My New Zealand Family

I have been living in Blenheim for 6 weeks and am heading into my final week. The fall is here now. Cooler temperatures and the leaves on the vines are all turning colour. 

Thought I would share with you some photos of where I have been living and with whom.  

 

This is 25 Adams Lane. When I arrived through the wooden gate my jaw dropped with the charm of this Victorian Cottage and the beautiful gardens around it, Lime trees, Feijoa fruit trees, hydrangeas etc.



This is Bella. A quiet, and gental dog always loyaly greeting me when I come home.
I return the favour by taking her for the odd walk.

  

My landlords: Evon (Cork, Ireland), Matt (NZ) and 4 month old Darrah.
They have been so kind and hospitable during my stay.

 

My roomate Bryn at our end of vintage party. Bryn is 22 and from Niagara on the Lake!
He works for our sister winery Drylands. He has been the perfect roomate,
great to chat with at the end of the day and he lets me have my run of the bathroom.

Welcome to my backyard! Just a few kilometers from my house I am surrounded with these mountains and many, many vineyards. I have been able to discover a number of the wineries around with some of my mates from work.





Sold!

I had a terrific week at work. It was busy with the 12 hour shifts and some socializing after a few of the days. Yesterday was a highlight. I got to taste around 60 of our wines that are currently fermenting with 3 of our wine makers. Just so you know, we don't drink these samples, we just take a sip, swirl it around in our mouth and spit it in a bucket. It was rewarding to see the fruits of our labour come together and hear the wine makers perspective of the wine. Then I was ready for a real drink by the end of it!

When I moved to Blenheim I purchased a used car. I ended up with a 1991 Toyota Windom which is similar to a Toyota Camery. It has been a great car. The air conditioning and cruise control work great, but I only get 2 radio channels and there are a few other little quirks. Not exactly the sexy 2nd car I was hoping to own, but it has been very reliable. It is a common thing for tourists and vintage/harvest workers to buy a car then sell it when you leave. Here are some comments on the experiment:

- purchased the car for $1900 and I have sold it to a co-worker for $1700
- car insurance is optional....therefore I didn't get any
- I went to register the car in my name, cost was less than $10, the application had a spot for the VIN# which i didn't have and didn't need anyways
- The bloke I bought it from let me take the car for 4 days without any deposit or payment as I waited for my funds to transfer from Canada
- NZ is so safe I never lock the doors
- they drive on the left side of the road which I got the hang of after 3 days
- I got into the wrong side of the car a few times
- I kept turning on the wipers when I wanted to put on a turn signal
- oh, and my first tank of gas cost $130!!!!

Shoveling Grapes

My first day back at work after my trip home was a fun one. I missed my work mates and was greeted with open arms. To shake things up a bit the red grape team invited me to shovel the remains of a tank (the lees). Sounds like good times right? 

The skins of the red grapes stay in with the juice to give red wine its colour. Once the skins and seeds settle to the bottom of the tank the get shoveled out and pressed again to get the remaining pinot noir juice out. 

It turns out there is a dangerous level of carbon dioxide inside the tank at this point. Therefore I have to ''sign my life away'' on the waiver below. For protection there is a vent from the top, a carbon dioxide reader and a spotter in case I run into any trouble. 

One bin of grapes down.....many more to go!

How do you get in? Slide in through the front.

This is taken from the top of the tank.
You can see the carbon dioxide reader in
the opening on the left, and the yellow
tube pumps in fresh air.

A brief trip home....

The blog has been a bit quiet lately. Sadly I had to make a trip home to say goodbye to my Aunt Stella. She was 79 and had been suffering from ALS for the past 4 years. I will miss her dearly as she was like a grandmother to me. I flew out of New Zealand April 6th to Toronto, returned April 13th and was back at work the next day.

Vintage 2011

I have just finished week 2 at the winery....wow it has flown! I have some photos to share for those of you who have been asking "what do you do all day"? And I know many of my family members will be surprised that this little princess is getting her once manicured fingernails dirty with manual labour! That's right, this ain't a glamorous job....my life is now lugging large hoses around, running pumps and carrying a jumbo sized wrench wherever I go.

The immediate duties to get ready for the grapes is cleaning the vats/tanks and cleaning the barrels. That was wrapped up in the first week and now me and another girl are looking after yeast inoculation of the white wine. So if any of you comment that the Kim Crawford 2011 Savignon Blanc comes off a bit "yeasty" I won't be laughing:)

I am very fortunate to be working with a great team. I absolutely LOVE my supervisors and the people I am working with. I am making fast friends with some people from Canada, Ireland, California and some locals. 

This is the big cheese - Head wine maker Anthony

The first grapes to arrive!!!!

It is customary to have some bubbly when the first harvest
grapes arrive....well if I must, I must......
This is me with the de-stemmer machine.

To my surprise, 80% of my work will be outdoors.
It will make for some frigid times when I start at 7am!
Here is my new wardrobe with a cleaning pump....nice eh?

The winery presses and storage tanks with the
beautiful mountains in the background.

This is Calvin from Ontario, I am helping with
a red yeast inoculation. Right now we are plunging
the grapes trying to get them to the right temperature.

This is me adding white juice to the yeast and
monitoring the temperature with a thermometer.