Everyone knows Chardonnay is making a come-back.

Durvillea is eager to annouce that in addition to our Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir, our 2011 vintage will also include our new Durvillea Marlborough Chardonnay!

We are thrilled that the 2011 Chardonnay will complete our list of classic varietals in the Durvillea range.

Not on shelves yet, but due for release in early 2012. Get excited!

…Oh, and … “it’s pronounced Chardonnay, Kim.”

-Genevieve

Nets up, after the Riesling was picked

Gosh, it is June and we are still harvesting. Today it is fantastic that the Riesling has been picked. During vintage Simon decided it would be the year we made a Noble Riesling so the nets went back on.

We last did this in 2007. So then we waited and waited. The weather was fine and the infection slowly developed and then it rained and rained. So we were pleased that the sun reappeared this week and Jeremy and Simon decided to pick today.

Nick with the mechanical harvester

However I had also booked a spot at the olive press for our first pick of olives. It has been a crazy day. Luckily Arabella was home on study leave and helped prepare morning tea and lunch for pickers of all varieties and crops.
This year we experimented with a mechanical olive harvester. It was an interesting day. Hand harvesting relies on lots of people to reach the required 300kg weight of olives to ensure to ensure a single grove batch press. It is also very pleasant gathered about the trees gently running your hands done the fruiting branches milking off the olives. However it is also a lot to ask of people. As we don’t sell the oil all we can offer is lunch, and a supply of delicious oil. So this year I borrowed a mechanical hand held machine from a friend and fellow grape/olive grower Jan Johns. The upshot was we managed to pick half the grove with 4 people. We also picked trees with a patchy crop that we would have left if we were hand picking. An interesting conundrum to consider is how I balance the argument in my head of mechanization versus hand picking. Tomorrow being Saturday we will pick traditionally by hand. The jury is out.

Winemakers helping out

Now with a number of people coming for lunch and the need for tasty winter fare I made a pot of Vegetable Soup last night. We have been going through a soup phase of late brought on by our harvesting of mushrooms. Alas the weather is too cold now for mushrooms but a good crop of pumpkins are stored in the shed in anticipation of my personal favourite Pumpkin Soup. However we did make pots and pots of Mushroom Soup, and using field mushrooms makes such a difference. Tomorrow Arabella will whip some savoury pinwheel scones to accompany the soup. Below is our Mushroom Soup recipe from the good old Edmonds cookbook.
Mushroom Soup
225g (8 ozs.) Mushrooms
½ cup Water
1 tablespoon Butter
1 Tablespoon Flour
1 cup Milk
Seasonings
Little Lemon Juice

Peel mushrooms, break into small pieces, and cook in the water until tender. Melt butter in a saucepan, add flour, and gradually stir in the milk. Cook until the mixture thickens, and cook a few minutes longer; mushrooms and liquor and seasonings. Just before serving,add lemon juice. A little cream improves the flavor.

Off to buy some shade cloth to make some new nets for the olive pick. Meg is home this afternoon and can help sew and bake treats for morning tea.

It feels like this harvest has gone very quickly! For me in the office, vintage time is not too different to a normal day, except there is slightly more paperwork to check off. This year we tried to keep our face book site live with what was going on daily during our harvest. I have enjoyed this and so have Jeremy and Tim, with both of them sending in their photos when they had a chance.

It has been a brilliant vintage, with great weather and picking conditions, now the juice is in tanks and barrels fermenting away and Simon is already saying he is excited about this vintage, and that the flavour profiles are looking good.

This month we have also been holding another competition on our facebook site (www.facebook.com/durvilleawines), this has been a food and wine matching one. We have been asking people to post their favourites recipe and Durvillea wine to match it with and they have won a cook book and gone in to win 6 bottles of wine weekly, this has been one of my favourites competitions we have done, as I love to cook, and it has been great to get new some new ideas and recipes to try out!

As Jane talked about in her last blog, Bella has been home recently, so on Thursday and Friday we went down to Blenheim New World and did a couple of tastings, these went really well, and people seemed very interested in the three wines, in particular the Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir. (The Pinot Grigio was recieved so well is now available at the Blenheim New World, for those who have been looking to try it!) We have also booked in to do one in Wellington next month!

I have also had to start getting myself very organised the last couple of weeks as I am off to Canada for work on Friday, this is for three tradeshows and to meet with our distributors. The trade shows are in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa, and will all be fabulous events. We have been talking with our agents in Toronto about bringing Durvillea into the market, so at the Toronto and Ottawa shows we are showing Durvillea which is very exciting!

However with the trip now so close there is a lot to get done before hand! Hopefully Jane and I will be able to write another blog while we are over there.

PS. An update on my Saint Clair half marathon training, the last few weeks haven’t been going so well, and running seems to be getting harder, not a good thing! It was 3 weeks till the race on Saturday, and they say the week before you should taper off beforehand. This leaves me 2 weeks, in which apparently a 17km should be done- this I am even more worried about. However, I have got my training guide to stick to, and Jane has made sure all our hotels have gyms in them, so fingers crossed I will be able to make it through the race. Any helpful hints/tips would much much appreciated guys!!

It has been a busy easter weekend here at Astrolabe Farm. Arabella is home for the university mid-term break and Meg arrived home on Good Friday. We got straight into some chores – waterblasting, mowing, harvesting the quince and picking up walnuts. This was all in preparation for Saturday which was a full on day as Jane and Sophie were hosting a wine tasting at Astrolabe Farm for some American visitors off a cruise ship and Meg & Bella were scheduled to pick some of the Pinot Noir grapes.

It was beautiful weather so picking the Pinot Noir was not too difficult a task. We were picking what we call the “sandybank Pinot” which are grapes from a small section of the vineyard that grow on an old creek bed. The soil is very sandy so it doesn’t retain water as well as other parts of the vineyard. It was easy to see which grapes needed to be picked as the vines had started to yellow and defoliate. The Pinot is under nets as that part of the vineyard is very attractive to the birds who populate the hedges that border the property.

The first task is to lift the nets so that we can pick under them. This is quite difficult for some of the more diminutive members of the family! Simon came out to double check the fruit and confirm the rows that needed to be picked. We pick using snips and wearing gloves. You end up with pretty sticky hands by the end of the day. Although it looks a bit silly we often pick in cotton dresses and skirts as they are nice and cool to work in. We often add a flowery apron to hold our snips in too! We place small yellow bins out along the rows and when the row is finished Arabella drives the truck along and we empty the small bins into a larger one that then gets driven out to the winery.

We had almost finished when the visitors from the cruise ship came out to see what we were up to. They were very interested in the whole process and we even managed to get them to help out with some picking. When we had a pretty full bin Dad came to pick it up and we cycled back to the house for some refreshments.

On returning home Arabella was straight into the kitchen working on a spectacular easter cake. We will post a recipe later in the week but until then here is a preview!

There are heaps more pictures from the Pinot Noir picking on our Flickr account here – check them out, it will make us happy!  – Meg & Arabella.

The Wrekin

The pick today started at 7.30am at the Wrekin Vineyard, up the Brancott Valley which is part of Southern Valleys. As there are so many clones here we will probably return and do about 4 more picks so all the fruit and clones are picked at the optimum times.

This vintage will start off slowly over the next few days, and probably be all go by the middle of next week, we are looking at picking some Pinot Gris tomorrow, and then some more next week. It is hard to know exactly what is being picked when as it is up to to our Viticulturist and the Winemakers, and the weather of course!

I managed to pop out to the vineyard this morning to get some photos of the picking in action. Below is a video of Marge and the team picking Pinot Noir, clone 114.  It is the first video I have taken, so please excuse the sideways camera angles! Should have it sorted for next time!! More photos available on our face book page www.facebook.com/durvilleawines

It has been a good couple of weeks in the office, on Tuesday I headed over to Nelson for the day to visit customers over there, it was a fabulous day and I managed to squeeze in 12 visits and get Durvillea on a couple of new wine lists, I also managed to fit in a visit to Shoe Clinic to buy a new pair of running shoes.

The training hasn’t been going so well for the Saint Clair half marathon, it is 6 weeks away tomorrow and I seem to have half the motivation I had 2 months ago when I started training! A friend has been giving me tips and has started me on an interval training programme once a week, I have been wearing my Durvillea singlet and looking like such a mess at the end of each session I am not sure if it is good advertising! The training is a 2km jog then 400m sprint 1minute rest, 600m sprint, 1minute rest, 1km sprint, 1minute rest, 2km sprint, 1minute rest, 1km sprint, 1minute rest, 600m sprint, 1minute rest, 400m sprint. I must admit, I seem to have long minute rests in between, and I haven’t quite made it to the 2km sprint yet! Am hoping to try out a 12km run at some point this weekend.

As it is Easter next week Meg and Bella will be coming home, and it will be good to see them. Our younger cousin Alice and her friend Jaleesa are over here from Australia doing a vintage with Whitehaven at the moment, and are staying with Jane and Simon, so it will be a very full house-may need to have them at my house for the weekend.

Pinot Noir

We are also starting a new competition in April, so keep watching our facebook website for your chance to win a bottle of two of wine!

Dave and Sophie, Ichi Ni

While in New Zealand Durvillea seems to have more of a retail presence, it seems to be the opposite in Australia, with most of the states agreeing that Durvillea has been going very well as an on- premise wine. The Durvillea Pinot Grigio in particular seemed to be getting alot of interest. While we were only in Australia for two days, we managed to get out to Ichi Ni in St Kilda for dinner on the first night. This is a fantastic restaurant in Melbourne, and it has both Astrolabe and Durvillea on the list.

After a whirlwind trip to Australia it was back to NZ and back to business, there were deadlines for wine competitions to meet for entries and to send stock away, and exports to organise. February seemed to be a very busy month for exports!

The Durvillea Pinot Noir was properly released this month, and already it has had some great reviews, we have even managed to make a review page on the website now- to check it out go to http://www.durvilleawines.co.nz/nice-things-people-are-saying-about-us/ This wine has been well recieved by the retailers, and has been selling very well.

As we approach the middle of March the preparation for vintage is well under way, Simon, Tim and Jeremy are constantly out sampling the different blocks, and assessing the different flavour profiles that each block has. At the moment we are looking to do our first pick for the 2010 Vintage the last week of March, this will be some of our Pinot Noir blocks. The Sauvignon Blanc is further behind, although we are still on track with where we were last vintage. This week the Wairau and Awatere Valley’s were coming in at about 16 – 17 brix (Savvy is normally picked at about 21-22 brix) They are already showing exceptional flavour profiles and we are looking forward to seeing the results, as we continue with the ideal ripening weather of warm days and cool nights.

Durvillea Girl singlet

As all of this is going on, I am still trying to train for the Saint Clair half marathon, last week I attempted my first 10km run, it took me about 75 minutes, and unfortunately I had to run/walk the last 2km. On Saturday just been I tried another long run, this time managing to VERY slowly run the whole way, but my route mapping fell short and it was only 9.2km

Thelma from Newman Graphics just dropped my Durvillea singlet in this afternoon (above) which should really motivate me to go for another run tonight (haven’t been since Saturday) and the run is now only 7 weeks away!! Unfortunately, it is 30 degrees outside, and the idea of a wine seems to be slightly more appealing…. Will see how I go….

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…………

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

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 very 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