When we last visited South Australia as a family we spent time in both the Barossa and Clare Valley wine tasting. Unfortunately, at that time Libby, Bella and I couldn’t care less about tasting and stayed in the car listening to cds at half of the places! Adelaide is famous for its food and wine culture and although we didn’t take advantage of the wine at the time we did have some great food experiences. The most memorable was probably visiting the Jerusalem Sheshkabab House – an Adelaide icon that Mum & Dad frequented as young people! Lebanese food is very popular in our household – hummus and tabouleh were some of the very first things I learnt to make. Dad taught me his own variations on recipes that I think came originally from the Moosewood Cookbook. Just quietly, I make the best hummus ever (as long as you like heaps of lemon and garlic)!

Anyway, I would love to go back to Adelaide as an adult to really take advantage of the great wine and food. My partner’s parents were just over there last week and really enjoyed it. His mother spotted a great review for the Durvillea 2008 Sauvignon Blanc in the Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine and kindly brought the magazine back for me. The reviewer was Bob Campbell.

 Thanks Bob! We are glad you enjoyed it! If you are keen to see if you agree with this review we still have a little ‘08 Sav available. Just visit the Astrolabe site here: http://www.astrolabewines.co.nz/wines/durvillea.

Also, if you are interested in reading more reviews please check out our “Nice things people are saying about us” tab up at the top of the page.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Meg

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…………

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!

London:

We had about a week in London. We had rented an apartment in Bloomsbury, which was great as it was pretty close to a tube station. London is a festive place to be at this time of year, especially around the central city, where there are very impressive Christmas shop windows and street decorations and lights.

We took advantage of some down-time to visit galleries and museums (the V & A, the Tate Modern and the National Gallery) and do some Christmas shopping. Arabella and I even managed to join in a huge climate change march, and marched with the crowd from Trafalgar Square down to Westminster Abbey.

One of the most fun things we did in London was visiting the Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park, which has an ice-skating rink, carnival rides and a traditional German Christmas market. We ate pretzels and donuts, and Arabella and I went on several of the rides while Meg and Jane, being far more boring sophisticated sipped mulled wine and watched from the sidelines.

Jane met with our distributors, Ellis of Richmond, to talk business. On the train to meet them, in a bit of a freaky coincidence, she happened to run into Libby Johns, the daughter of one of our Astrolabe growers!

The next day, all four of us girls (Jane, Meg, Libby and Arabella) traveled out to Richmond to meet the Ellis team. We went out with Mike Webb from Ellis to meet Matthew Curran, who manages a really wonderful hotel, Langshott Manor. Langshott is a fantastic restored 16th century manor house with beautiful gardens. Matthew told us it is particularly popular for weddings, and we could certainly see why. While we were there, we ran through the Astrolabe and Durvillea wines with Matthew and the hotel’s restaurant manager, as they are interested in putting more of the wines on their wine list. We were also lucky enough to eat lunch in the Langshott Manor  restaurant, which was beautiful. We even had our first Christmas fruit mince pies of the season!

All and all it was a pretty busy week in London.

Over the last two weeks Arabella and I have been home in Blenheim at Astrolabe Farm. Its a busy time in the vineyard, with bud rubbing (removing buds and shoots from the ‘trunk’ part of the vine) and de-lateralling (taking little off shoots off the growing part of the vine to allow more light and energy to reach the fruit-bearing parts), so Arabella and I have been helping Nick with that in the vineyard a bit. As well as that, we’ve been baking up a storm, making shortbread, cheese biscuits, florentines, pastry twists and Christmas cupcakes to give as Astrolabe Christmas gifts. We had the Astrolabe growers’ party last week at the Farm as well.

Now we’re down in Akaroa, catching up with our Waghorn relatives for Christmas. More on that later!

Merry Christmas everyone!

The fourth ‘Who’s that girl?’ interview in an occasional series – questions from Libby this time.

Born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1985 Meg is the eldest daughter in the Forrest-Waghorn family.

Where do you fit within the Durvillea family?: Well, I’m the eldest of the Forrest-Waghorn girls. In terms of Durvillea I’ve mainly been in charge of setting up and maintaining our social networking sites – particularly this blog. Along with Libby, Bella, and the Astrolabe team I’ve had some input into the design and development discussions.

What is your favourite part of being involved with the brand?: I really like the way I can legitimately spend lots of time on the internet! It’s also nice to be able to find a place for some of my skills in the family industry. I have also come to appreciate all the different skill areas we have in the family and business.

How would you describe the Durvillea range?: Approachable and affordable wines that don’t sacrifice quality and integrity. I also think we have a great back-story and a classy, identifiably New Zealand label.

Do you have a favourite amongst them?: Normally I’m a dry riesling fan but I’m really falling back in love with Sauvignon Blanc as a result of my Durvillea involvement. In the face of some uncertainty about the future for Marlborough Sav Blanc it’s great to see our wine still getting a great reception as a quality example of the variety.

Libby, Arabella and Meg. Gisborne, c.1993.

What was the best thing about growing up in the wine industry?: Well, as Libby has said, wineries are reasonably entertaining places to play and vintage is always an exciting time. The wine industry is great as it is so seasonal; it keeps you in touch with nature in a way. Another nice thing about the industry is the types of people who are drawn to it, people who care about hospitality and the finer things in life in general.

You live in Wellington, what do you do there?: I moved to Wellington to study in 2004. I’ve been working at Wellington City Libraries for several years now. Librarianship (although I’m not a qualified librarian) is another ‘family industry’, Ma [Jane] is a trained librarian and that’s been at least as influential as the wine stuff! I’m also working towards a Masters degree in New Zealand Literature.

Client relationship manager Sophie McLernon, and Meg. Te Kauwhata, circa 1987.

What would your ‘perfect day’ in Wellington be? Any tips for visitors?: On a fine day a stroll around the city waterfront accompanied by Café Eis gelato and a lovely Wellington soundtrack by the excellent Phoenix Foundation. On a wilder day I love the south coast. I also like to show visitors around my lovely home suburb of Newtown which has a surprising amount of great food and coffee options and cute little stores. For visiting tips I recommend the expert advice of the Wellingtonistas.

How about at home in Blenheim?: The absolute best place to eat in Blenheim is the cramped but cosy Cruizie’s café on Maxwell Road in town. I love their chicken stuffing sandwiches more than I can say. On a summer’s evening the Craiglockhart River in the Waihopai Valley is a lovely place to swim and you get a good look at the famous spy balls on the way there.

Libby is currently in New Zealand from Brisbane for her university holidays so we had a one day window to meet up and have some photos done.

It was pretty fun to get all made up and we amused ourselves in between by taking quite a few silly photos. We all dressed in black, so we looked like mafia widows when we grabbed some lunch after.

Now we just have to wait and see how the professional ones turn out!

Libby’s best Top Model/Covergirl style shot.

Bella is unimpressed by our candid photography.

I included this picture purely because Libby looks so much like Blair Waldorf of Gossip Girl in it!

See?

- Meg