Italia! (Venice)

My body has been a bit confused. I have moved from the cool fall season to the warm temperatures of spring, an 11 hour time change, struggling with jet lag and now some congestion after traveling for 3 days on 6 planes to 6 different countries! Remarkably, all of my flights arrived at their destinations on time, and the 6 bottles of wine I packed didn't break! I was able to spend a short night at my friends house in Zurich on my way to Italy. Katarina made dinner, I unpacked, did some laundry and repacked.

My first stop is Venice where I am meeting my good friend Chris for a few days. Chis is a chef from London, Ontario, and is working in Lake Garda, Italy for the summer. So, with his taste in food and my taste in wine, I don't stand a chance of fitting into my skinny jeans when I leave!

Venice is an unbelievable place, magical and surreal.
Therefore, once again I got snap happy with the camera:)

Views from the canals of Venice

Water taxi from airport to hotel

Di & Chris with Rialto bridge

Entrance to our hotel - the coolest
 entrance I have ever seen!

On the street side of the hotel,
there is a Burberry store in front of me:)

Dodge's Palace

Bridge of Sighs - with a
disappointing amount of advertising
surrounding it.

Prosecco & people watching in Piazza San Marco

Sunrise at St. Marks - a rare opportunity
to see the square with no people

I'm at the airport....

Now that I am waiting for my flight to Europe I thought I should go through my photos and write about the culinary and winery delights of New Zealand. It's been such a pleasure to take the time to look through the events of the past 3 months. Here are some of highlights of my wine & food adventure....

The vines of Yealands

Cloudy Bay winery - a popular choice at home

Auntsfield Winery

After harvest the sheep are everywhere grazing through the vines.

The rainbow that greeted me when I got home after some
winery visits:)

This is NZ tahr, which is a type of goat. I made it myself....
(yes that's right Aunt Sandy, I actually cooked!)
Thanks to my friend Chris for the recipe.

Surf & Turf in Picton

Crayfish in Kaikoura

Bluff Oysters in season - from the very bottom of the south island

Lamb done 2 ways in Queenstown

Nelson Bay scallops, in Nelson. This was paired with the most
perfect glass of mouth coating Pinot Gris.

Beef Carpaccio in Waiheke Island

Green Shelled Mussles in Auckland

The Galbraith Ale House in Auckland....yes, I had the ale...

What's next????

Last night the mates from work and I went out to celebrate the end of vintage. Good times and I managed to catch the ferry to the north island this morning. I will be in Wellington for a couple nights and I fly to Europe on Monday night. Yeah, another 30 plus hours of flying! I will be visiting some spots in Italy and Malta. Stay tuned.....

Vintage 2011 Complete!

Friday was my last day of work at Kim Crawford. One of the lab techs asked me what I thought of the experience. My answer, this was one of the best things I have ever done! Its been an incredible experience to live and work in another country. I have learned so much about wine production, the culture of New Zealand and other countries from the people I have met. But what really made it for me are the people that I worked with! I thought I should include some pictures of my mates that I just spent the past 7 weeks with. They would put a smile on my face even when it was 7am, cold, rainy and working outside.

  

Allie (UK, 25), Nick (NZ, 30), Calvin (Ontario, 33)

Sylvain, Josh & Dean




Sylvan (Loire France, 29), Josh (Vancouver, 21), Bob (Ireland, 25)



Ryan (Ontario, 23) - Ryan will be working for Opus One
in California this year which is one of highest end winery around.
This is a good guy to know;)



Dean (California, 27)

Marco (Peru, 37)



Jayne (NZ Maori, age??) She is one of the kindest and
most generous people I have met during my travels.



Renan (Bordeaux France, 24) This is the sucker that
bought my car. hahahaha.....

Darragh (Ireland, 33) & Bob. Bob was
one of the guys that would make me laugh
the most. I would consider him, as he would
call it, one of my "besties".



Last but not least is Josh, who would be my
other "bestie". Has the little brother qualities that
I miss when Big D isn't around:) Here we are
doing the Titanic pose on top of the tanks.





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.