Beginning around February and wrapping up in April or May - depending on the season - it's when everything happens at once.

Grape picking and wine making are going on simultaneously, which means long and often stressful days.

"You work long hours and it's busy. And a lot of big decisions are being made quickly," says Nadja, who runs Emu Swamp vineyard and winery ChaLou Wines with her partner Steve Mobbs.

Once the grapes are off the vine, the wine-making process needs to start almost immediately.

Grapes for white wines will come into the winery and ideally have their skins removed within 12 hours. They're then turned into juice and fermented.

Reds get processed into fermenters - closed or open tanks - where they then go through their fermentation skins on, a process that can take anywhere from five days to three weeks.

"It's quite a labour-intensive process and a high pressure time of year," Nadja said.

"It's the same as any agricultural industry at harvest I guess, but a lot of us in Orange are not just harvesting the fruit, we're also making it into wine.

"That's why it's so intense for a lot of businesses because they're bud-to-bottle."

After such a full on couple of months you might think vignerons would put their feet up and have a break, but there's always another task ahead.

Almost as soon as the last grapes are picked, work starts on setting up the vineyard for the next year's vintage.

At Nashdale Lane Wines that includes introducing a flock of sheep and alpacas to the vineyard over the winter to keep the grass and weeds in check and eliminate the need for spraying.

Tanya Segger, who runs the 60-acre vineyard with her husband Nick, says they'll also sow some mid-row crops as winter approaches, like vetch and clover, which add extra nutrition to the soil, as well as taking care of any general maintenance like fixing wires and replacing posts.

"Whatever we do now is important because spring rolls around again pretty quickly and it gets really busy again with other vineyard tasks," she said.

Perhaps the biggest job in the vineyard in winter is pruning.

It's a time consuming process that can take a few weeks depending on the size of the vineyard and how many people are working.

"Pruning is a big thing," Tanya said.

"When you're doing that you're essentially resetting your vines.

"That's the first thing you do for your vintage, so when you prune, you're really saying: "Vintage 2023 - here we come."

In winter, the wines are safely tucked away in their tanks and barrels. The big labour intensive jobs are over, but now is when the little details become all important.

"You check in on the wines at least once a month," ChaLou's Nadja Wallington said.

"Just to keep track of them and see how they're evolving."

"Looking" means tasting the wines.

"My main way of monitoring the wines is by taste," Nadja said.

"There are numbers you can look at as well, but I don't tend to do that. Purely because I've got a small production, so I have the luxury of having quite an intimate knowledge of the wines and can taste where they're at."

Other tasks in the cellar during winter include "topping" the barrels (adding wine to barrels to make sure they stay completely full), stirring wine, and racking - where wines are moved from one vessel to another through hoses. This separates the clear, bright wine from the sediment that falls naturally to the bottom of the barrel.

Winemakers will also start thinking about bottling.

"There are certain steps involved in getting a wine ready for bottling, so you start setting dates, marking it out on the calendar and getting a bit of a plan together," Nadja said.

City dwellers love the idea of heading off for a winter country getaway and cosying up by the fire with a glass of wine.

It's prime time for winemakers to showcase their product.

"Winter is probably the busiest time at cellar door," says Tanya Segger, who names the June long weekend as one of the biggest of the year for Orange wineries.

"People get away from Sydney and Canberra for a couple of days, which is lovely."

She says if the lead up is anything to go by, this year's long weekend will be huge.

"Last Saturday we were fully booked... it was so busy. Every hour was booked out, every seat, and we're not a tiny cellar door."

She says a lot of effort is put into creating the best tasting experience, including getting the fire stoked nice and early to create that perfect cosy atmosphere.

"We see a lot of people from Sydney come out on the winter weekends and they really enjoy the food, wine and music scene Orange has to offer," President of the Orange Region Vignerons Association Tom Ward said.

"Winter is a really busy time."

He says a lot of Orange's wineries will also use the next six to nine months to focus on marketing their wine, whether that be in Australia or internationally.

"That's a huge emphasis for the winemakers at the moment," he said.

"You can make as much wine as you want, but if you can't sell it, you've got a problem."

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