he assured me it was fine, “he’d be cleaning his truck later, anyway”.
In the lead-up to my trip, Justin had told me about Joel. “That guy just lives and breathes this truck, you won’t ever see that thing dirty. We joke that he has a problem, he just replies – “but I love it!”
You could see this ‘gift’ of a Kenworth from Justin to Joel was a treasured possession and I was keen to join him for this drive.
From the vines at Langhorne Creek, Joel and his 37 tonnes of grapes make for Tanunda. It’s a simple drive, and thanks to permits, they’re allowed to run their road trains and B-doubles through the Ferries McDonald Conservation Park instead of going via Murray Bridge.
That guy just lives and breathes this truck, you won’t ever see that thing dirty. We joke that he has a problem, he just replies – “but I love it!”
As daylight broke, we hit the road train route at Mannum Road. While not very pronounced, from here the combination pushes along harder than you think.
“If you watch your booster gauge and where your foot positioning is you realise that you’ll have that accelerator foot pretty much flat the whole way to the Sturt Highway,” Joel says.
It’s back to the bottom box and about 20km/h as you make the climb up the spectacular Accommodation Hill.
Being a regular in these parts, Joel made it known before we left that this long, slow descent up the hill makes for a stunning view, especially on the way back empty.
The B-double full of grapes makes its way to winery and eventually into a bottle at your local BWS
“When you get to the top of the hill after the twists and turns, you can see forever,” Joel tells me. “It’s spectacular.”
We push on through the dry, rain-thirsty agricultural landscape which quickly turn green with grapes and vineyards as we drop into Nurioopta – the start of the Barossa Valley.
A story on its own, the small Barossa town is home to well-known South Australia transport companies Nurioopta Traders and Hahn Transport.
Now in the heart of Australia’s ever-growing wine industry, famed wineries blur past our eyes, Penfolds here, Torbreck there, Seppeltsfield around the bend. Our destination was Dorrien Estate, the Halliday five-star winery now owned by the Endeavour Group.
If you watch your booster gauge and where your foot positioning is you realise that you’ll have that accelerator foot pretty much flat the whole way to the Sturt Highway.
Joel, the T909 and his B-double full of grapes roll into Dorrien and are quickly in the line to drop its grapes.
Here, those lightish-purple grapes that Tim and I snacked on the previous evening will eventually find their way into a bottle at your local BWS.
Wine not
On my return to Brisbane, a certain conversation with Tim’s right-hand man, Kim, resonated with me.
Also, a veteran of the wine industry (this is his 30th vintage), like many things in today’s world, Kim believes the world simply doesn’t take note of the world around it, how things are made and how they end up on your table.
The fickle nature of grape growing and changing palates make for a demanding job
Did you know that one berry, depending on the variety, weighs roughly one gram? And say there are roughly 100 berries on a bunch, eight bunches to a vine and 2,000 vines per hectare, and then you multiply that by 400 hectares, that’s how many tonnes of grapes CMV grows.
“I was explaining this to my daughter,” Kim explains passionately. “The scale of what it takes to get that bottle of wine – from a tiny little grape to that bottle.
“All of a sudden, her brain was like ‘holy shit’!”
So was mine. So, for every tonne of grapes, you get roughly 700 litres of juice? Just think about that.
The scale of what it takes to get that bottle of wine – from a tiny little grape to that bottle. All of a sudden, her brain was like ‘holy shit’!
Add in the workmanship and the thousands of others worldwide like Justin and Joel delivering grapes to the winemakers, and that appreciation or self-awareness, whatever you want to call it, quickly begins to grow.
I haven’t even touched on the logistics of distribution or the hero winemakers themselves (perhaps for another “research trip”).
So, as I sit swirling my glass, writing this story and knowing a darn lot more about how my vino got in this glass, I conclude that I wasn’t very sophisticated at all.
And if it seems I’ve been slightly vague in this story – perhaps do as I did and experience it for yourself.
