Category Archives: sophie

Crafty work down on the farm.

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The approaching harvest of the grapes is beginning to dominate life. Nick has been working hard in the vineyard cutting out green fruit and putting on nets. There is a rising sense of anticipation. We are beginning to watch the weather carefully and notice the cooler nights. So far so good.

As well as the grapes, the pears and apples are now ripe. The swans wander up from the pond and eat the fallen pears and we are enjoying them straight off the tree. We also had a great plum crop and Simon made plum kasundi. In the past we have made a tomato kasundi but Simon cut out about a 1/3 of sugar to account for the higher sugar levels in plum. The recipe we use is Annabel Langbein’s and goes particularly well with courgette and feta fritters. These fritters are a great way to use up courgettes that are probably more correctly called marrows.

Simon has also ventured into jam making using up the apricots that could be saved from the birds!

Winemaker jam making

Domestic activities have been a feature of our summer. Libby, Meg and I decided to take up crocheting over the Christmas break. We bought wool, borrowed books from the library and struggled. I did know how to do this once and the plans for an afghan rug may at this point be beyond our skills. It was a lot of fun and I intend to keep trying.

So it was with some relief when Arabella decided to make cusion covers for her flat. I am much more comfortable with the sewing machine. Generally I have not fulfilled my role of good mother by teaching my daughters to sew. However my hopes have been rekindled with Meg and Arabella showing a bit of interest. It was great fun whipping up soft furnishings with Arabella. Appliquing creatures on top of the floral fabrcs was particularly successful. We even tackled recovering a lampshade of an old standard lamp she had painted. Adding fringeing pleased me greatly.

Making cushions

From this I carried on to make aprons for us to wear for the wine and food festival. I love to wear an apron. Arabella found some seaweed fabric online and we had some pockets screenprinted with the Durvillea artwork. Simon took one look and said that the seaweeds on the fabric were from the Northern Hemisphere! The girls looked fab lined up behind the counter at the Wine and Food Festival in their pinnies.

Super pinny model Sophie

This domestic activity culminated in a fantastic bread making session. A couple of weeks ago we had a visit from Toni and Dean Betts. Dean is a chef who started The Fish Market restaurants in California and then moved to Auckland and started The Anglesea Bar & Grill. In discussing food, wine and life Dean offered to show me how to make a a flatbread and baguette loaf using a no knead recipe. Wow! We mixed up the dough and the next morning Dean came back and we shaped and baked , topping the flatbread with olive oil, rosemary, and garlic from the Farm. It was so much fun,  extremely satisfying and very delicious. Dean’s generosity as a chef and teacher was greatly appreciated.

Dean making the bread

Jane and Dean's bread

Over the next week I will post the recipes…………

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

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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

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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.

     

Sophie’s Wrap Up

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Three weeks ago I decided to sign up for the Saint Clair vineyard half marathon (for those of you reading this who want to do the run aswell, go to www.vineyardhalf.com). While I used to be quite fit back at school, I haven’t really run since, and it is an effort for me to run 3km, a half marathon is 21km!  However since I have signed up a couple of good things have come from it;

1. We have decided I will run it in a Durvillea singlet, adding to the motivation of doing it, and wanting to do well.
2. I have managed to convince some friends to do it with me, also a good way to get them to visit me in Marlborough, also good motivation as I don’t want to be the last one out of all of us!

It is 14 weeks till the run tomorrow, and so far I am up to running comfortably 5km, a great website I have been using has been www.mapmyrun.com. I went into Newman Graphics yesterday who do all of aprons, t-shirts etc and they have got me a singlet, and we are currently trying to think of a design for the back. So far we are going with the Durvillea logo and “Durvillea Girl” Libby, I think you should come back and run it too, I can get another one printed!

Later this afternoon, Jane, Bella and I are off down to Christchurch as Sounday is on tomorrow, for those of you who are going make sure you come and say Hi to us, we will be there most of the day and hopefully getting some snaps of people drinking Durvillea, we might even chose a photo of the day and the winner will win 3 bottles of Durvillea, feel free to post your own up too!

Another event that we are busy organising (Jane is ordering the hesian for the table as I write this!) is the Wine and Food festival, this is a great event, but does require a lot of time to be put into it. The black boards are being printed, and we have just okay’ed the banner this week. Jane is going to make us pinny’s in the next couple of weeks, and we are just finalising who will work the day.

While all this is going on I am entering some of the national and international shows that are coming up, it is always a litle stressful trying to make sure you remember all the deadlines for entry, stock delivery etc. I have also just added us up to the www.lovewine.com website, a social network for wineries and those that love wine!

I am looking forward to going to CHCH, will be nice to be home, must remember to run though, hopefully will be up to 8km next time I blog…..

My Mum’s Salsa Verde Recipe

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This is my mum’s Salsa Verde recipe, but it actually originates from an Annabel Langbein recipe, all of us have many of her recipe books and she is a bit of a favourite in our family.

This is a summer staple for your fridge and is great with beef on the barbeque, baked salmon, bean salad or just a loaf of half baked bread.

Salsa Verde

Salsa Verde
1 packed cup parsley
½ packed cup mint leave
1 bunch chopped chives
¾ cup olive oil
¼ cup capers
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
¼ medium onion chopped
1 small can of anchovies

Blend together until smooth. Store in the fridge and keeps for several weeks.  Makes about 1½ cups.

Back on board

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After 10 days away from the office, it has been rather hard to get back into the swing of things. Christmas was spent in Christchurch with my family, the Forrest Waghorns and my other cousins on my Dad’s side the McLernons. It was a beautiful day so Christmas lunch was spent outside on the lawn (photos to come once my Mum loads them onto the computer!) we had a beautiful starter of smoked salmon with wasabi mayonaise that our Great Aunt brought, followed by a fantastic Roast Turkey and lots of wine.

Boxing day my family and I packed up to head up North to Gisborne, a car trip I haven’t done with my parents since I was 13 (It is about 4 hours from Christchurch to Blenheim, a 3.5 hour ferry ride, and another 8 hours from Wellington to Gizzy!) I was heading to Gisborne to meet up with a group of friends to head to the Rhythm and Vines Festival, I have been to this festival twice before, but this is the first time that it was held over 3 days.

Rhythm and Vines, Vines Stage

Acts from all over the world came and played, including some great local acts, one really good band that played on the 31st was some of my friends, six60. One of the best ones that played, that I had no expectations for was Moby! Gisborne is first to see the sun and it is definitely one of the most beautiful places to see in the New Year.The other Durvillea girls have been scattered around the place, Libby was en route to Guatemala where she will spend the next 2 months, to follow what she is up to check out her blog http://henny-eesa.blogspot.com/ Meg was up in Ohope Beach, near Whakatane and Jane was holding the fort back at Astrolabe Farm in Blenheim. However, after a fabulous holiday, and despite it being a little hard to settle down into being in the office it is lovely to be back in sunny Marlborough. Jane has done a great job covering while I was away, putting through all the orders that streamed through between Christmas and New Year, so there has not been too much to come back to.Photos were just sent through yesterday of Durvillea Wines in Antarctica, (see past blogs to read about how they got there), the team over there have taken some fantastic photos that I have pasted below.

Durvillea in front of Mawson's Hut

 

Durvillea and Astrolabe in front of Mawson's Hut, Antarctica

 

The Team in Antarctica getting Creative!

I am just about to make a coffee and sit down with Jane now to organise the next few Durvillea events we have coming up, Sounday and Wine and Food Festival (and just for fun I am heading to Rippon first weekend of Feb!)

Heading towards Christmas

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While Jane, Simon and the girls have been over in Ireland for the past two weeks I have been holding the fort back in the office, and things have been hectic. As always at this time of year, the orders start to come in strong and fast, and we try our hardest to make sure that they all get out and delivered on time- as you can imagine, it can be difficult.

Hemi and Bridget from Wineworks

Hemi and Bridget from Wineworks

Luckily we have a great team at Wineworks Marlborough (where we store and dispatch our wine from) who also work as hard as they can to get our orders out!

Not only have we had an increase in orders, but we have especially had an increase in Durvillea orders as we start to get more recognition as a brand and for our wine. The Durvillea Pinot Grigio just won Blue Gold and Top 100 at the Sydney International Wine Competition 2010, which we are particularly pleased about.

As I have mentioned previously, we were approached by David Jensen several months ago in regards to supplying the l”Astrolabe ship with wine, on its recent trip to Antarctica. As the ship was called l’Astrolabe we thought it seemed fitting that we supplied the wine, giving them a mixed case of Astrolabe and a mixed case of Durvillea. The ship finally set out on Friday 4th December, and reached Antarctica yesterday, to follow the blog of where they are, and how the Mawson Hut restoration is going click here. We look forward to reading about their progress, and hopefully seeing a few photos of Durvillea being drunk in Antarctica!

l'Astrolabe
l’Astrolabe

As I also mentioned last time, we have partnered up with Sounday to be the wine for this music event that is held in Hagley Park, 30 January next year. The line up has now been announced, and to buy tickets you can go to the Fabel or RDU website, it will no doubt be a great day, and some of us Durvillea girls will be there wandering round too!

Another exciting event that Jane and I are also already thinking about is the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival, this is a couple of weeks later on the 13th February, this is the first time Durvillea will be at this festival, so we want to do it well.

With all these things coming up, there is lots to plan and organise, the 2009 Durvillea Pinot Noir was just bottled on Friday. As we have made so little of it, it must be allocated out so that everyone who has requested and is interested in it has enough to last them through to the next vintage, this is always a bit of a guessing game, but generally seems to work!

Another thing that must be organised is Christmas, as I write this, I have just come back from Nelson where I finally started my Christmas shopping! This year we are having Christmas in Christchurch (home) with the Forrest- Waghorns (mum’s side) and the McLernons (dad’s) all of us cousins are all around the same age, so I am looking forward to catching up with them all and having a few drinks with the family!

Merry Christmas everyone, till next year! Sophie

Sophie’s Wrap Up

Posted on by Durvillea
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nelson tastingThis week I have been manning the office alone as Simon, Jane and Jason have been in Shanghai for a trade show. Jason is now his way home, while Jane and Simon are en route to Ireland, where they are to be joined by the girls to launch Durvillea Wines next week.

However, being the only one in the office it has not been dull, I have been very busy!

Last week I went over to visit our Nelson customers to see how the were going, and if they needed anything before the Christmas rush. I also did a tasting at Richmond Fresh Choice, who have been very supportive of Durvillea, since we released it. The tasting was a success and a lot of people seemed to very interested in our Pinot Grigio (Pinot Grigio is an Italian style of wine, it is still made with the Pinot Gris varietal, but it is made in a dryer and leaner style- a style that Simon is interested in)

One of the things I have also been busy with this week, that we are all extremely excited about has been organising and finalising details with Fabel, who are the company that put on Sounday. We have organised to be their exclusive wine partner for the event next year.
Sounday_backgrnd

Sounday 2010 is going to be held on the 30 January 2010 at Hagley Park 10am- 7pm, the line up has not been released yet, but I will keep you all up to date and provide a link to buy tickets when they are available.

This week it has warmed up in Marlborough, which our viticulturist Jeremy is verfirst grapesy happy about as it has started to encourage some growth with the grapes. So far it has been rather cool, so growth has not been very rapid, however already with a few warm days and some rain he is starting to see some growth.

Currently we are in the pre flowering growth of the cycle. The photo here shows the bunches pre flowering and they are called inflorescenses, from here they will flower in a couple of weeks and then set, turning into bunches of grapes. At this time of year it is important to shoot position this is to maximise light interception (increase photosynthecity of the plant) and to and lay the foundation for the canopy of the vine for the rest of season.

As a lot goes on in the next few months in the vineyard I thought I would give you a wee update every couple of weeks so you can see exactly what stage of the growth process we are at.

It is a beautiful evening here in Marlborough today, so I think it must be time to head out for a drink!
- Jane, Simon and Meg, I hope you have a good trip to Ireland, I am dropping Libby and Bella at the airport Sunday to join you! Sophie

Sophie’s Wrap Up

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In Marlborough we are very lucky to have two consecutive long weekends, we have Labour weekend and then the following weekend is another long weekend due to Marlborough anniversary falling on Monday 1st November.

Before I carry on I must let you know that this weeks blog seems to be particularly Astrolabe based!

Having a short week after Simon’s party weekend was quite nice, although it meant we were very busy preparing for Marlborough Wine Weekend (a bi- annual wine event held on anniversay weekend http://www.wine-marlborough.co.nz/wineweekend/ )This event is a fantastic weekend to showcase the best that our region has to offer in the way of wine and food! As it is such a great event we brought six people over to thank them for their support that they have shown us over the years. This year we brought over Ian and Tim from United Cellars Sydney after they sold the most Astrolabe wine  during a promotion we held over there. We also brought down Mike and his wife Berni from New Plymouth and Andy and Braddon up from Christchurch, who are all very loyal supporters of the Astrolabe brand.

One of the many beautiful spots for the Marlborough weekendThe event ran from Friday to Sunday and was jam packed with tastings and other events in many different beautiful spots around Marlborough. We finished it off for our guests on Sunday by having them out to Astrolabe Farm for a big brunch and champagne before they all flew off to their respective locations.

On Monday afternoon I flew up to Auckland for Republic furniture’s 10th birthday party where Astrolabe had sponsored the wine. Bella and I went along as representatives it was a fabulous event to be a part of, the furniture was gorgeous and there was a great turn out of people.

The entertainment was also a highlight……

Entertainment at Republic

Entertainment at Republic

The rest of the week seems to have flown past, we have been very busy in the office with many many first of the month orders to be put through! And on Wednesday Jo Burzynska talked about our brand use of twitter and recommended us in the VIVA magazine of the New Zealand Herald- which incidentally no one in Blenheim stocks! Had to get a copy from someone off twitter! (see our facebook fan page for the article if your city/town does also not get the Herald…)

With all of this going on I have also been organising to go over to Nelson for a day next week to see our restaurants and retailers, and am trying to tee up a few Durvillea tastings while I am over there.

It is a beautiful day here today, so fingers crossed it continues into the weekend, especially as I am moving flats tomorrow….