One of the best mobile websites I have been using recently is the New York Times Recipe Search site (http://mobile.nytimes.com/recipes) simply click on the link and you can search for recipes with up to three ingredients. This was exactly what I did yesterday, searching for recipe in which all the ingredients needed I had at home already! Eventually I decided on the Duck marinated in Red Wine and Orange which was so delicious, tender and juicy that I had to share it with you http://nyti.ms/jg4FY0.

Preparation

1.

In a large freezer bag, combine wine, chili oil, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, orange juice and orange rind. Mix well and add duck breasts. Seal bag and mix again. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours.

2.

Remove duck from marinade and shake off excess liquid. Heat and lightly oil a grill, ridged skillet or heavy flat skillet. Cook duck breasts to taste, turning frequently, 10 to 15 minutes. If desired, cooked breasts may be wrapped in foil and held for 10 minutes until serving.

3.

To serve, thinly slice breasts diagonally and arrange on a serving plate. Pour any juices in pan or foil on top. Garnish with chives, and serve.

I also then reduced the marinating sauce and put it as a side when serving. While I didn’t have a bottle at home, I think our Durvillea Pinot Noir would have been a great match with this dish.

Aside from eating and drinking it has been a busy few months for the Durvillea girls, when I blogged last time, Jane was in Canada and as I blog now, she is in Brisbane visiting our Queensland distributors.  I had four emails last week from Queenslanders asking where they can get our Durvillea Pinot Grigio, so for the rest of you QLD Grigio fans who also want to know where to buy it from, check out these retailers, or email Paul: paul@smashingbottles.com.au

• Chalk and Cheese
• Spiro’s
• Thirsty Camel Balmoral

Durvillea was also released in Canada last month (30 April) the Sauvignon Blanc is now available at Vintages in Ontario and has already had a great review from Beppi Crosariol. Read his review here.

Bob and Jo tasting fruit with Simon in the Awatere Valley, Marlborough

We have also had a few visitors, with Bob Campbell and Jo Burzynska coming down last month for a look around our vineyards, a tasting and lunch with us, it was a great day and we were extremely lucky with the weather also, a fabulous day to show Marlborough in its best light!

We did an Astrolabe vertical tasting as well, managing to find Sauvignon Blancs all the way back to 2002, one of the most interesting and exciting things was how good these SB’s were drinking, with the 2003 and 2006 being favourites.

Simon and the Astrolabe Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc vertical tasting

On a different note,one of the other things that is going on is that I am sadly leaving Astrolabe and Durvillea Wines (not till the end of June though). I am going travelling through Europe with some of my best school friends and am then planning to get a job in the wine industry in either the UK or Australia. So, while it is going to be hard to leave, at least there are some exciting things in store for me and we do have a fabulous new replacement for me coming on board who we will introduce to you soon.

One of the big questions we have been pondering in the office is whether I can still be a Durvillea Girl…… I sure hope so!

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

But enough about that, I will fill you in on whats been going on in the last 10 days or so. So after the Barossa Jason and I flew to Brisbane where we met with the Smashing Bottles boys; Kris, Paul, Phil and Jak.

Smashing Bottles boys, Jak, Phil, Paul and Kris

The first day we were there Jak picked us up and took us round the Brisbane trade. As the whole trip has highlighted, it is just so great to be able to meet the people who are distributing our wine, and to get the chance to see who is selling our products, and who have it on their lists.

These boys are extremely passionate about our wines and it was fantastic to see what restaurants and retail outlets they have managed to get our wines into.

Simon also met us in Brisbane, as he was over doing a new release tasting with NZ Wine with Astrolabe. Simon and I then met up with Libby for breakfast the next morning, before Jason and I went off for the morning with Kris and the afternoon with Phil, doing trade visits and tastings. It seems we have a good scope in Brisbane from the City area, the suburbs, all the way down to Kingsland and up to Noosa.

Durvillea Pinot Grigio at The Wine Emporium, Brisbane

Brisbane was a great way to end a great trip round Australia meeting all of our distributors and getting a chance to see how each market worked. Especially as it was the warmest place we went to, and I was holidaying afterwards!

So after four days in the Gold Coast it was back to Blenheim, to again meet with the Smashing Bottles boys who were over in NZ for the Bledisloe Cup. After a day of looking round Marlborough and visiting our growers vineyards to see where all the wine comes from we took them out to diner to d’Urvilles (where they have Durvillea and Astrolabe on their list).

Being back in the office this week has been great, but busy. We have had the whole team back in the office, which has been great. Lots has been going on, especially as we start to plan more bottlings and the rest of the year.

Breakfast with Simon and Libby at Au Cirque, Brisbane

We are even starting to think about events next year, such as the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival. Next week, my blog will be from Simon, as I am going to get him to write a bit of an update on what is going on out in the winery at the moment, to fill you in on that side of things.

Before I go, a couple of exciting things that happened this week; one was that a container of Durvillea touched down in China. We are excited to see how the wine will go there, and which variety will be more popular, they have taken Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. The second is that we are getting ready to send a pallet of Durvillea into Denmark!

Durvillea SB as the recommended wine on the Ichi Ni wine list, Melbourne

We started off in Sydney where we met with Shane and James, from Lewis Fine Wines. We had a lovely lunch at Pendolino, and it was a great chance to get to meet them and to get a feel for the market over there. Just by chance it turned out that our Israeli and Hong Kong Astrolabe distributors both lived in Sydney, and neither Jason and I had had a chance to meet them before, so we were able to meet up with them to discuss their respective markets. We now have plans to send Durvillea into Israel, hopefully by Christmas.

Neil, the restaurant Manager and I at Paesano's, Knox City, Melbourne

Next stop was Melbourne where we met with Ian, Andrea and Sarina from Twelve Bottles, they have been doing a fantastic job, and it was great to get a chance to see them in action.

While things have been tough with the recession it looks like things are finally starting to pick up over there.

We ate at some great places that sold our wine, such as Paesanos in Knox City, an Italian family  restuarant, where Frank’s mum still cooks in the kitchen!

Jason, Ian and I with two of the staff at Ichi Ni, St Kilda, Melbourne

Another winner was Ichi Ni, in St Kilda, fabulous Japanese tapas, especially the Wagyu Beef and the soft shell crab California roll. The soft shell crab was fanastic with our Sauvignon, it was also great to look round and see other people drinking our wine.

Then off to the Barossa, after a very early morning flight we arrived into a very windy and warm Adelaide (the place where Meg was born). We hired a car and made our way through the beautiful country side to meet with Kym, Dave and Michael from Teusner Wines. The plan is for our Brisbane distriubutors Smashing Bottles to expand into SA, possibly enlisiting the help of Kym and Dave.  The Barossa is a beautiful place, with the oldest vines I have ever seen, a complete contrast to the young Marlborough vines I am used to.

Kym talking to Jason about the Grenache bush vines

After a great lunch at Wanera with Kym and Dave and a bottle of their Avatar wine, Kym offered to play tour guide, taking us around the Barossa country side, showing us his different blocks, from bush vine Grenache to Mataro.We were also lucky enough to join the boys in their Burgundy tasting they were doing that afternoon.

We are off to Brisbane tomorrow to meet with Kris and Paul from Smashing Bottles.  But before I go I must fill you on on one of the highlights of this week,  Jason and I’s return trip to Adelaide today. Deciding we needed to get some more photos of the gnarly 130+ year old vines we veered off the highway in search of some, finally finding some on one of the dirt roads of the Barossa. Unfortunately on entering one of the drive ways we felt the car sink down into the mud.

We hear there was a lot of rain there last week…..

Fraser, the only other Kiwi we met in the Barossa managed to lend a hand

Afternoon tea at Astrolabe Farm

The 2009 Durvillea Pinot Grigio was bottled on Monday, after worrying that the labels weren’t going to make it in time, we managed to get them flown down from Auckland for the 7.30am bottling! Lucky for me it’s the winemaker’s job to taste the wine off, so Tim was down there bright and early making sure it was all going to plan.

With the new vintage we have changed the labels so we can distinguish between the different varieties, the most common complaint from the 2008 vintage was that people couldn’t tell the varieties apart. So watch this space for the new labels, and the back label – my favourite part.

The rest of the week has felt rather rushed as it is another short week, I met up with Jules (@winewanker) on Tuesday at the Liquorland Top 100 competition where he has been stewarding, it was great to finally meet him after all the tweeting! We didn’t enter Durvillea into that competition, but I have been busy entering a few others, such as the Sydney International Wine Competition, and a few other national ones. So we are looking forward to the results.

In the vineyards all is going well, Jeremy the viticulturist has been looking after the growers, and organising all of the pruning, most of our growers are almost all done now.  This vintage in particular the pruning and vineyard management is going to be one of the most important ways to control the size of the crop, to make sure we don’t over produce. This was one of the most important messages that seemed to come out of Bragato, Marlborough in particular needs to make sure we don’t over crop and repeat the mistake of 2008; producing too much wine with out route to market .

Anyway better go, have just got home to Christchurch for the night, as I am off to Queenstown for the next four days on holiday, hopefully the weather will let us get some skiing in,

- Sophie

Things have actually been very busy, and I have only had a day and a half there this week. Not enough it seems! I flew up to Auckland last Friday, and my dear cousin Bella and I did a tasting at Caro’s on Saturday. While it was an Astrolabe tasting we did manage to open a bottle of Durvillea, to which we had great response. John said it was one of their busiest days this year – on par with Christmas apparently!

Then Monday night we had an Astrolabe dinner for the Auckland restauranteurs who have been stocking our wine to say thanks. We had it at a great Japanese restaurant called Soto. Great food matches for the wine!

Some of the team at Soto

Then back to the office. Slightly sobering, and many emails to come back to! However I did manage to sign off the Durvillea banners that you will start to see around when we do tastings. And print off some shelf talkers to send to some of our retailers- they are on their way guys!

On a slightly different but exciting note – I was contacted by a guy from the ship l’Astrolabe (named after Dumont D’Urville’s ship just like us). They are on a mission repairing huts in Antarctica and want to take some Astrolabe wine because of the name connection. I’m going to try and get them to take some Durvillea as well (since it’s named after the seaweed Durvillea Antarctica).

And now I’m in Hawkes Bay, still flat out! And running a virtual office from up here, working well so far. Jason is over in Europe, basing himself in Holland, although he was in Copenhagan the last couple of days. Est wines in Denmark who already take Astrolabe have just decided to take Durvillea in their next shipment, which is great news. He is off to see the SAS next, who already have our savvy on their inflight wine list.

Jane and Simon are in Hamilton, in fact Jane just did a Durvillea tasting at Te Rapa New World today, so I might go call her, want to hear how it went. … I’ll be back next week to let you know what else has been going on in the Durvillea/Astrolabe office.

- Sophie.