Throughout Term 1 the Year 10 Agriculture, Horticulture and Viticulture students have undertaken duties to care for the grape vines in the McAuley Park Farm under the guidance of MLMC staff and direction of Dr Andrea Roberts-Davison, who is a Viticulture and Winemaking lecturer at the Melbourne Polytechnic.
Our students have been learning about the various growing requirements of the vines on the vineyard and sampling the ripening grapes to monitor various chemical parameters and determine the optimum harvest time.
Despite the challenging weather conditions this summer, the picking date arrived on Thursday 30 March and our Year 10 and Year 9 Agriculture and Horticulture students worked tirelessly throughout the day to collect and process the grapes in order to learn what is involved in making wine. Our Year 10 students are now helping with monitoring the chemistry of the wine and learning the various steps involved in further processing as they await bottling time later in the year.
This learning opportunity was made possible due to the generous time and the guidance provided by Dr Roberts-Davison from Melbourne Polytechnic (pictured below with students). We have been extremely lucky to have this support and thank Dr Roberts-Davison for her contributions.
We are also grateful to grounds staff Mr Andrew Comerford and Ms Bronwyn Krueger and all of our MLMC Agriculture and Horticulture Science staff for all their support with the winemaking program this year.
Dr Andrea Roberts-Davison from Melbourne Polytechnic with students during the grape pick.
