With the netting of the vines completed yesterday, and an extra day in the year – the timing was perfect for today’s Golf day – spending the day out in the scorching sun was far more enjoyable thanks to the beers periodically dropped off to us from golf buggies, I can only sympathise with anyone attempting to play golf back at home at the moment!

It has been a great day, with teams entered from all sorts of local businesses – and a great way to get to know some of the guys from Matahiwi a bit better, even if my golf game still leaves a lot to be desired!

The grapes are well on the way to ripeness, with the Pinot Noir lovely and dark, and the Sauvignon blanc turning a lighter shade of green, the skins almost transparent.. After the last of the bird nets went on first thing yesterday, we spent the remainder of the day, first sewing up holes in the nets, and then going through the reserve Pinot block removing any bunches that were lagging behind in ripening, which will also push all the vines efforts over the coming weeks into the remaining grapes.

The other big news in the winery this week is that the drought in the Wairarapa province is starting to bite – our bore has dried up! and the vintage is only weeks away, when the winery is going to need enormous quantities of drinking-quality water. At the moment the rough guesstimates are that we’ll need a tanker of water brought in each day once we get started! Apparently wineries will generally use 7 litres of water for each litre of wine they produce – I didn’t realise it was so water intensive – but with all the rinsing of tanks, vats, pipes and other equipment, it soon adds up!

Fresh from my tour of New Zealand’s South Island, I have arrived at Matahiwi Estate just as the Pinot Noir grapes are starting ‘veraison’ turning from hard unripe green to dark red. Unfortunately this change attracts hoards of birds intent on stripping the vines of this ripening fruit. As I have heard from many a wine maker: ‘Great wine is made in the vineyard’ – but no wine will get made at all if the birds eat all the grapes!
So my first job in the vineyard, where I will be working for the next few weeks until I’m needed in the winery, was to join the team putting nets over the vines.

Pulling the nets from the reel behind a tractor is hard physical work! Who would have thought that something so full of holes would be so heavy! I’ve already started to feel the burn, so I won’t need to join a gym while I’m in town!

The main threat are the flocks of starlings (- a British import) which can strip whole rows of vines bare of grapes in a matter of days! Once the nets are on though they shouldn’t hang around too long, and then just the odd crafty thrush and magpie will make it into the nets through any tears they can find.

Pinot Noir is really what it’s all about here at Matahiwi, and it’s been interesting to see how the blocks vary around the vineyard – with over 40 different combinations of Pinot clone and root stocks, the grapes have different bunch set and are ripening at different rates. It will be interesting to see how they all develop over the coming weeks.

After my non-stop dash around the South Island, I have now arrived in Masterton – once again, my timing is tight – giving myself just a day to get settled into my new house before starting at Matahiwi Estate on Monday…

My house – another arranged-before-I-got-here from Gumtree.com has seen me land on my feet once again! I’m sharing with Victoria, a trainee nurse and Matt, a journo for the local paper and the house is great! With the added bonus of a pool, shared with the neighbours – a perfect place to cool off after spending the day in the hot sun out among the vines.

Masterton itself, the main town in the Wairarapa province seems to have plenty going on, one week in and already I’ve been to a toga party, and have just spent the day in Wellington with Victoria’s brother in law, watching England get beaten by the NZ black-caps in a one-dayer at the ‘cake-tin’ (aka. the Westpac stadium – usually the home to the Welligton Hurricanes rugby club).

My trusty steed ‘ZeeZee’ is getting a bit more rest nowadays too – just a short drive out of town to work, which happens to be right over the road from famous NZ film director Peter Jackson’s house – which is more like a mansion from what I hear, with it’s own hobbit-holes, moated castle, and railway (yes, a full-size railway!)

Have I had much wine since I got here? Well actually there was a rather yummy bottle of 1992 Palliser Estate Botrytis Late Harvest Riesling in Belinda’s stash at her toga party, which had a lovely developed character of brown sugar and baked apples along with a nice tang of acidity – although this is purely from memory – which was a bit shakey the next morning!

Arriving in Christchurh from Sydney, I was able to stay with friends – Adrienne and John were very kind, not only putting me up, but with their help, within a day of touching down I had set myself up with a kiwi bank account and got myself a car! I hadn´t quite imagined I´d end up with a minivan for my stay in New Zealand, but my choice of a Mitsubishi RVR proved very comfortable! If not exactly doing great things for my image!

Christchurch was beautiful, and with an international busking festival going on that week, there was plenty to do! I didn´t hang around too long though, with only two weeks or so to see the South Island before my job was to start in Masterton, I put up notes in a few backpackers looking for travel companions, and by the Sunday morning (after arriving on the Thursday afternoon!) I was setting off with Sonja and Mary.

Adrienne and John, my kind hosts in ´ChCh´

Travelling with two North Americans, Sonja from Canada, and Mary from Virginia – my ´soccer-mom´car was soon named ZeeZee (more to do with the numberplate than our combined love of ZZ Top!) and we were ready to get roadtrippin´

Team ZeeZee! Sonja, Mary and Alex go for a walk near Mt Cook.

Lets get this party started! At the Unwin hut in Mt Cook.

Arriving in Wanaka. What are you trying to say Sonja??

Getting strapped in for my second Southern-hemisphere bunjy!

The 134m Nevis Bungyyyyyyy!

Looking down over Queenstown, complete with some Central Otago vineyards!

Back through Wanaka to jump out of a plane! Following Mary down…

Climbing the Franz Josef glacier.

Kayaking in the Abel Tasman. Mary, you´re such a ball-breaker!

Kia Ora!

Today is Waitangi day, the national day of New Zealand, which means that I have the day off, and a good opportunity to give a bit of an update…

So where am I?!

Obviously I’m in New Zealand, and since the weekend I have been settling into my new home in Masterton where I am working at Matahiwi Estate. To see how I got here from Sydney and where I’ve been in the mean time, have a look at the ‘Where am I’ map which is fully up to date.

Since I finished working at Kemenys wine merchants on New Years eve, I have been so busy enjoying myself travelling around, the website has suffered a bit from lack of updates. So here’s a brief rundown of what I’ve been up to for this past month, and follow up with more in depth posts…

After celebrating the New Year at Tom’s place, I had a few days left in Bondi to finish off my Surf lessons before my friend Tim joined me for a couple of weeks in Tasmania, where we enjoyed exploring the rugged landscape and visiting some wineries.

Then it was off to New Zealand, arriving in Christchurch, where I quickly got myself some wheels, in the form of my trusty steed ‘ZeeZee’ a 1994 Mitsubishi RVR (I’d never heard of them either) – then after finding a couple of fellow backpackers, we set off on a sprint-lap of as much of the South Island as possible over the next two weeks or so

Not far off halfway through my year away now – and what a lot I’ve seen in just six months! Now that I’m settling down for a while, I will get a chance to catch up on my writing, and let you know how I get on with the 2008 vintage at Matahiwi.

Thanks for reading – do stay tuned for my catch-up posts, for now though, I’m off to the music festival in the park that has been laid on for Waitangi Day!

Domaine A

Domaine A´s Stoney vineyard – doesn´t look all that bad from here!

Stoney Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 and Domaine A Cabernet Sauvignon 2000.

Cascade brewery

Tim tucking in at the Cascade brewery in Hobart.

 

Once again, following recommendations, one place we were told time and time again was a must-see while in Tasmania was Apsley Gorge Vineyard in Bicheno on the East coast.

We arrived in time for lunch, which was a real treat – the cellar door turned out to be more of a boatshed where as well as sampling their wines, you can buy crayfish to eat overlooking the moored up fishing boats. It turns out that it’s the crayfishing that is the real source of income for Brian Franklin, owner of Apsley Gorge Vineyard – with the winemaking more of a personal passion. The Chardonnays were the stars for me – with a choice of the rich and buttery 2000 vintage or the fresher more Burgundian 2005. The prices were amazingly affordable for wines of their quality, and Tim and I were in agreement that the 2005 was not only one of the best Chardonnays that we’d had in a while, but also by far the best buy while we were in Tasmania – as well as enjoying a bottle with our crayfish we ended up buying a fair bit to take with us

Apsley Gorge Vineyard Chardonnay 2005.
Nose is subtle and Burgundian in style, palate has lovely delicate white peach fruit and fresh acidty complemented by gentle, well integrated oak influence.

With a combination of a great Backpackers, friendly little seaside town, Freicinet National park just along the coast and a colony of tiny penguins coming back to their burrows at night, Bicheno turned out to be a great place to stay, and unless we’d had time limitations we’d have almost certainly stayed longer.

The aforementioned Freicinet National park was my favourite in Tassie, we climbed the rather blustery Mt Amos for the amazing view of the topically named ‘Wineglass bay.’ This stunning place rather gruesomely named because back in the days of whaling, it was a favourite place for the whaling boats to shelter from storms – and the blood from the ships turned the whole bay wine-red!

We didn’t hang around in Hobart for too long – Tasmania is not a place you come to see cities – we got out into the hills to get lost in the spectacular scenery – Tasmania’s real tourist attraction. I had heard from a number of people that Tasmania is a lot like New Zealand, with it’s rugged landscape, island culture and lots of sheep! So far I was loving Tasmania, so New Zealand should be even better!

As you’ll see if you look at the map, we spent quite a bit of time in the National Parks of Tasmania – the first of which, Mt Fields National Park was a great place to stretch our legs and soak in the views, rather than wine for a while. Lake St Clair the next day saw us take a more leisurely walk and a swim, although there wasn’t a single Platypus to be seen, but that wasn’t all that unusual apparently as they’re both nocturnal and extremely shy. Unfortunately, something that we did see a whole lot of was evidence of the other nocturnal wildlife on the island – the roads of Tasmania are littered with roadkill. We only drove at dusk once, which was more than enough! It is just when the wallabies are at their most active – and came a bit too close for comfort on more than one occasion!

After a few days off the wine (not entirely true – as we’d bought some when down South) we plotted a course through the Tamar wine region outside the town of Launceston. With so many to choose from, we had to choose carefully – but after the first one of the day, fresh with recommendations for nearby wineries not on our list, our plans quickly changed!

I had wanted to make the pilgrimage to Bay of Fires after trying the ‘Arras’ sparkling on New Years Eve with my friend Tom, who I had met working at Kemenys in Bondi, and who had worked a vintage with them a few years ago. Unfortunately, I was cheated of a second taste of the Arras, as they had run out of the 2001 and were awaiting delivery of the 2002! So it looks like Kemenys beat their own cellar door to the punch on that one!

We did however try ther rest of the range, so it wasn’t a totally wasted journey! and after some deliberation we bought a bottle of the Bay of Fires Riesling 2007, with aromas of fresh passionfruit and green apple backed up with a zing of acidity it was a great accompaniment to the Thai that we had that night.

Driving further along the same road, we stopped in at Delamere Vineyard, which had recently been bought by Shane Holloway – in fact only 5 weeks before – with the vintage only weeks away! It turned out his wife Fran is the winemaker at Bay of Fires.. so perhaps not such a coincidence that they sent us in this direction! Specialising in the Burgundian combo of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, with Chardonnays ranging from the subtley oaked 2002, with delicate nutty character with some development whilst retaining a refreshing acidity – to the 2005 Reserve Chardonnay which had weight on the front palate, nice rich oak leading onto a fresh zing on the finish.

We briefly stopped into Dalrymple Vineyards to try their Sauvignon blanc made by Shane and while we were there it would be rude not to try the rest of the range too! The

But with time pressing, there was one vineyard we didn’t want to miss before the end of the day. On our first day in Tasmania, we had stumbled upon ‘Grape’ a nice little wine bar with well informed staff, and had tried the Brook Eden Chardonnay, it was a hit with both of us, so we definitely wanted to see what else they had to offer…