Monthly Archives: February 2010

Marlborough Wine and Food Festival

Posted on by Meg
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I have been down in Blenheim this weekend for the annual Marlborough Wine and Food Festival. We had a really good day on Saturday, the festival day. This year we had two tent sites side by side, one each for Astrolabe and Durvillea. Manning the Durvillea tent were Arabella, Jane, one of our Waghorn cousins – Claire, me (Meg). Sophie was also on the Durvillea table most of the day while flitting over to the Astrolabe tent from time to time.

We set up the tent the day before and were very pleased as all the hard work Jane had put in making decorations was well worth it. We went for a green and brown palette for the Durvillea stall and a pretty gothic dark look for the Astrolabe side. The big pile of real life Durvillea seaweed and the handmade pinnies were a particular hit.

We were a little worried when we arrived on site to very heavy rain. It is local Marlborough lore that it never rains on festival day. However the rain cleared up about eleven and the rest of the day was very sunny and hot. Since the temperature was so high our chilled white wines were very popular. There was particular interest in the Pinot Grigio with punters interested in the choice to go with Pinot Grigio rather than the more usual Pinot Gris. There are two reasons that we call it Pinot Grigio, one is that we sell wine in the UK where they are more used to seeing Pinot Grigio’s and the other is a stylistic decision as the winemakers are aiming toward creating a wine more in the Northern Italian style as opposed to a French style.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to people about our wines. It is equally nice introducing the wines to new customers who haven’t heard of us before as it is meeting self described “Durvillea fans”. We also got a chance to catch some of the musical acts. Sophie went to watch Ladi 6, Henry, Claire and I were impressed with Liam Finn and Jane discovered Gin Wigmore. After the festival we packed up and headed back to Astrolabe Farm where Arabella was busy preparing lots of her delicious pizzas. Today I’m hoping that the rain holds off so I can get all the aprons dried!

Jane and Simon are headed down to Gore today for a tasting and Sophie and Jason are off to Melbourne tommorow. As I write this now in the Blenheim office people are busy planning the upcoming harvest with Jeremy our viticulturist and winemaker Tim. Looks like another very busy week for the Astrolabe/Durvillea team. For more photos from the Wine Fest check out our flickr page!

- Meg

Sophies Wrap Up- Leslie Sbrocco and Wine and Food Festival preparation

Posted on by Durvillea
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Two days to go until  the 2010 Marlborough Wine and Food festival and things are very busy around here. The wine has been ordered, and will (fingers crossed) be delivered to the event tomorrow afternoon. Jane is at home sewing pinnys- a wee preview of one below, she is also organising the table cloths,the material for the sides of the tents, and drying durvillea seaweed for the tent. Jane and Simon went down to Kaikoura last weekend and collected it. Meg arrived home today, and I have a feeling her and Bella are baking and cooking tomorrow to prepare snacks for the Durvillea and Astrolabe workers.

The Durvillea banner turned up yesterday as it is our first Wine and Food festival for Durvillea we had to get one printed as a banner is one of the requirements for attending the festival. Like everything new we were a bit worried about how it would look, however it looks great and we are very pleased. We also got another Astrolabe one printed as we thought we had lost the old one last year, but as expected, as soon as it turned up we found the old one! Luckily, we got a different background this year, so we haven’t really doubled up too much!

On top of it being the week coming up to Wine and Food, it has been a catch up week, as I took two days off last week to head down to Rippon in Wanaka- incidentally it was a fabulously hot weekend, great to catch up with friends and a brilliant concert. Though while it was great for me to have to time off, it did add to the work Jane had to do in a particularly busy week, perhaps not the best planning on my part.

I do seem to be back tracking on this blog, and I apologise, but nonetheless, on Monday we had winewriter Leslie Sbrocco for lunch at Astrolabe Farm

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She was great fun, and very insightful into the American market, she also loved that we are using face book, twitter and blogging with Durvillea.

In amongst the last two weeks, I have not forgotten my half marathon training. I have still been managing to run, actually, correction, I only got two runs in last week, but thats ok.  The most surprising, and motivating thing, was that this week on Monday when I went for my first run, after the last 4 days off I went for my long run (normally 7.7km that I have to run/walk) I managed to run the whole way, even making it a little bit longer! It took me just under an hour, so I was very pleased.

I am back to my training now of 3-4 runs a week, and another cardio activity, and am hoping to try a long run on Sunday, even if I have to run/ walk some of it. (Some of the girls I am hoping to run the marathon with are already up to a casual 10- 15km, so I do have a long way to go!!!)

Will try tweet and put photos up from the Wine and Food festival, and if any of you are going, we are just across the bridge, so come and say hi! PS. Sorry the blog had very little pictures, will make up for it after this weekend!

Sounday Competition

Posted on by Durvillea
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After a fantastic Sounday concert on Saturday at Hagley Park, we are running a competition from all the photos we took of people drinking Durvillea wine.  Go to our face book page, vote for your favourite photo of the day by “liking” it and the photos with the most “likes” on Friday 5th February will win a 6 pack Durvillea Wine.  http://www.facebook.com/durvilleawines

You may also find you know some people, so feel free to tag them and encourage them to vote for themselves! Thanks to Karyn, Jonnie, Janelle from Fabel for organising a fabulous day out, and to the great line up of artists.