It really has been a busy start to the year, so a belated Happy New Year to you all and a hello. It has been a while. However as Jane mentioned us Durvillea girls have approached 2011 with vigour and with the wedding only just behind us, Jane has already hosted several tastings at Astrolabe Farm. She is now in Canada with Jason and our British Columbia distributors, Christopher Stewart Wines and Spirits, getting ready for theVancouver Playhouse which starts this week.
Making Salsa Verde
One of the tastings we held at Astrolabe Farm was for our Chinese distributors, Jonty and William from New Zealand Wine International Ltd and two of their Chinese contacts. A tasting of our Astrolabe Wines was held before a fantastic lunch prepared by Jane, Jason, Simon and myself. My contribution being a salad and salsa verde. I couldn’t find the recipe for the salsa verde so ended up having to search on our website for it- this blog has been very useful for this. Incidentally we get a lot of visitors to our site because of this recipe!
Vintage is also happening! It has been an earlier start to vintage this year, with the first of our Pinot Gris being taken on the 18th March. Since then we have taken some more Pinot Gris,
Jane Picking Pinot Noir at Astrolabe farm
Pinot Noir and Gewurztraminer, making our first Sauvignon Blanc pick this evening. Being an earlier start, it has also been a slower start, with Simon being able to pick exactly when the fruit has the desired ripeness and flavour profiles.
The weather has been perfect, and as I type this I am looking out to a clear blue sky with no clouds in sight. The mornings are getting cooler though- precisely one of the reasons Marlborough is such a unique growing region. The fine days (surprisingly, tomorrow is supposed to get to 27°C!) are great for ripening, and the cool nights are perfect for picking in, allowing us to keep the phenolics down, protecting the wines aromatic potential. Vintage will ramp-up this week, though, as the 12 hour shifts in the wineries come into play, and the bulk of the fruit will be picked in the next 10 days or so, I believe. It is a fantastic time of year that I personally love – the town has a buzz to it, harvesters, gondolas and grape trucks are a common sight on the main roads, and everyone is following the weather!
Pinot Gris being loaded to be whole bunch pressed
If any of you have any questions for us on the 2011 vintage do post them below and I will put it to Simon so he can answer your questions for you!
