Week Eleven...I'm a deviant

Bet that got you all interested!!!

Why am I a deviant? Because I'm writing this a night early and not following my usual style.

Why?  Because I've just realised (as if being slapped in the face) that this is my last night in NZ (for a while)

And what's important about that? A number of things:

1.  For those of you who have never been here, the South Island of NZ is very rural....stunning vistas from your house, beautiful weather, amazing wildlife, people who would do anything for you cos guess what? Community exists here in a big way...where Whanau (extended family) is a concept that goes beyond the Maori culture.  I am so grateful to all those who have put me up and put up with me.  I've met amazing people who, just because you're friends of friends, welcome you into their homes and their social life.

2. And most importantly...Kiwis have perspective on life. They don't dictate success by the size of their corporate job, the money they make, the house they own, the hours they work.  This is a society where capitalism rules.  Not in the obscene way where it's all about the money but where relationships, local support for local businesses and a portfolio career matter. 

So the point of all of this.  Well it's twofold...

1.  I come back to the UK on Friday.  Already people ask what I'm going to do when I'm back in the "real world" after my 3 month jaunt to the antipodes and "playing on a vineyard"?  Well the answer is that the biggest lesson I've had here is that the kiwi way of life should rule.  I'm coming back to try setting up a few different businesses and I look forward to having all of your support to make that happen.  I realise that it would be very easy to go and settle back into a corporate life making a healthy salary but life and business is more than that to me...that said,starting out on your own takes guts and courage and support beyond belief (especially when there isn't a partner backing you up with a permanent income stream) so all I ask is for your support and no "ah but..."

2.  Scottish Independence.  I've spent a lot of time til the very early hours of the morning debating this with the scots out here.  Firstly they don't get the vote and nor should they because they've opted to live their lives elsewhere so rhetoric has no place in what is a very sobering, thought provoking and almost scary place in history.  That said, being here and having those debates has forced me to really think about my justification for my position which we should all have to do.  I've already encouraged you all to read Alan Clements "Rogue Nation" which gives a whole different perspective on the issue.  But in the meantime, here's a slightly different perspective from the land of the long white cloud....forget the politics, forget the issues of how we would separate..focus on the long game.  What does an independent Scotland look like (cos by the way it's not necessarily the SNP who govern it)?  In my head here is why you would vote for independence summed up in one line "necessity is the mother of all invention".   If I was to vote for independence (and I'm truly undecided) then I would do so based on the fact that we could be as big a nation as NZ by being as small a nation as NZ.  In other words forget the debates about if and why...Scotland can be magnificent in all aspects when it wants to be...just like NZ.  We are the underdogs, we are those who perform best when our backs are against the wall.. We have invented and exported significant pioneering breakthroughs of the 19th & 20th century and there is no reason we can't do the same in the 21st.  So believe in ourselves, be entrepreneurial, don't put "ah but" social pressures on ourselves and dare to have your back against the wall...cos that is when we are at our greatest.

No wined on, dined on etc tonight (even though they were the best yet). Just a big old plea for your support with my new ventures of which you'll hear more....

Have a good one

G

Week Ten - To be welcomed back, first one must leave

Who can believe it.  As I write I am sitting in the beautiful Rockferry winery cafe awaiting the arrival of my very indulgent lemon tart with late harvest reisling.  

Why so indulgent? Well unbelievably today is my last day in Blenheim, the place I came to to learn as much as I could about the wine industry in a few weeks.  So how well have I done?

- I've learned on the vineyard about the year of the grape and how to berry count, bunch count, yield estimate, irrigate, fix irrigation, grape varietal feel and taste, harvesting (machine and handpick and when to use which)

- on the winery I've learned how to clean tanks and barrels, snow wine, sparse wine, transfer wine, press grapes, run labs to test Brix, ph and acids

- pulling both of these together I'm claiming the inaugural Tohu Pinot Noir as mine...I've counted the bunches and berries, sampled them and run the labs for them, been on the harvester as they're picked, and the winery as they've been processed and tanked

- in the office I've applied my experience to build procedures for all of the above winery processes, propose a new stock control and management system, build the induction programme for the vintage staff

- for the future I have secured samples of the best boutique wines to bring home, test on customers and potentially import to the UK.

- I've experienced an office where you wear shorts and big boots, get picked up in a ute and spend the day looking at mountains and vines and deer and hawks and plants.

So all in all a pretty productive seven weeks topped off last Tuesday when I was blown away with the team turning up for a drink and some food as a thank you and farewell.  Very much appreciated and I look forward to keeping in touch with all of the team.

Watch this space for future developments of my wee business.

On a social note, I've been on holiday since last Wednesday and had a great few days hanging out with my cousin Claire.  We fitted in:

- 25km walk of the Queen Charlotte Track

- booking a big trip to South America for November (still hyperventilating)

- 14km walk and scramble of the last bit of the Abel Tasman Track we couldn't previously do

- a mad "drink too much, dodgy dance too much" night in Nelson with the Yummy Mummies who are Kirsty and Anna (3:30am is never a good time to be getting home let alone dancing on a stage, planking and teaching the youth of today the moves to Blame it on the Boogie). ***some (or should I say most) photos have been held back to protect the guilty!!

And so to tonight...my farewell dinner at the house with Claire, Gareth and Sarah.  They're cooking a course each, I'm on the wine...will report next week on whether it was successful though I can already predict that it could be a wee bit messy....my liver and waistline are ready to retreat to the northern hemisphere and some form of dietary and alcohol normality even if I'm not.

So as I bid farewell to the north of the South Island it's a huge thank you to everyone for all they have done to make my stay amazing.  To the Whanau (extended family) of Claire, Gareth, Kirsty and Jamie; to the new friends Sarah, Luke, Chris and The Tohu Team (Mondo, Mike, Murray, Alex, Bruce, Craig, Anna, Adam, Liz and Stefan).  Until next time...

Whilst out and about in Blenheim / Nelson this week I...

...HUNG OUT at Queen Charlotte Track, Abel Tasman and too many wineries and watering holes...

...WINED ON...if I were to summarise all the wineries visited and wines drunk in the last few weeks it would scare me.  The stand out wine for me this week was not a standout in the critiquing sense.  It was The Climbing Shiraz from Aus...why?  New Zealand makes amazing Pinot noir however to taste a big, bold, heavy red for the first time in weeks was yyyuuummmm.....thanks Craig...

...DINED ON....many things but two stood out....Claire and my homemade pizza competition (hers tomato, onion, mushroom, salami, cheese whilst mine was half smoked salmon, rocket, crime Fraiche and lemon and the other half chargrilled capsicum, eggplant, red onion, pumpkin with feta and pesto base). 

Then there was the hangover cure of open steak sandwich (with ginger beer...that's how bad it was) at Rockferry yesterday (hence I'm now back for dessert).  Despite my delicate state of being it was amazing

So tomorrow it's the bus trip to Christchurch and the start of another wee adventure.

Til next week...take care and have a good one.

G

Week Nine - Vintage 2014 starts with a fizz

Well this week it finally happened...after playing the waiting game and spending a lot of time trying to guess the potential impact of the tail end of a cyclone which came through this week, we started picking grapes and making wine!!

I found this both exciting (like the go live of any big project you've been involved in), educational (as I got to see and be part of some of the wine making process I hadn't seen before) and sad (as I watched the vines I've come to know and differentiate between be stripped of their fruit and left bare and the grapes which I've counted, popped, weighed, counted again, sampled and tested in the lab, crushed to a pulp).

I also consider myself really lucky as the two picks which were done this week let me see both hand picking and machine harvesting.  Not only that but they were the only two picks for the next ten days or so.

Monday started Vintage 2014 with the pick of the Chardonnay grapes for this years sparkling wine from one of our contract growers.  This was a handpick which involved very little effort from us but roughly four hours back breaking work for the contractor team brought in to do it for us.  Over that four hours they worked just like a machine to cut c.12 tonnes of grapes from 24 rows of vines.  I've never seen anything like it.  The speed at which they operate is unbelievable...not least as they are paid per tonne picked.  As an aside, it's an interesting thing the contractor business.  Employees are paid minimum wages, come from Thailand and Vanuatu predominantly, and will live in pretty substandard conditions (now illegal but it still goes on) to do what they consider to be well paid jobs which allow them to provide for their families.  It's a real fine line between being great for them and a slight bit of exploitation).

Anyway back to vintage.  Murray and I provided an escort of the first truck load of grapes to the winery where we toasted the start of vintage, appropriately enough, by popping open a bottle of fizz or two...a winery tradition to wish for a successful vintage.  The grapes were then pressed and the juice sent off to the tanks to ferment for a few days.

Then it was all about the preparation over the next few days whilst the chief winemaker and the viticulturist decided the best time to pick the Pinot noir for the rose...there were so many factors...the Nelson grapes were ready to harvest ahead of the Marlborough ones but the cyclone was pending and could cause huge problems....in the end we picked both and I had the pleasure of being part of the Marlborough harvest.  Not only that but got to ride on top of the harvester. 

 These machines are amazing.  They operate by straddling a row of vines and literally beating the vines and the bunches to get the grapes to release.  Basically they separate the grapes from their stems which are left intact in the vine. 

 The grapes are then passed through the machine along with leaves and any other debris and the rollers are set wide enough to let the berries fall through whilst the debris continues on its merry way to be disposed of off the side of the harvester.  

The capability of the harvester is huge so it wasn't surprising to hear it costs a cool $400/500k.  We harvested 16 tonnes of grapes on Friday and the poor winery had the joy of processing this plus the grapes from Nelson over the weekend.

So a successful week all round.  The fruit juice is now fermenting into wine, vintage has started at a reasonable pace and the cyclone never quite hit those proportions (picture a standard Glasgow winters rainy day with a bit of wind).  My time on the vineyard and winery is coming to a fitting end with me having seen the grapes through their ripening to the point of fermentation in the tanks and barrels I've learned how to clean.  Only a couple more days to go.

And just as I leave at the first sign of truly hard work (they harvest and make wines 24/7 here for the next two months with grapes being picked through the night and then being processed day and night) so all the vintage staff for all the wineries are starting to arrive in Blenheim.  The population has started to increase at least fourfold, the roads are busier, there are big bits of machinery and trucks and harvesters and tractors on the move all over town and beyond.  There is a real international buzz starting to develop and excitement for Vintage 2014 is well and truly at fever pitch.

Here's hoping it's a good one...if the grapes are anything to go by it will be.

This week I...

...HUNG OUT at...home.  It was lovely to have a weekend with no particular plans (well beyond Claire and I organising a trip to South America later this year).  With the storms kicking in we bunkered down with movies, cheeses, wines etc...

...WINED ON...Astrolabe Sauvignon Blanc at Raupo Cafe on Friday night.  How could I ever have forgotten just how consistently stunning the wines from Astrolabe are?  If only they had a cellar door.  Watch out for them in the UK.  Pricey but worth every cent.  And no matter which you pick you'll not be disappointed...

...DINED ON...Gareth's homemade chilli rum marinated ribs.  Oh my how divine they were...especially when eating with your fingers.  Claire and I also had a stunning lunch at Wairau River winery where I had a lamb and mint burger that for the first time in my life actually tasted like lamb and mint!

Until next time....go try some great wines.

Week Eight - Playing The Waiting Game Whilst Time Is Flying

SURPRISE!!!! This weeks blog is a day early.  The reason is that after a week of preparing and waiting and waiting and preparing TOMORROW IS THE DAY!  Yes tomorrow we are pulling the first grapes of the season and making wine...so excited and grateful that I'm going to get to see it before I leave...a fitting crescendo to my time on the vineyard / winery.

So how do we know tomorrow is the day?  Well first and foremost the birds trying to eat all the grapes gives you an indication they're ripe.  Various methods are used to stop them...nets being the most effective but others are used.  In fact the beautiful Awatere Valley has gone from being the most serene office in the world to being like something in the middle of a war zone...if the bird bangers are not setting explosions off in every vineyard around you then it's the horns beeping from the cars driving round the vineyards to detract the birds...yes seriously people are employed to drive around a vineyard all day blasting their horns!!  It makes it sound like the kind of places John Simpson or Kate Adie used to report from (showing my age)!!

Once the birds have given you the nod you start sampling the grapes.  This involves going to random rows in every block of grapes in every company owned and contract growers vineyards and filling a ziplock bag half full with grapes.  Pick your row, pick random bunches along that row and take a grape from the top, one from the bottom, one from the middle front and one from the back middle of each bunch...you can imagine how many times you have to do that to fill a bag!! And now it's autumn it's a bit chilly at 7am though still stunning 

Once you've taken the samples and meticulously coded them you take them back to the lab at the winery where you mark up specimen jars with the codes, take the corresponding bag of grapes, crush them as if they were in the press and put the juice into the jars.

You then use lots of mad, sensitive and expensive equipment to measure Brix (sugar content), Ph levels and acid levels.  A combination of all of these readings informs whether the berries are ready to pick or not.  

Very scientific but there are some moderating factors...it's mainly about the Brix.  For sparkling you want 18-19 Brix, Sauv Blanc is about 21, Pinot Gris about the same and Pinot Noir would be 25.  Then the art takes over...the winemaker has to not only think about how all the factors interact but take all the science out and decide how nice the grapes do and will taste.  Then they pick the day...and literally a day makes a difference...the weather can cause the sugar level in the grapes to increase by one Brix per day.  So here's hoping tomorrow is the day...apparently it all starts with a ceremonial cracking of the champagne by the vineyard manager and the winemaker...could be interesting at the 7am start!!

In a related note and as I said earlier this week is a fitting crescendo to my trip...I cannot believe it but this is my last full week on the vineyard / winery and it's only two weeks until I start heading South for the return journey to London...I have no idea where the time has gone and really need the clock to stop for a while.  We've done tonnes and know what we still have to do (as tourists) but it's all zooming by at a rate of knots!!

That said, a combo of all the exciting things still to come on the vineyard / winery with the vintage/ harvest starting, helping induct the vintage staff and the exciting adventures like walking the Queen Charlotte Track will make it an experience packed couple of weeks.  Hold on to your hats!!

This week I have...

...HUNG OUT in Picton with Glenda and one of the most amazing , generous, eccentric women I know...Margaret McHugh...an amazing cook, astute businesswoman and one of life's greatest social commentators and upholders of standards.

...WINED ON...lots of interesting wines (from Vavasour, Tohu, Stanley Estste, Peter Yealands) at the start of vintage BBQ held for the Awatere Wineries at Vavasour Winery...stand out was the Vavasour Chardonnay (can't believe I'm saying that Evelyn) and their Pinot Noir.  Also see Dined On for the best wine of the week if not the trip so far.

...DINED ON...I won't often do this but the meal and wine combo I made on Friday night was the standout this week.  Roast lamb with med veg couscous, salad leaves with orange dressing and feta, mint and olive oil.  This was matched with Craig Francis 2011 Pinot Noir.  Craig is a small wine producer who works at the winery and makes his own wine in a corner of it in his spare time.  Without giving away the story to them, my guests agreed this was the best Pinot Noir they'd ever had.  Praise indeed.  His Sauvignon Blanc is also great.  

Dessert was orange compote infused sponge with Tohu Late Harvest Reisling (not available cos Air New Zealand bought it all for their Koru lounges...if only I still had a gold card).

And after patting myself on the back, Glenda and I enjoyed the most amazing Terraki (fish) with lime and leek risotto, basil dressing and salad leaves accompanied by their Trigg Hill Riesling (from Bendigo)

Rest assured after all that indulgence it's back to fasting, swimming and yoga as of tomorrow!

So wish me luck...a big week of harvesting, wine making...and getting to ride on big tractors!!  Bring it on.

Have a good week everyone.

Week Seven - Paradise Found

It was a very short two day week on the winery this week.  The team were away for two days at a Wananga.  Wananga is Maori for a forum to hold discussion and gain a deeper understanding.  They stayed on a Marae (spiritual place at the heart of Maori community) and spent two days gaining a better understanding of their Maori tradition, culture and values as well as undertaking a number of team building activities.

With them away my cousin Claire and I took advantage and went in search of paradise...also known as Abel Tasman National Park at the top of the South Island.  The park was founded in 1642 and is named after the first European to discover New Zealand.

We set off to conquer the 32.2km of the Abel Tasman Track...a comfortable three day walk which takes in the most idealistic bush and beach along a dramatic coastal track.

The park is a full on conservation area which means a number of things.  There is no luxury accomodation to stay in.  It's either a Department of Conservation Hut or camping.  We did both.  Secondly there are no bars, cafés or the like...indeed there aren't even any kitchen facilities.  So we headed off into the wilderness with our backpacks full of gas stoves, billy cans, sleeping bags, wipes and camping food and four bottles of Peter Yealands Sauvignon Blanc (not only a great wine but the fact he has the foresight to make it in plastic bottles is so helpful when the rules of the park mean you have to carry your rubbish out with you - saves the weight and the clinking of empty bottles).

A few things struck me along the way...In the order in which they happened:

1.  Decency is still at the heart of the human condition...our bags were dropped off by the water taxi at our final destination for day one (quite literally dropped off on the beach) and were in exactly the same spot when we returned to them 6 hours later after our tramp.  Not only that but someone had taken the wine and put it in the fridge to chill before our arrival - ok that last bit was a fantasy which started about three quarters of the way through our big 17km walk!!

2.  Paradise doesn't have to cost the earth...from here it costs a sum total of $150 for three days and my friends have this on their doorstep.  The scenery is amazing.  Only New Zealand knows how many shades of green there are and how to offset it with golden sands and turquoise water...and best of all, most the beaches are completely empty

First Thursday Club...this is our challenge when we eventually finish the West Highland Way...we deserve it.

3. Whilst I am able to adjust my expectations of life in different situations, can go without washing for three days, can eat camp food and drink warm wine out a plastic cup, I do need some personal space.  We knew that in booking a hut for the night we'd be in basic accomodation, sharing a bunk and a room with other people.  What we hadn't anticipated was that it was one big bunk bed with seven mattresses on each level...that is slightly too familiar.  Not only that but we had the two top corner bunk spots which meant clambering up a ladder...in the dark...cos we were the last ones in at 9pm!! Fumbling and giggling didn't go down well and that was only us trying yo get our PJs on and get into our sleeping bags!!

4.  Good friends are priceless...not only do you get to enjoy their company when they join you on Day Two but they bring your luggage for you and most importantly replenish you with real food and beverages!! Thank you girls.

5.  A modicum of decency should be retained at all times...having readjusted our way of living we walked into camp at Anchorage, pitched our tents and then deemed it acceptable to change into our swimming gear behind the tents.  Unfortunately none of us had seen the really good looking fit man coming out the toilet block (right in front of our tents).  As comments were flying about how liberating it was to be at one with nature our eyes met just as he realised the sight that was beholding him.  His parting shot...said with a smile on his face and through a massive snigger..."you do know there is an enclosed area over here you can be doing that in!!!" Oh how we slowly curled up dying / in hysterics.  Ever felt like the world should have been saved the experience...

So a wonderful time was had by all...we went in as two and came out as six (it was Kirsty's birthday on Saturday so a couple of her friends came and joined us for the last leg).  Many a new experience and lots of laughs were had.

Beyond Abel Tasman we...

...HUNG OUT in Nelson celebrating Kirsty's birthday.  Thank you to the Bairds for their hospitality, great birthday BBQ and relaxed Sunday lunch...

...WINED ON...many things but a wee trip down memory lane with one of the best (first introduced to me by my dear friend Jane McDougall and this time carried into the wilderness with complimentary chocolate by Sarah)...Pepperjack Shiraz...

...DINED ON...packeted dehydrated red Thai curry for night 1 dinner and packeted dehydrated scrambled egg for next day breakfast YUK...followed by the replenishments brought in by Kirsty and Sarah...antipasti style lunch and homemade spaghetti bolognese for dinner...YUM.

Love to you all and will catch up next week.  G