Let your heart be light: Everyone has their traditions – something they eagerly anticipate each year. Today, I would like to share with you mine.

For the past five years, my friends and I have come together once a year to make merry Midwinter Christmas. For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, Midwinter is a little somethin’ a few of us down below partake in to observe Christmas in all its wintry, frosted glory… with pinecones roasting atop the fire, mulled cider, festively decorated interiors – as so many Christmas songs, stories and traditions are lost on us in our December summer. So, the exact date is not hugely important - what is, however, is spending an overtly festive day together, accompanied by merriment and turkey.

Christmas decorations come up, Judy and Chris Martin blare ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (one after the other, of course)… there is cocktail attire, fairy lights, cranberry-laiden wreaths… there has even been “Pin the Tail on Rudolph”.

This year’s menu included: an organic free-range Turkey (Boris Junior – brined to ensure maximum tenderness and flavour… this is a must) roasted with a pork + cranberry + pinenut stuffing and orange + sage butter, maple-syrup roasted golden kumara + giant yams, potatoes + parsnips par-bolied + then roasted with garlic in duck-fat, blanched brussel sprouts sauteed lightly with lardons and celery heart leaves, and finally little sausages wrapped in bacon.

Dessert consisted of vanilla panna cottas served with citrus-poached tamarillos and sugar-toasted pistachios.

Sous chef: This Guy (a Durvillea-aproned Michael).

We had a special champagne toast to our Durvillea Girl Libby to celebrate her engagement to her fiance (I love calling him that!) Peter. My speech was one for the books…

I look forward to Midwinter Christmas every year, probably more so than anything else. Sitting down to dinner with my favourite people, it really is magical… oh no, I don’t want to get all Love Actually on you. So, I hope you all enjoy the photos – because, we really did have ourselves a Merry Little Midwinter Christmas.

Hmmm, maybe I will get all Love Actually … so, to finish:

Particularly enjoy the incredible crassness of this moment when I try to squeeze three extra syllables into the fourth line…

… now if you really love Midwinter Christmas, come on and let it snow.

*Dishes inspired by Chirstmas recipes from (of course) Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey, Nigella Lawson etc. etc.

Foremost for me at Christmas is family. This year we will have all the girls home, my sister Nicki and her family, which of course includes our Sophie, and my father. We are fairly traditional at Christmas. Breakfast, presents, champagne, lunch, lounging about, fun activities (planning croquet this year) and left-overs for tea. As you may have read we like to decorate the house for Christmas. Arabella takes the role of Christmas decorating fairy. I also enjoy setting the table with my Christmas napkins and wearing my Christmas apron.All accompanied by various drinks. Christmas lunch will be a roast turkey, but my favourite part is making desert. It is decadent and fun. Actually I really love the whole thing of the people I love best in the world gathering around the table.

Last year we (Libby the baker daughter) and I made a yule log for Christmas lunch. The combination of chocolate and fresh summer berries is excellent. This recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s Nigella Christmas.
Yule Log
For the cake:
6 eggs, separated (luckily my new chickens have come into lay)
150g caster sugar
50g cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
3-5 tsps icing sugar to decorate

For the icing:

175g dark chocolate, chopped
250gg icing sugar
225g soft butter
1 x 15ml tablespoon vanilla extract

• Preheat the oven to 180 C
• In a large , clean bowl whisk the egg whites until thick and peaking, then, still whisking, sprinkle in 50g of the caster sugar sugar and continue whisking until the whites are holding their peaks but not dry.
• In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the remaining caster sugar until the mixture is mousy, pale and thick. Add the vanilla extract, sieve the cocoa powder over, then fold both in.
• Lighten the yolk mixture with a couple of dollops of the egg whites, folding them in robustly. Then add the remaining whites in thirds, folding them in carefully to avoid losing the air.
• Line a Swiss roll tin with baking parchment, leaving a generous overhang at the ends and sides, and folding the parchment into the corners to help the paper stay anchored.
• Pour in the cake mixture and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Let the cake cool a little before turning it out onto another piece of baking parchment.

- Jane

Here is how to enter the competition. We already have one entry on last week’s blog from Sharon for a Midori & Bailey’s trifle!

Competition details:

Post up your favourite Christmas recipe, meal, or serving suggestion on this blog and we will do the second draw this coming Friday 10th December for the next two bottles of Durvillea wine (your choice)

Terms and Condition to Enter:
* Must be over 18
* Comments must be posted on this blog, not our facebook or twitter accounts
* Only those in New Zealand and Australia are eligible for this competition
* One person’s recipe a week will be drawn from a hat each Friday until the 17th December and that lucky person will win 2 bottles of their choice of Durvillea wines
*Everyone who posted a recipe will go in the draw for the Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc magnum to be drawn 17th December

Another festive thing we get a bit excited about is the food. Although we love traditional Christmas cuisine, being in Marlborough we also have lots of summer produce ready for eating at the farm. There are always plenty of berries, new potatoes and peas from Jane’s vegetable garden. One of my favourite Christmas dinner dishes is peas and pancetta. This salad looks lovely and green on the table and is a delicious interval to rich ham and turkey.

Peas and Pancetta

Olive oil

Pancetta (100 grams or so)

1 cup white wine

1 small onion

5 cups fresh picked peas

1 clove garlic

Cook chopped onion and pancetta in olive oil until brown. Add garlic and keep cooking until it smells nice! Add wine peas and black pepper and simmer until peas are tender and wine is absorbed.

We already have some delicious entries into this week’s draw: Danielle’s mushroom and bacon pate, Kathie’s Ham with Spicy Plum and Mustard Glaze, Erin’s Meat Sauce, Lucy’s Sultana Cake, Cynthia’s Christmas mince and Claire’s Parsley Butter. Check them out on last week’s blog. To enter your recipe see the info below.

- Arabella

Competition details:

Post up your favourite Christmas recipe, meal, or serving suggestion on this blog and we will do the second draw this coming Friday3rd Decmeber for the next two bottles of Durvillea wine (your choice)

Terms and Condition to Enter:
* Must be over 18
* Comments must be posted on this blog, not our facebook or twitter accounts
* Only those in New Zealand and Australia are eligible for this competition
* One person’s recipe a week will be drawn from a hat each Friday until the 17th December and that lucky person will win 2 bottles of their choice of Durvillea wines
*Everyone who posted a recipe will go in the draw for the Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc magnum to be drawn 17th December

One thing that I really enjoy about Christmas is having so many drinks and nibbles! As you can imagine we always have a well stocked drinks fridge at Astrolabe Farm and as we all know it is very important not to drink on an empty stomach. My favourite classic Christmas nibbles would be Jane’s mini mince pies (which her grandmother used to make for my grandfather) and the delicious smoked salmon pate from the Mapua smokehouse. Another Waghorn family favourite are Devils on Horseback and the recipe is very simple!

All you need are pitted prunes and streaky bacon (free range bacon pretty please!). Wrap the prunes in the bacon stick a toothpick through and bake. Super easy, sweet and savoury, delicious crowd pleasing appetisers!

Last year we celebrated Christmas in Canterbury. We had Christmas morning in Akaroa with the Waghorn’s and Christmas lunch/dinner in Christchurch with the McLernon’s. For lunch our responsibility was the dessert.

We made a chocolate log and a lemon/lime cheesecake. For the top of the cheesecake I made some sugar lemon slices. They are quite easy to make and can hide a multitude of sins on top of any kind of cake!

Step 1. Thinly slice lemons (or limes), put in a bowl and pour over boiling water.

Step 2: Leave to cool, take out and rinse to remove bitterness.

Step 3: Simmer one cup of sugar with half a cup of water until dissolved. Add lemons and simmer for five mins.

Step 4: Place on drying rack. When dry toss them in sugar (caster sugar is probably best).

Then use them for decorating whatever you like!

Competition details:

Post up your favourite Christmas recipe, meal, or serving suggestion on this blog and we will do the second draw this coming Friday 26th November for the next two bottles of Durvillea wine (your choice)

Terms and Condition to Enter:
* Must be over 18
* Comments must be posted on this blog, not our facebook or twitter accounts
* Only those in New Zealand and Australia are eligible for this competition
* One person’s recipe a week will be drawn from a hat each Friday until the 17th December and that lucky person will win 2 bottles of their choice of Durvillea wines
*Everyone who posted a recipe will go in the draw for the Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc magnum to be drawn 17th December

Tasting new releases at Chesters, Brisbane

Last week Jason, Jeremy our viticulturist and I were in Brisbane for a meeting with our Australian distributors. This meeting went really well, we tasted all of our new release wines with them and all four states seemed to be in line in terms of pricing, the branding, and their views going forward. Interestingly the Kekerengu Sauvignon Blanc from our Astrolabe range seemed to be very popular over there.

Currently we only have Durvillea in two of the four states, QLD and VIC, but in both states the brand is being well received, the Durvillea Pinot Grigio seems to be a real winner at the moment.

Coming back to Christmas however, this year we are having Christmas at Astrolabe Farm, and it will be my family (the McLernons) and the Waghorns. Christmas is one of my favourite times of year, and the food on Christmas Day is definitely a highlight. We normally have a hot ham and a turkey and many other delicious treats that various family members bring along. This year Meg and I have decided that we should probably contribute a bit more, so we are being a little bit cheeky using this competition to get recipes and ideas from you!

Family Christmas '09

But we will also be giving you a chance to win!

To enter this competition we want you to give us your favourite Christmas recipe, it can be an entree, a dip, a stuffing, a glaze, a whole meal, a dessert, whatever Christmas food/meal is most dear to you.

At the end of each week the prize will be 2 bottles of Durvillea Wine (for the first five weeks) and then the last week (being drawn 17th December) everyone who has entered the competition will go into the draw again to win a Magnum of Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc.

Each week each of us Durvillea girls will also be posting one of our favourite recipes, so to start of this week I am going to give you two little ones that are almost always used in our family!

One is a fantastic Hot Ham glaze, and the other a Turkey Stuffing that my mum Nicki always uses.

Hot Ham Glaze
½ c runny honey
1 ½ c brown sugar
2 tbsp mustard (any)
½ c juice (pineapple or orange)
Whole cloves

Heat honey in microwave until warm,
Stir in the brown sugar
Add the mustard and then juice

Remove skin from ham, cut diamonds into the fat, stud with cloves and brush glaze over. Bake for a couple of hours at 160degrees. Check regularly to ensure it isn’t burning.

Turkey Stuffing
1 C fresh brown bread crumbs
4-6 shallots cooked in olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic sliced and cooked in olive oil
1 c black olives
200gm bacon or prosciutto-chopped
1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary

So post up your favourite recipe or meal on this blog and we will do the first draw this coming Friday 19th November for the first two bottles of Durvillea wine (your choice)

Terms and Condition to Enter:
* Must be over 18
* Comments must be posted on this blog, not our facebook or twitter accounts
* Only those in New Zealand and Australia are eligible for this compeition
* One person’s recipe a week will be drawn from a hat each Friday until the 17th December and that lucky person will win 2 bottles of their choice of Durvillea wines
*Everyone who posted a recipe will go in the draw for the Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc magnum to be drawn 17th December

It seems like such a long time ago that all the Forrest-Waghorn family were in Akaroa getting ready for Christmas. Even though it was a while ago we took some lovely photos down there so I thought I would share some with you all. There will also be some recipes to follow in the next few weeks.

We Waghorns have had a  very close link with Akaroa and Banks Peninsula since 1850 when our ancestors arrived on the Randolph from England. At the moment my Waghorn grandparents live in Akaroa, along with my dad Simon’s brother Hugh and his sister Sarah. Uncle Hugh along with his wife (our aunt!) Pip owns a few businesses in Akaroa.

The main one is Akaroa Dolphins , who provide nature cruises around Akaroa Harbour. Of course we would highly reccommend them if you are in the area! Who knows, you might get to enjoy a glass of one of our Astrolabe or Durvillea wines on board!

Hugh & Pip also have another business called Captain Hector’s that hires out kayaks and paddle-boats. We really like their logowhich features their cute dog Hector. Hugh has a good little vege garden going on out the back of the Akaroa Dolphins premises.

We sent out a few raiding parties to augment our summer meals.

Hugh has bought several electric bikes for visitors to Akaroa to enjoy. Libby and Arabella, along with our cousin Rose, took them for a test drive.

Libby on one of the electric bikes

They took them for a reasonably long run and found them really enjoyable. You don’t need to use the motor all the time, just when you need a little boost. They worked well even on some of the quite steep hills that surround the harbour. Libby & Bella even rode them up to the bach where Mum and I were preparing some food for Christmas and I had a go.

I really liked them and thought they would be great for commuting, especially somewhere hilly like Wellington. However, I’m too much of a scaredy-cat for cycling in Wellington yet so I’ll stick with the bus for now.

One place in Akaroa that we hadn’t been before was The Giant’s House. It is a lovely old house and garden filled with amazing sculpture and mosaic. Here are a few photos of us there:

Arabella at The Giant's House

Libby and Bella

The garden at The Giant's House, Akaroa

There are more photos of The Giant’s House and our Akaroa holiday on our Flickr page if you are interested!

-Meg

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!

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!

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

Libby, Arabella and Simon survey the tent before the party

Last weekend was a big one for the Waghorn family. Simon turned 50 and we threw him a big party at Astrolabe Farm. Sadly, none of us took many pictures but hopefully some that my aunt Nicki took will surface soon. A great time was had by all – particular highlight for me was watching Dad pogo-ing around the dancefloor to the B52′s later on in the evening…

Having the whole family together (along with lots of extended family and old friends) got us thinking about the next big occasion in the family calendar – Christmas. Every family has their traditional Christmas (or other seasonal holiday) foods and recipes. We’d like to share one of ours, the Christmas Cake. It’s not that original but , as for many other families, the making of the Christmas cake carries with it a lot of meaning and memories.

Ruthie using the Christmas Cake recipe for Jane & Simon's wedding cake

Our recipe comes from our maternal grandmother (Jane’s mother) Ruth Forrest. Our lovely Nana is sadly in a home suffering from severe dementia but we think of her often, particularly in the kitchen as she was a phenomenal cook. This is Nana’s recipe and the copy we have is precious to us, as it is hand written by her. The hard copies of recipes are so evocative, this one has the smears and smudges of a well used recipe as well as the conversions and additions written by my mother, Jane (and a few extras from Dad/Simon). It’s a very visual reminder of my family tree.

This cake has been a Christmas Cake, a wedding cake and a Christening cake in our family. The lucky way to make it is to let everyone stick their hands into it and mix it up a little.

Here’s the recipe:

Ruth’s Christmas Cake

625gms Butter

250gms Brown sugar

250 gms White sugar

750 gms Flour

12 eggs

Tbsp almond

1 kg Currants

1 kg Sultanas

375 gms Sunmaid raisins

125 gms cherries

60 gms almonds

250gms peel

2 tsp cinnamon

pinch nutmeg

1/2 cup brandy

Pour brandy over fruit – I leave overnight. Better to line tin the day before also (easier next day). Cream butter & sugar, add essence. Add egg yolks & mix well (little flour with eggs [I can't quite read this bit - Meg.] won’t curdle.

Next add flour & fruit [and SPICE! - Simon's note]. Lastly beaten egg whites.

Cook six hours in lined tin, light cardboard base – newspaper folded about 3 thick then grease proof. Paper above tin about 2 inches – I put piece of cardboard over cake [can't read here! - Meg] about an hour, won’t burn but smells like it will. [Some hard to read instructions about lining tin]. Bake 300 for 1 hour then 250 – cook 6 hours – place middle – tray underneath.

Use 1/2 recipe will be big enough. 1/2 cooking time – don’t panic if getting too brown – turn to 200. Don’t open oven too much.

Leave in tin until cold, then remove.

Good luck.

- Ruth (& Meg)

Meg, Libby and Bella making the Christmas Cake