Tag Archives: 2010 Marlborough vintage

Easter Eggs and Pinot Noir

Posted on by Meg
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We hope everyone had a good easter break!

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.

Sophie’s Wrap Up- The Start of Vintage

Posted on by Durvillea
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Today we made our first pick for the 2010 harvest for Durvillea and Astrolabe, this is the first pick of about 60 picks that we will do over the next month.

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!

Sophie’s Wrap Up

Posted on by Durvillea
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It has been over a month since I put a blog up, so there is a lot to cover, I won’t bore you with all of it, but I will start with the trip to Melbourne that Jason and I did to meet with our Australian distributors. In Australia we have separate distributors for each state, we are currently in NSW, VIC, QLD and more recently WA and SA. (for a list of our distributors visit http://www.astrolabewines.co.nz/distributors)  With the addition of WA and SA  it seemed logical to get everyone together in one place and discuss our plans for the year moving forward. It was a good way to get a snapshot of everyone’s markets, and to see how Durvillea was going in each of these states.

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….