Saturday, May 29, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
NZ Road Trip (Ill get some pics up ASAP)
I left Blenheim last Tuesday, making my way down the coast to Christchurch, where I spent the next few nights. I had a chance to do some wine tasting in North Canterburry (Waipera Valley), and also to check out the Banks Peninsula. Unfortunately for the wine tasitng, many of the cellar doors now have winter hours or they are closed, so I only had a chance to visit 3. Favorites of the day were Pegasus Bay Chardonnay and Torlesse Reisling. While I was in Christchurch the weather was a bit overcast, cold and rained at times.
After my 2 full days in the area, I made my way down the coast to the city of Dunedin, which was a great drive with a couple of fun stops; the Moreaki Boulders and Bushy Beach, which is home to a Yellow Eyed Penguin community. I got some great pics and wish I could have stayed in the area a bit longer, but was happy to arrive in Dunedin.
Dunedin is in the Southeast of the the south island, and is a vibrant little city that is full of energy, great architecture and beautiful surrounding areas. The weather cleared up while I was in Dunedin, which was great and also a much needed break for the previous 6 days or so of mediocre weather. The area that I visited over the two days was the Otago Peninsula, which is home to a number of different coastal wildlife, and once again, great views. Highlights of the peninsula were visiting a Royal Albatross community, where I had the chance to see some Albatross chicks and a couple of adults, and Sandfly Bay, where I got the closest I've been to the Penguins so far. I also got pretty close to some big Sea Lions. I also visited and toured the Speights Brewery, and visited the train station and the local museum.
Next post will be about my time in the Caitlins and Milford Sound.
After my 2 full days in the area, I made my way down the coast to the city of Dunedin, which was a great drive with a couple of fun stops; the Moreaki Boulders and Bushy Beach, which is home to a Yellow Eyed Penguin community. I got some great pics and wish I could have stayed in the area a bit longer, but was happy to arrive in Dunedin.
Dunedin is in the Southeast of the the south island, and is a vibrant little city that is full of energy, great architecture and beautiful surrounding areas. The weather cleared up while I was in Dunedin, which was great and also a much needed break for the previous 6 days or so of mediocre weather. The area that I visited over the two days was the Otago Peninsula, which is home to a number of different coastal wildlife, and once again, great views. Highlights of the peninsula were visiting a Royal Albatross community, where I had the chance to see some Albatross chicks and a couple of adults, and Sandfly Bay, where I got the closest I've been to the Penguins so far. I also got pretty close to some big Sea Lions. I also visited and toured the Speights Brewery, and visited the train station and the local museum.
Next post will be about my time in the Caitlins and Milford Sound.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Hittin the road
Harvest is over and its travel time.... I recently left Blenheim and headed down to Christchurch. I have spent the last couple of days checking out the surrounding areas (wine tasting in Waiparu and a scenic tour of the Banks Peninsula). I am now heading down South, probaby making a couple of stops on the way to the town of Dunedin. A few pics from wine tasting and my trip to Akoura (banks peninsula)... will get some more up later. 
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Final Day of Work
Today is the final day of work for the interns. Many started to leave last after last week due to the shorter hours and lack of work, and now everyone will be heading out for good.
At this time in the cellar, most of the work is racking and transfers, with a little bit of "cap management" type work (punch downs) going on with the reds. Oh yeah, still plenty of cleaning going on. As mentioned before, it has been a very short harvest down here. All of the fruit seemed to get ripe at the same time and yielded lower than expected (8000 tonnes instead of 10000 tonnes), which translates into less work.
Locations like New Zealand, that rely heavily on outside international laborers coming to help with vintage, have a unique set of circumstances when it comes to hiring their cellar staff. New Zealand is dependant on receiving outside labor to handle the workload associated with all aspects of the winery and vineyards, including pruning and cellar work. With a national population around the 4.3million mark, they don't have the resources that locations like California has to pull from. So, many of the vintage travel from great distances and have certain expectations when it comes to the work. That is, x amount of hours @ y amount of money, and of course, the experience is priceless. The winery also has a certain expectation of labor demands for the vintage, which is going to be based off of previous years results, and also expectations for the current vintage. So, there are assumptions and a bit of guesswork going on.
This year was a good example of how expectations can fall short with these situations: Yealands had less fruit than planned, probably hired a few too many people, and the fruit came in later than usual (about 1-2 weeks later), but then came in very very fast. It really came to a point where they didn't need the vintage staff with such little cellarwork to do, but because many traveled so far with certain expectations, they did the nice thing and worked the schedule to keep people on the minimum amount of time expected (6 weeks).
I have heard stories like this before, but much worse, from other vintage workers who talked about travelling to a destination and having to pack up and leave way early because the crop got severely damaged. My situation wasn't nearly that bad, just a bit disappointing. It did remind me of a few important things in life: Never assume, a plan is just a plan and can change at any time, and of course, mother nature can be unpredictable.
In a nutshell.... Bad news: less work. Good news: more travel time.
below are pics from the vintage party at the cork and keg.
preparty at fabios house
Bob's "mystery sausage tray"
cork and keg
Markus, Alex and Jaime
Me and Richard
At this time in the cellar, most of the work is racking and transfers, with a little bit of "cap management" type work (punch downs) going on with the reds. Oh yeah, still plenty of cleaning going on. As mentioned before, it has been a very short harvest down here. All of the fruit seemed to get ripe at the same time and yielded lower than expected (8000 tonnes instead of 10000 tonnes), which translates into less work.
Locations like New Zealand, that rely heavily on outside international laborers coming to help with vintage, have a unique set of circumstances when it comes to hiring their cellar staff. New Zealand is dependant on receiving outside labor to handle the workload associated with all aspects of the winery and vineyards, including pruning and cellar work. With a national population around the 4.3million mark, they don't have the resources that locations like California has to pull from. So, many of the vintage travel from great distances and have certain expectations when it comes to the work. That is, x amount of hours @ y amount of money, and of course, the experience is priceless. The winery also has a certain expectation of labor demands for the vintage, which is going to be based off of previous years results, and also expectations for the current vintage. So, there are assumptions and a bit of guesswork going on.
This year was a good example of how expectations can fall short with these situations: Yealands had less fruit than planned, probably hired a few too many people, and the fruit came in later than usual (about 1-2 weeks later), but then came in very very fast. It really came to a point where they didn't need the vintage staff with such little cellarwork to do, but because many traveled so far with certain expectations, they did the nice thing and worked the schedule to keep people on the minimum amount of time expected (6 weeks).
I have heard stories like this before, but much worse, from other vintage workers who talked about travelling to a destination and having to pack up and leave way early because the crop got severely damaged. My situation wasn't nearly that bad, just a bit disappointing. It did remind me of a few important things in life: Never assume, a plan is just a plan and can change at any time, and of course, mother nature can be unpredictable.
In a nutshell.... Bad news: less work. Good news: more travel time.
below are pics from the vintage party at the cork and keg.
preparty at fabios house
Bob's "mystery sausage tray"
cork and keg
Markus, Alex and Jaime
Me and Richard
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Liquorland "Industry Tasting"
The local liquor store here in Blenheim, Liquorland, had a 1hr tasting for industry members. The wines available for tasting were "leftovers", from a "professional" tasting panel earlier in the afternoon. Basically there are hundreds of wines, and you pour yourself. And, of course, there are spit buckets so you can walk away from the tasting. The event was held at the convention center, and the entrance fee was 1$.
I haven't done anything like this before.... it was pretty ridiculous, and the amount of wine was overwhelming. I had planned on tasting only Pinot Noir, and taking notes on my favorite. about 2 minutes in, I realized that note taking was going to be kept at a mininum... I would only write down my favorites. With the amount of wine to taste, I wondered if I would even enjoy my "favorites" in a different setting. That is, do I trust my palate right now? I spit for almost the entire event, but I had a solid buzz, and, of course, like the rookie taster I am, my palate got blown away. I threw my gameplan out the window about 1/2 hr into the event and moved on to syrah's. My fav wines of the evening were some of the Hawkes Bay Syrah.
Bottom line: Event was a ton of fun. Its pretty damn hard to taste a lot of wine. Less is more.
Monday, May 3, 2010
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