Sophie is off gallivanting around Asia and Jane has her hands full with Astrolabe farm and holding the fort at the office so I thought I would dash off a little blog post to keep everyone up to date.

Last weekend Sophie came up to Wellington to do two tastings at Thorndon New World with me. I really enjoy the chance to do tastings, it is definitely a skill and I am feeling pretty confident with them now. I think the supermarket tastings are really worthwhile – it is such a competitive market at the moment and consumers can feel overwhelmed with the sheer volume of wine available. Having a chance to taste and have a chat with us will hopefully inspire them to pick up a bottle next time they see us on the shelf. The Pinot Grigio was very popular, lots of people who weren’t big Pinot Gris fans were surprised by how much they liked it. I also think customers really appreciated the fact that we are a family business rather than just merchandisers hired to sell the wine (not that there is anything wrong with that either!). As usual our Durvillea aprons made by Jane went down very well. Sophie also did an Astrolabe tasting at the City Market which she really enjoyed – although it is a pretty hard sell getting the public to taste wine early on a Sunday morning! I personally love the City Market – it gives Wellington a proper city feel I think. Gusty Gourmet is a terrific blog which has some recent entries about the city market – well worth checking out.

This weekend I had another go at making Quince Jelly. Last time I had my mum to help me out but I went solo this weekend. I used the instructions from our own quince jelly post. It is a real family tradition for me – my granny is very good at making it and she was taught by her mother who was in turn taught by hers. This time I used more apple and it worked out well. It is lovely and clear and set quite firmly. I think that the extra pectin and the clear apple juice helped. I also strained it through three layers of stockinette which may have kept it clearer. It is also a deeper ruby red this time. The quinces were brought up from Astrolabe Farm for me by Sophie.

The other main news in my life is my lovely new bike. It is going to help me cut down on my car use especially for short trips. I’ll write more about it later but will leave you with a pretty picture of it.

- Meg