John Harris

Operations Winemaker
Domaine Chandon, Australia

Bachelor of Science

"It is a career that has taken me to many beautiful parts of the world, and allowed me to meet a lot of great people along the way."

Winemaking, thus far has been a fascinating career choice. Winemaking is often considered a combination of both art and science. It utilises many skill areas, from the fields of science (botany, chemistry, microbiology, biochemistry), engineering, logistical management, through to accountancy, resource management skills, and also public relations. It also requires much experience in sensory evaluation, and being able to assess fruit, juice and wines through sight, smell and taste and is as important as the classical skills to analyse and interpret scientific results. If the prior is the "science" of winemaking, then the ability to put together and assess blends with an eye to their future development is probably the "art" of winemaking. It is a career that has taken me to many beautiful parts of the world, and allowed me to meet a lot of great people along the way.

Essentially, a winemaker's responsibility is to turn grapes into finished and saleable wine. Harvest is our busiest time year, and for three months or so (from February until April) we work about 100 hours a week, all hours of the day. It is an exciting and exhausting time. This is the one chance each year we get to make our wine. We rely on and liaise with our viticulturist and our other contract growers to help dictate the type (quality and quantity) of fruit that we require for the style of wine we are making, and prior to harvest are out in the vineyards tasting fruit samples to determine a picking date as well as relying on analytical data (and coming weather conditions).

Once the fruit arrives at the winery, we can perform any number of processing steps depending on the style and quality of the wine to be produced. It is up to the winemaker to understand the control of these fruit processing steps through to fermentation and also includes blending and maturation, and finally bottling.

We cannot make good wine from mediocre fruit. To make excellent wine, fruit quality also must be exceptional. Depending on the position and size of the company, a winemaker may also spend a lot of time attending dinners, and PR functions, helping to sell the wines.

My time at Monash was exciting and certainly stimulating. Living on campus was a great way to meet a diverse bunch of people, many of which remain extremely close friends now 12 or so years on. My studies helped me develop necessary logic, analytical and problem solving skills, but university opened my eyes to many new interests including wine, that I otherwise probably would not have been exposed to.