End game

Because in two days I get on the flight back to Blighty. Apart from a couple of near-hysterical moments, interspersed with periods of wistfulness and melancholy, sandwiches by bouts of depression and feelings of utter despair, I’m looking forward to going home. If nothing else the weather is pretty rubbish here now. Plus the band finally broke up, as we lost the American girl yesterday, and no I don’t mean we left her behind on a table in a pub. And while the ringing in my ears is finally dying down, I’m gonna miss that little fireball.

But I have been remiss in not posting until now. When I was on my own I little to do but cycle and write. And while I was cycling I was thinking about what I was going to write, hence why I was so amazingly funny all of the time. When I was working I had less reliable internet access so posts were fewer and far between, but when they did come they were powerhouses of information spliced with immense wit. Now I’m simply travelling there seems somehow less to say, perhaps because I say it all to the other band members. We all really loved Napier, not least because we were installed in Room 1, and had an ensuite, table, sofa and, biggest luxury of all, a TV with more than 3 channels and a DVD player. There was also an extensive DVD library to borrow from for free, and the room was already a steal. It has however spoiled us for every hostel since, espeicially the one I am currently languishing in in Auckland, which hasn’t even got a communal TV room. As you may be able to discern, as I headed North, and eventually back west, the inner-hippy is retreating slightly, despite a fierce and valiant rearguard. It was during the trip down the West coast he emerged, became completely ascendent during the picking and now he simply looks reproachingly at me as I watch ‘The Hot Chick’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 3′. In fact all my inner-me’s were looking at me reproachfully for that one. The trip has split up very neatly into three distinct phases, the first with was a test of me physically and mentally, and one taken in isolation. The second was a glorious awaking through hard work and this amazing community I became part of, and then the third was a proper holiday finally, spent visiting things, seeing things, taking photos, drinking too much, being propositioned by prostitutes, thwarting an attempted coup d’etat by a strange and desperate seperatist movement determined to make a feral wallaby called Skippy king of Stewart Island. You know, things everyone does while on holiday.

So to that end we went to Taupo, home of New Zealand’s biggest lake. Not actually a lake at all, but the crater of a massive, active volcano. Man, I want to be a long way away went that bad boy kicks off again. We didn’t actually do any lake-related activity, instead we visited Huka Falls and this honey centre thingy with Toby and Jenny, who we met up with again. I went for an excellent bike ride, hitting some lovely trails around the town. Ol’ Blue was pleased to be let off the leash, but I fear we looked like amateurs to other bikers on the trails, thanks to the fact my cycling shorts have fallen apart and my 5:10s, which were falling apart, were left in Napier. In the laundry room to be precise, because they smell so bad I couldn’t take them off in the room. An inconvience rather than a great loss, because they weren’t going to make it back to Blighty the state they were in. It did mean I had to ride the trails in jean shorts and Vans slip-ons, which meant other MTBers looked askance at me, and failed to recognise me as Analogue Man, King of the Luddites. You see while some mountain bikers back in the UK have embraced the creed of single-speed, fully rigid bikes, here they seem to be pretty much full-sussers everywhere you turn, plus they wear all the proper gear unlike me. I did get a fix, if you’ll excuse the pun, when I visited a bike shop in Auckland in search of another box to pack my bike in and discovered it a Fixed-Gear shop, complete a very tasty build of my own beloved Charge Plug Racer, which Mark better be taking good care of! There at least I found some fellow Luddites. I tried to convince them I was their king and that they should give me free stuff, or at least a hefty discount, but they weren’t having it. In a benevolent mood I ignored their treason and didn’t destroy them.

Where was I? Oh yes, Taupo. We discovered a great wine and spirit shop called ‘The Merchant of Taupo’ and from there were directed to an even better shop called ‘Scenic Cellars’. They had an immense cellar with plenty of top European names, the first time I have seen this in New Zealand, including lovely magnums of D’Yquem, but also a long table running up the centre, with 250 bottles in paper bags. Yummy, I thought, and indeed we got to taste the next evening, for a paltry 20 bucks. We even got to take 11 mostly full bottles home with us, which raised a few eyebrows as we walked through the common room. Not many people got much sleep that night and this time the American girl can’t be solely blamed. The next day we left Taupo to head for the Coromandel Peninsula and Toby and Jenny’s brother’s wife’s parent’s ‘batch’ (I shit you not) which is Kiwi for holiday home. This was a rather well-appointed hut/cottage right on the sea and provided the base for raid to various sites around, including a rather harrowing journey across ‘The 309’, a dirt road linking the two side of the peninsula. It was our very own journey into the heart of darkness, as we found ourselves in forest so think and creepy we expected dinosaur attack at any moment. From there we visited Cathedral Cove, making it just before the large green bus of the Kiwi Experience disgorged its annoying and mostly English hordes, who’s sole topic of conversation seemed to be the number of skydives and bungy jumps they were going to do at various parts of the country. Their entire trip is laid out in front of them, moving from hostel to hostel and probably only getting to know others on the bus. We had come to dread seeing that bus and over-hearing the inane conversations of the occupants as they swarmed over whatever attraction they and we had arrived at. I am certain my Kiwi experience is greater and, to quote myself, I am the architect of it.

And so finally to Auckland here you have caught up with me. Trying to get my bike and various things back into a box and under the weight limit. The 3 bottles of wine I am bringing back complicates things, as well as the vast horde of presents I am bringing back. And no, unfortunately there are no rabbits for the dogs. The end has been a bit of damp squib, the zenith coming at the weekend in Coromandel. We tried to have a nice last night with Andrea, but we couldn’t find anywhere to buy good food near the hostel so ended up traipsing about in the rain, cursing Auckland. We had a drink but it was hard to get spirits up, difficult to celebrate loosing someone, and the end of something incredible. But we did drink two amazing Rieslings, revisiting the Felton Road and Pegasus Bay 2007. The Pegasus was first, and revealed hints of botrytis manifesting themselves in this rich, bitter note of orange peel right in the mid-palate. The Felton Road still trumped it though, showing real complexity and poise, demonstrating hints of diesel overlaid with candied strawberry and lemon. That perked us up a bit.

And so home, going to be great getting back to my house, although I dread the bomb site that is my room, and seeing Housemate A and Housemate R, the two dogs, Mark and Rhi, the Old Kemble, mad Arrabella and Mat, the Jenkins boys and girls, Mr and Mrs Leahy and best friend Cara. I’m coming home people, get excited!

The Inner will out….

So with more than a little wistfulness I left have left Cromwell. In fact I have left there, traveled up the West Coast, down a little of the East, back up again, across the ferry to the North and am currently in Napier in the heart of Hawkes Bay, having just spent a day cycling around the wineries here. But more of that later, first I’m going to tell you about my little escapade in Christchurch.

Remember this: “See I warned you about my inner-hippy. Surrounded by this land and these skies he’s gaining strength. I need to get home so my inner punk-rocker can beat the crap out of him. I tried to get my inner goth to do it but he’s depressed. I promised him the skull necklace he saw in Remix magazine and and that seemed to perk him up, but not enough to set him on the hippy”? Well I guess the hippy has had it all his own way for too long. The inner goth really wanted that necklace, and after putting up with me wandering around Otago in a happy daze for month dressed only in my cycle gear, he demanded to be sated. Now I didn’t mind: I had retrieved my bag of clothes from Nelson and had my lovely jeans back. Stage 1 complete. The band had originally planned to split when we hit Blenheim, but in Blenheim (or rather down the road at Renwick) the band had second thoughts and in fact me and the American girl decided to stay with ze German and head into the North Island. This bought complications with it, because I wanted to visit Christchurch and they, having been, didn’t. So a plan was hatched: we travel down the coast to Kaikoura where we would seperate, me heading on by bus to the big CC, they heading to the West to Hamner Springs. The following day we would reconvene in Kaikoura, before we all drove to Picton ready for the ferry.

Now when I say I wanted to visit Christchurch (here on in known as CC, or the big CC) that is a big lie. You see in pursuit of that skull necklace I had promised I had emailed the company that designed them, a vay vay cool clothes label called Moochi, to find out where I could get my mitts on it. After a couple of exchanges, I arranged with the very helpful manager of the Auckland store to have the last one in New Zealand sent down to their new store in CC, where I had expected to be after Blenheim. So you see while I did want to see CC, it was the inner goth that made sure I went, or else. He wasn’t leaving NZ without it. So at Kaikoura I said my goodbyes and assured them that while I was leaving the band, it was only to pursue some solo projects and that I would be back. I also promised them I wouldn’t lose my phone, else we would struggle to meet up again.

So it was with a rising panic and no small sense of embarrassment that I checked my jeans the next morning and didn’t find my phone. So I searched the room. And then searched it again. I also unpacked my bag and stripped the bed. I went down to the TV room, where I had briefly slouched on a sofa and searched that. Still no joy. I asked a cleaner if she had found it but no, although she did text it so we could establish it wasn’t in the room. I repacked and now rather disheveled I headed for reception, by now my only forlorn hope remaining, to check out. But you see there’s always hope and the very hepful dude at reception quickly produced my lost phone, it having been found in the TV room. See kids, thats why you shouldn’t waste your time indoors watching it. Go outside and lose your phone doing something less boring instead. Then you don’t reception texting every contact in your phone telling them you have lost it and to get you to contact them.

That proved to be the high point of the day. Actually that’s a lie: the authentic Greek takeaway called Dimitri’s I discovered served up the best falafel souvlaki I have ever tasted. However it deaned to rain all day, and a fine rain which is, as everyone knows, the worst, and when I got to the Christchurch store there was no necklace. The very fashionable girl there, called Rachel I’m pretty sure, took my number and told me she would call when it came in. There was nothing to do but wait, so I went back to the hostel and spent the rest of the day writing the previous blog entry, which of course you have all read, memorised word for word, and talked about incessantly down the pub. The day wore on and no phonecall. I emailed again, and then spoke to someone, who assured me she would chase it up. By this time it was well into afternoon, and I had to make a decision, should I stay or should I go. In reality that decision was already made: there was no way the goth was leaving the town without that necklace, plus the next bus to Kaikoura was at four, which would have meant a very late arrival in Picton for the 3 of us. So I booked another night, relayed that to the band who headed up to Picton without me, where I would join them the next day.

And that turned out to be a great decision. The previous day was a rain-affected game and I would have hated to employ the Lewis/Duckworth method to form an opinion on Christchurch. Now the sun shone and I spent the day wandering around a very cosmopolitan, European-feeling city, full of funky little boutiques, coffee shops and bars. The goth was loving it. That said there was still a dark cloud: no necklace. I had found out the previous day that, used to the time it takes to courier things around the North Island, they had miscalculated the time it took to send it to the South. The necklace was due to arrive to day, and I was told the couriers usually get there at noon, so I booked a bus back to Kaikoura for 2 and waited for the call. And waited, and waited some more. Noon came and went and suddenly the countdown for quitting the city was on. It had got to about 45 minutes when finally I got the call to say the courier had been. At that point, saddo that I am, I was sat across from the store sipping on a particularly good latte and had already seen the courier pull away. I headed straight it and was greeted by name Rachel who flashed a big, beautiful smile at me, so powerful I formed an insta-crush right there and then (so I really hope I got the name right). Plus she had really great hair. As I paid her and the manager asked me who it was for, it strictly being a girl’s necklace. When I told them it was for me they were impressed, ‘awesome’ I think the response was. Of course the true reply would have been ‘the inner goth’ but I didn’t want them thinking I was a freak.

So I finally had it, with seconds to spare. Moochi was nothing but helpful and everyone of the staff I spoke to brilliant, so I would like to pay a special thanks to them, plus the necklace is awesome, one that the goth with treasure and one that will always remind me of New Zealand, of Christchurch and that smile. The bus ride was interesting too: after using Atomic Shuttles exclusively for bus duties, despite one taking me to Wanaka instead of Queenstown once (definitely their fault, not mine), I was forced to use Southern Link. Not one for the faint-hearted; instead of the usual mix of backpackers I was surrounded by rather swarthy Eastern Europeans, as well as a pale, skin-headed chap behind me who made no noise what so ever apart from to occasionally belch. On top of that bus driver and his mate looked like they had just stepped off the set of ‘Once Were Warriors’. This time smokos were for real, each break seeing the entire bus apart from me disgorge to have a cigarette. This added the smell of smoke to the odour of stale alcohol and general air of menace in the bus, compounded by the fact by now I was back to my full foppish finery, topped by a pair of garish lime-green headphones bought in CC (to replace my crackling previous pair). You see, while the inner hippy remains ascendant in body and mind, the goth is in full control of the dress sense. He was as happy in Christchurch as the hippy was in Bannockburn in my little hut. I’ve yet to find anywhere the inner-punkrocker is happy, but then he never is.

Right, what else do you want to know? After Milford the car died again at Cromwell so had to be hospitalised for a few days. We laid up at Jackson’s Orchard which is great: ensuite, heaters and TV, with the only annoyance the smell of the Thai worker’s cooking in the kitchen. All this for a measly 30 bucks a night. We got to catch up with the guys again, and went for a final night at the Bannockburn Hotel, aka The New Kemble, where we got to say proper goodbyes to everyone, and were invited back next year. I took particular pleasure in sharing a final beer with Nik, the second best young viticulturalist in Central Otago. A special moment. Then finally we were on the road again, embarking on a whistle-stop tour of the West Coast. Or at least it seemed that way after my laborious progress down it in March. Despite cycling there already, it was good to go back because I had missed a lot, arriving at campsites with energy only enough to put up my tent and eat. We had a comical dash up to Fox Glacier, arriving late and needing to see it before the sun went down, and give us time to get to Franz Josef and a hostel. Franz Josef itself was fantastic, beautiful and awe-inspiring, and the walk to it was amazing fun, as was the scrambling along the river rocks and up the cliff-faces scoured by the glacier decades before. We stopped at the Puke Pub again for lunch where bambi burgers were on the menu, before driving on to Hokitika where we all bought a authentic greenstone pendant. Then to Greymouth, a tour of the Monteith’s brewery and a night at the best Hostel in the world, Global Village. The next day we travelled on to Nelson where I got my jeans back, woot! The rest of the South Island you are up to speed with, so I’ll quickly run through the North so far: first night at a really geeky hostel in Palmerston North, then driving to Napier the next day. Napier is ace, my third favourite town in NZ after Wanaka and Christchurch. During the day we drove to Craggy Range and Te Mata, both who served up superb wines. We didn’t get to taste the Clavert Vineyards Pinot Noir they make at Craggy, from grapes frown by Felton Road, and which we picked this year, but everything we did try was delish, including a really pokey Syrah from Gimblett Gravels vineyard here in Hawkes Bay. I have never smelt a syrah so intensely peppery. So I bought a bottle. Te Mata was also excellent, a great sauvignon and also a really good Gamay. We then spent a lot of the evening on the beach watching the surf crash in. Yesterday we cycled around to Mission wines, whos cellar door is in the most amazing house overlooking their vineyards. The wines were decent but not extraordinary. They did however knock spots off their neighbour, Church Road. The real revelation was Brookesfields, where we were given a long and illuminating talk by the winemaker and got to taste their amazing wines, including a good riesling, extraordinary syrah and wonderful reserve Cabernet Merlot, a real New Zealand classic. The wine of the day was their Indulgence, and richly perfumed late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc. Being a massive fan of dessert wine I loved it and bought a bottle, along with an Amarone-style Malbec, which I didn’t try but should be very worthy of a few years in the bottle before being cracked open to wash down something suitable cooked by my mate Mark. I should also mention Toby and Jenny, two people we first met in Greymouth and found they were from Cheltenham. Since then we have run into then in Nelson and more surprising here, just out on the street. We found we were staying at the same hostel and even now they are heading the saem way as we are, to Lake Taupo. Would it be a cliche to say small fucking world?

I’m with the band

      I think it would be remiss of me not to point in the direction of fellow bloggers and pickers, Martin aka Sir Martin of Stockholm aka ‘the Swede’, who’s blog can be read here, and Ann, member of Team UK despite being, as she never failed to point out, a Black Forest girl. You know, like the cakes. You can read her gushings on Otago here. Martin’s blog has some rather amusing pics of the harvest, and since the camera lent by my bro died a couple of days before the end (sorry bro, I now have a new one and it is shiney. You will forgive me) this is your only chance, so take it or else.

                  I may one or twice talked about just what a good time we had working the harvest at Felton Road. This is despite the fact we were working long days and it was often fairly repetitive work. One recourse when the spirit was lagging was to recall and recite our favourite TV shows and films to each other. The big hitters were South Park, Team America, Monty Python, Flight of the Conchordes, The Breakfast Club, the works of Will Ferrell and Monty Python. I tired and failed with The Fast Show and The Mighty Boosh, and my attempts to get everyone to clap at once while I pretended I was a giant breaking a twig fell on stoney ground. Not sure Bill Bailey’s genius has yet been recognised beyond the shores of my small island, more’s the pity. Martin was the most adept at this, and could spend about 9 hours straight quoting South Park and Team America. His chief joy was Monty Python, and one line from one sketch had us going for about a week, the German counter-joke from the World’s Funniest Joke. All it needed was one of us to start saying ‘there were two peanuts walking down de strasser’ in a thin, halting German accent and we would be crying with laughter. I don’t know: it could have been the glucose from two many Pinot Noir grapes, or maybe low blood sugar between smokos, or maybe just a weird form of mass hysteria, but that shit was funny.

                   And of course, as you may have deduced from this blog, another source of considerable merriment was ze Germans. One of them even complained, ‘don’t you ever get bored of telling German jokes?’ to which we replied, ‘you may get bored hearing them, but we never get bored telling them’. But then everyone’s nationality came in for a bit of ribbing: the Swede was all about saunas, and making ‘tasteful’ films, and smorgasboards. The French were always giving up, the Swiss wouldn’t take a side and I somehow earned the moniker ‘Sir James’. That was mainly down to the Swede’s perchant for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and brave Sir Robin: ‘when danger reared its ugly head he bravely turned his tail and fled’. We would challenge each other to duels, ‘buckets or schnips!’ would come the cry, since they were the only weapons to hand.

                 The point of me telling you this? Rather mysteriously it is terroir, which means it is doubly mysterious as no-one apart from the French, who’s word it is, is quite sure what it means. There have been some clumsy attempts to translate it into English, like ‘somewhereness’. I tried, and my best word is ‘essence’ (I thought about ‘being’ and ‘truth’ before getting to this). Then I thought that doesn’t make it specific to wine, so inspired by ‘The Adventure of English’ book I have been reading (by Melvyn Bragg, but don’t hold that against it. A jolly good read) I decided to make one up, much like Billy Shakespeare did. Obviously I’m not quite as qualified as he (not yet anyway), but I thought I’d have a stab. So here it is: plassence, a combination of ‘place’ and ‘essence’. I’m rather pleased with it, because the terroir is the expression of a place by it’s wine. It becomes very specific, so the same grapes will produce different flavours in adjoining vineyards, and even on blocks within the vineyards, because the microclimate is subtly different. As the poem I wrote on the wall of my last shop goes, which no doubt draws many admiring glances to this day, ‘a great wine will carry echoes of the land that born and bore it, pine from the forests that border it, herb from the plants grow amongst it, flint from the stones it winds its roots around’. You can be scientific about terroir, sorry plassence, examining topographical maps, soil maps, degree days, hours of sunlight, millimetres of rain and adjacent water, either river or lake, to determine a site’s suitability. You can go on: morning mists, unseasonal frosts, prevailing winds, the heat of summer and the cool of autumn. All play a part in the grapes development during the growing season and so the resultant wine. This concept is at the heart of the French philosophy of wine, and so the approach is more laissez-faire, allowing the grape and environment to interact and give a true expression of plassence in aroma and taste of the wine. The Aussies turn round and call it lazy wine-making (they would), but the truth is when you have to interfere in the winery too much the wine will lose a lot of its idiosyncracy. The quality of fruit should be the over-whelming goal of a winery, because the simple rule of thumb is good fruit will make good wine. If you have to compensate for poor fruit, modern winery methods will enable you to make a drinkable wine but never a truely great one.

                 Now in my time selling wine I have talked a lot about terroir/plassence, but I was yet to truely experience it, and there in Otago I did more than that, I lived it. I went to work in thermals when the temperature was -3, with those great propellers whirring away to drive the cold air away from the grapes. By the time I was finished I was down to t-shirt and shorts and ready for an hour of sun-baking on my porch. I saw how early the sun would creep over the Eartern range and hit the grapes, and how late it would leave them as it retreated to the West. I walked in soil that was sand when dry, yet like sticky clay when wet, and that sparkled with the abundance of quartz and minerals (there was gold in dem dar hills). I felt these great weather systems sweep in from the Southern oceans to batter the West Coast and attempt to reach the vineyards at Bannockburn, only to be thwarted by the mountains sucking away at their ire. To put that into perspective, we got 484ml of rain in one day at Milford Sound. That is more than Felton Road gets in a year, averaging around 425ml. Fjordland and the West Coast measure their yearly rain in metres, over 7 at Milford. I also felt the heat of the sun, with its high UV rating, as we dashed for the factor 30 at smokos. When I was picking with Didier, from Beaune in Burgundy, he expressed surprise at the paucity of the canopy of the vines, yet the richness of the grapes they produced. In Burgundy there would be much more foliage, he assured me. We fed that back to the likes of Sarah and Nik, the second best viticuluralist in Central Otago, and theorised it was the strength of the southern sun. These are all terroir, these are all what makes vineyards sites special and unique, and lends those qualities to the wine.

                  Of course there is still nurture: frosts must be fought, birds must be scared, vines must be trained and fruit must be thinned. The viticultural team at Felton Road focuses primarily on the quality of the soil. While grapes favour more liminal sites, with free-draining soils that would struggle with to produce other crops, they still need life there. And that is how they deliver great fruit, and I tasted it all. I tasted chardonnay, pinot noir, riesling as well as the rogue clones that pop up in the vineyard like gewurztraminer, pinot gris and cabernet franc. There was even one strange vine in Block 2 that tasted like socks. That didn’t go in the bin. Ironically I was thinking as I trudged to Block 4 to pick riesling, I hadn’t yet tasted New Zealand’s most famous and widely planted grape, sauvignon blanc. And lo and behold, in that block we found about 3 erroneous sav blanc vines. It was delicious, like chewing a sweet leaf, so intense was the vegetal notes. It actually ended up my favourite grape. A recent ride in Marlborough served up a further meal of them from grapes left behind by a harvester. That machine owes someone a beer.

                   But there’s more to plassence than even all of that: I firmly believe there is a human factor. Unlike other workers on other vineyards the majority of us had a real commitment to wine in gerneral, and in Felton Road in particular. While it is the wine that firsts draws the attention to Felton Road, and certainly bought me, Ann and Martin all the way from Europe to pick, it is the people that make you want to come back. I know I’d follow Gareth in battle if he asked. I remember a great evening spent at his with his wife Karen and Alastair aka ‘Mister Mac’ when he made us try to guess the grape and origins of a wine he had disguised with a sock. Picking alongside Stuart Elms and his sister Audrey was a pure joy. Getting fed by Karen, Owen Calvert and Nigel throughout the harvest was generous and superb. The meal at the end was a standout, not least because they raided Felton’s library and gave us a 1998 sauvignon (vines that have since been grubbed up), a 2002 Riesling, a 2000 Block 5 and 2001 Block 3, as well as an older Block 6 chardonnay. You can add to that the copious amounts of vin gris, riesling and pinot noir they served us at more than one lunch (bottles labels ‘TBD’ Nigel told us, literally To Be Drunk, the results of various trials that would never be commercially sold). We became a big family and the warmth and happiness I’m sure pourback into the grapes and so the wine, just as it was poured into me. I spent my days grinning from ear to ear, laughing and joking almost constantly, and it was the land and the grapes and the wine and the people that did that to me. That my friends, is terroir.

                 And it is terroir, not plassence. Because althought it is a good word, English doesn’t need an equivalent, because they other thing that book taught me is the wonderful ability of this language to absorb ones from others, as well as ones we make up. Its just a bit of a bugger to pronounce.

Gnarley Day

                 Jokingly I choose a word of the day as we journeyed early toward Milford Sound from Te Anau, and the word was ‘gnarley’. I told my companions I was going to use it once every hour. It was soon joined by others, like ‘insane’ (pronounced IN—sane), ‘extreme’ (shouted) and ‘oh shit’ (whispered). We had seen a weather report and I watched flashes from it filling the night sky from the flaps of my tent. The intention was to check the weather on the internet beore we set off at 7.30 am, but we were slow to rouse and didn’t. Not that it would have stopped us anyway.

                  I thought I knew rain, but New Zealand is teaching me a whole new dimension. And I thought I had learnt that during the 36 hours hunkered down at Franz Josef but Milford made that look like rain striking Wimbledon centre court, watching the crew dash across with a giant so-wester before Cliff Richard leads us in a chorus of Living Dool. No, this was Revelations shit, with rain-drops the size of small children pummeling you. God, in his infinite wisdom, deposits seven metres of rain a year over Milford. On Monday it was more like malicious glee as he seemed to dump the lot in course of one day.

                  Thing is we actually wanted the rain. I’m sure Milford is amazing on a clear sunny day, but when it rains it is transformed into one of nature’s great spectacle. The storms come from over the sea and deposit their load on the the sharp mountains, hewn through by huge glacial valleys. The higher the mountain, the greater the rainfall and it simply pours off the hard rock. Previously bare mountainsides are suddenly covered in thin, twisting  channels of white water, like eldritch fingers raching down the rockface. In places they would cascade over precipices to be lashed once more to mist by the fierce wind. Foaming torrents would pour past the road and sometimes over it, and we in turn bumped over the rocks they bought with them. We stared out of the fogging windows stupified by the sight of it. Another word: awesome, and by this point, scary.

                  I thought the Homer tunnel was hilarious. It was if the Kiwi workers had half-finished it and then gone for smoko and not come back. It was not unlike the inside of the mine I found up the Kawarua and was about as bumpy. Oh and it’s single lane which means you can wait for up to twenty minutes for the lights to change. As Herman pointed out, ‘it would not happen in Germany’ (which has become his mantra). Anyway we got to the dock with only a vague concern about the slowing windscreen wipers. But we weren’t going anywhere: our 10.30 nature cruise was cancelled and we waited to see in the 11am scenic one was going to go out. Not that there was much to see.

                And it didn’t: instead we were invited aboard and served a free buffet before being refunded our tickets. We were very disappointed and set off back for Te Anau. By this time the weather was, if anything, worse, andour windscreen wipers even slower. We got maybe 10clicks before reaching a queue of cars behind a barrier saying ‘Road Closed’. At that point the car died for the first time. Oh shit.

                    There was little to do: no reception on our phones and no officials there to ask for assistance. I chatted to couple in a 4×4 at the head of the queue but they had nothing to tell me. I went back to the car and a minute later they reappeared, having decided to drive back to the dock and offered me a lift. I went but learnt little and gained no help, although I was told the road was re-opened. I went back and found some road-workers there giving another vehicle a jmp-start. I asked for a similar assistance from they and they just grinned at me, seemingly finding our predicment very amusing, and were very relunctant to help. If there hadn’t been three of them, all them bigger than me and I wasn’t a huge coward I would have thumped them. In the end we didn’t need their help, as an hours rest seemed to give the car renewed vigour. Well at least until we had to stop at the entrance to the tunnel. Another dead car, another, louder ‘oh shit’. It was at this point we met Wayne and his wife. Wayne is a North Islander and quite possibly saved our lives.

                First off, as other cars drove off and left us there trying to get the car to the side of the road, he drove past, turned around and gave us a jump start. After teaching us that Kea’s (a breed of native parrot) are ‘nasty little buggers’ as he chased them off the cars, he then lead us through the tunnel as we had no lights. When the car died again on the other side he jumped us again and followed us down the hill. For the third time the car died and we eneded up coasting with increasing speed in a powerless, brakeless car down a twisting road, lashed by the fiercest rain in the known universe. To complicate matters we had a roaring river on one side and windscreen that was foggy on the inside and soaked on the outside, and wipers that did not work. Fuck bungys, fuck skydives, fuck rollercoasters, that was a real adrenaline ride. There was me sticking my head out the rear left-hand window, Herman sticking his head out the right hand driver’s window and the American girl with her head buried in her hands. Oh shit indeed.

                But we made it to the bottom, just. We got it off the road before Wayne pulled up and put the three of us on his back seat and took us back to Te Anau. He then took us around 3 garages to buy a new battery and got us 30 bucks off the price, before taking us back to our campsite where we all had very long and very hot showers. We had a running joke while picking between me and the Swede, which earnt me the nickname ‘Sir James’ but Wayne was the real knight that day.

                 Want some numbers? It wasn’t quite seven metres but 484ml, which is nearly half-a-metre. I’ll say that again, half-a-metre of rain in a day. Twekesbury would be washed away if that happened back home. 120 walkers had to be airlifted off the Milford Track and rarely no boats went out on the sound, something that only happens maybe 5 times a year. In fact when we left the dock there was still a boat stuck out there, an overnight one that couldn’t get in. IN—sane.

                 And the next day, we went back in. Armed with a new battery and the loan of an adjustable spanner, me and ze German went back to retrieve the car. It was a lot closer as we approached, but still over the dark mountains ahead there was an even more ominous massive bank of clouds. There were wisps here and there aead of them, like an advance party of skirmishers ahead of the main army. However the threat never quite materialised, and although we got rained on again it wasn’t the instant soaking of the day before. The battery was fitted and secured with bungys because it was too big, the car was started and we got the funk out of Dodge. And then the funk out of Te Anau. Which was probably a mistake since the car died for the fourth time just short of Cromwell. At least there we were on familiar ground and few texts saw 3 friends descend on us after an hour or so, another jump start, another car death and finally a tow to a local garage by the crazy Swiss Fabian. And ironies of all ironies the tow rope broke literally as we rolled into it’s forecourt. But we made it, just.

Gnarley.

And back to Cromwell once more, and the car died once more. Currently its in a garage while we wait for it to be repaired and so we can continue travelling. This isn’t a given: it may yet end up in the wreckers yard and we will have to go by bus. However it meant we ould catch up with the Felton crew, as they gathered in the New Kemble once more to say goodbye to Didier who had been working in the winery. And it was great to share a beer with Nik again, the second best young viticulturalist in Otago.

so that’s the 2009 vintage….done

                  At Felton anyway. A few other vineyards are still wrapping it up nearby and there is still fruit up towards Queenstown at Gibbston but generally most of it is in the bag, or should I say the fermenters. We ended ours by a swift picking of the remainder of Block 2 before the traditional final schnipping of Block 1 Riesling, which will make it’s own wine (a sweeter, ‘auslese’ style of riesling with over 50 grams of residual sugar). The final bunch cut was greeted with a huge cheer and there was much punching of air and shaking of hands. I was of course a Johnny-come-lately, but for a lot of them this represented the culmination of all their efforts over the year, and the years preceding them, indeed all the way back to 1992 and those first vines Stuart planted in Block 2. Felton Road is based on the American, oops sorry Andrea, Muuuuuuur-cun model of government with three branches of power: Nigel (owner) is the executive, Gareth (viticulturalist) is the legislative and Blair (winemaker) the judiciary. However unlike Muuur-caaaar they actually get on. And agree with each other. In fact I think it is their combined and very clear vision that drives the winery forward and has forged it, as Tod (assistant wine-maker) put it, with only the merest whiff of hubris, into the icon of Central Otago.

                 No vain boast however. Yes they have great vineyard sites in Elms and Cornish Point, as well as the leased Calvert’s, but it is their dedicated vineyard management and talent in the winery, augered by Nigel’s strong commitment to environmental issues that creates a model of sustainable viticulture that must be the envy of many, not least because it produces such amazing wine. I agreed with Tod and used this example for why: the netting. All the vines in Otago are netted. I believe I may have mentioned Waxeyes before, but other birds like the grapes as well. I asked Manu whether his Melon de Bourgogne vines in Muscadet are similarly netted. He laughed and said ‘non, because the grapes are not sweet enough!’. However here in Otago they make for a tasty treat, so they must net. There are 3 types of netting, one where entire blocks of vines are covered, another where the net lies over entire canopy and fruit and is clipped underneath and thirdly side-netting, where two net strips are run along the rows and clipped above and below the fruit. Felton Road favours the latter but that comes at a price. Firstly clipping the nets out and then unclipping them is the most labourious of the three. Then you have to run them. Of all the jobs during harvest, ‘running’ is probably the toughest, and reserved for the young Turks like Fabian and Andrew, as well as marathon runner Bruce. It involves teams of three, one driving the tractor while the other two run ahead and hold the unclipped nets out so they can be neatly wound back onto a large spindle at the front of the machine. On the long rows in the bigger blocks this is hard going, with a uneven surface to run on and the frequent slopes you have to contend with. Nets going over the canopy merely require a tractor with a raised spindle to reel them in. I’ve yet to see them taking in the nets over entire blocks but it is probably simpler still. So why all the hardship and expense? Because the bigger the net, the greater the impact on the microclimate, and the more intrusive you are on the developement of the grape and it’s interaction with the environment around it. Ann visited a vineyard in Otago, further up towards Gibbston and it was under a full net and she was amazed just how sterile it was, and little life was under there, both plant life between the rows and insect life.

                  But the vines we picked teamed with life. That was bought home everytime you knelt on a thistle or got a pinch from an earwig when you schnipped into a bunch to clear out the rot. Spiders and wasps are everywhere, and the birds that love the berries almost as much as we do. This is a central tenet of the biodynamic approach to viticulture, which is like organic farming but on acid, or if it was being done in Middle-Earth. Actually I believe a lot of the principles in biodynamics come from passages in ‘The Silmarillion’. It is in fact of Vanyar origin, the fairest and most noble of the High Elves living in Aman, which men call ‘The Undying Lands’. Just in case you were wondering.

                 All of which should demonstrate I’m not the person to talk to about biodynamics, at least not yet. That isn’t going to stop me trying however. I never let facts get in the way of a good story. The clue is in the word: ‘bio-dynamism’. Instead of chucking toxins at a plant to ensure good health, biodynamics is a sympathetic approach that adds compounds that auger the vine’s weaknesses and and energises (makes dynamic) it’s strengths. It’s the making of these compounds that gives biodynamics its rather quirky reputation. There are nine in total, numbered 500 to 508. I won’t bore by listing them but the most common are the first two, 500 and 501. 500 is cow manure which is stuffed into a cow’s horn and then buried into rich soil during autumn, before being retrieved in Spring. 501 is powdered quartz again placed ina  cow’s horn and buried from spring to the following autumn. Both are added in very small, homeopathic-espue amounts to water and then sprayed onto the vines. You were warned.

                   And I was starting you off easy. It’s gets stranger; 505 for example is oak bark chopped into small pieces, placed in the skull of a domestic animal, surrounded by peat and buried where plenty of rain water runs past. I shit you not. Other preparations involve various parts from various animals, like a cow’s small intestines, its peritoneum and the bladder of a red deer. The reason for the nature of the containers is fairly murky, but it’s claimed that there is a natural synergy between container and compound, and the properties of one energise the other. For example oak bark is 79% calcium, and the bone in the skull is calcium. 503 is calmomile with the cow’s intestines again: camomile is known to have properties beneficial to the digestion, and according the biodynamic wine-maker Nicolas Joly, the cow has achieved the ‘greatest development of its digestive system’. The period the camomile is buried within the cow’s small intestine ‘enhances and reinforces’ the desirable properties of the herb. Thus the 503 preperation will stimulate microbiotic life within the soil and stabilise the nitrogen content of the compost it is added to. Much of the focus of biodynamics is toward soil health, the opposite of the effect of herbicides and insecticides, which leave the soil devoid of life and nutrients after a period of time. Ironically this is good for the companies that sell these toxins, because the destruction of soil health means viticulturalists need artificial growth agents in massive quantities. Neat.

                   There is more: biodynamic procedures follow an astrological derived rythmn throughout the season, particularly dictated by the phases of the moon. I hoping many of you aren’t switching off in droves, because this strikes a deep resonance with me. When I first started reading about it, it reminded me strongly of things learnt studying anthropology; of tribes intimately knowledgeable of the plant and animal life around them, conceptualising this as energy and colour and shapes, with themselves every much embedded within all of them. A complete, holistic view of the world around them, and one more detailed than science can provide. And this is what biodynamics reaches back to: a more ancient, pre-scientific knowledge of the world around us and no less valid than the one mostly employed today. Growers back then lived and died by the product of their harvest and the rythmn of life was dictated by the whims of nature. Referencing anthropology once more, man moved from a hunter-gatherer based society to an agrarian one pretty much as one all over the world, despite these societies being so diverse and having no contact with each other (although pockets of hunter-gatherer remained and still remain to this day). Monolithic and other large stone structures came along soon after, and their purpose was remarkable similar and more so, incredibly accurate: charting the movements of the heavens. British ones like Stonehenge and the Avebury complex (not just the stone circle) should be familar, but others like the various pyramids that dot the globe, like the Mayan, Egyptian and the Cambodian Koh Ker complex, seem to share the same purpose (although obviously there is still debate and opinion is divided). It has been argued that Stonehenge is a computer designed to predict eclipses. As you can see I love all this crap, so biodynamics is immediately appealing. Less appealing to the wannabe vegetarian in me is the animal parts used in the preparation. I can see this being a marketing nightmare: biodynamic wine should be immediately attractive to anyone with an inner-hippy like me. Unfortunately the inner-hippy doesn’t want to eat meat, unlike the inner-goth who lives for devouring flesh. The inner-hippy likes organic things, super-foods, healthy foods, quirky foods and eschews intensively produced products, products saturated with additives, eggs yolks made more yellow by colouring, animals given hormones, chickens raised in barnes. Food production can be a litany of horrors but biodynamics could be the salve.

                  But another truth that has been brought forcefully home during my time here is that as soon as you grow food you put yourself in competition with other fauna for that resource. Here there is a constant battle with animal life to preserve the grapes until they can be schnipped: rabbits, birds and wasps. And there are casualties. While what I t0ok to be the crack of hunters taking pot-shots at hunters are actually mostly harmless gas guns designed to scare off the birds, real guns are also employed during the mornings and early evenings when the birds are most likely to be feeding. The wasps follow the birds and if possible will be followed back to the nests where they are exterminated. Rabbits are simply shot out of hand, but then they are an introduced species that wreaks incredible ecological damage on this delicate island. These remain an uncomfortable truth for me, but then which foodstuffs don’t have blood on their hands? How vegetarian are vegetables? Because crops have to be protected otherwise there is no point labouring throughout the growing season, as well as the various preperations necessary for it during the winter, if at the end of the day the crop is lost to a competitor. It is a debate that I am yet to resolve and one that requires much greater knowledge than I yet possess. However I love that biodynamics provokes this, I love also the conversations that it has often provoked between me and Andrew, as we would discourse on these and others while picking, me citing my anthropological learning and him his philosophical background (Ann said it was like listening to Radio 4, hearing us talk, so I’ll have to tune in to see whether I have been insulted or not). Biodynamics is more than simply a farming method, it is a lore, a philosophy and a spiritual approach to growth. And its always enjoyable working with Central Otago’s second best Young Viticulturalist in  Nik.

                   There’s more to tell but I’ll spare you for now. The end of the harvest signalled more than one party, including a costume one where I was Barney Rubble. Many of the people I picked with are going their diverse ways (we lost Ann yesterday and the Swede this morning), and indeed the vineyard now quiets while the winery takes on the bulk of the work. We had a tour and I got to taste newly fermenting grapes, and it had me itching to be there working with them to forge the wine from the grapes I had helped pick. Now I am in Te Anua, about to head for Milford Sound and a boat cruise. I’m seeing if I can find more work but there are slim picking as the harvest is being wrapped up and other vineyard’s picking crews full. For now I am enjoying some companionship with the newly christened Herman ze German and the American girl. Incredibly last night we found some drunk Irish lads in a hostel in Queenstown that were actually louder than her.

                 A couple of newsworthy things to mention: firstly a visit to Quartz Reef Winery and a long chat over a wine tasting with their Austrian winemaker Rudi Bauer, one of Central Otago’s most famous characters and once the winemaker at Rippon, next to the lake at Wanaka and one of the region’s first vineyards. We tried his Methode Traditionelle N.V. which was lovely; clean and crisp with a lovely purity of fruit. For me his Pinot Gris was a revalation, a real tour-de-force. While I like Pinot Gris, I hold that it is a grape capable of good wines but not great ones. Here may be a wine to be an exception to the rule. The wine is wild-fermented and pretty much left to its own devices after pressing, with only regular stirring of the lees for 6 months. The resultant wine is rich yet focus, eschewing the flabbiness that can infect Pinot Gris from the region. It was wine that would both benefit from some cellaring and sympathetic meal. Excellent and highly recommended and I am endeavouring to bring a bottle back, if it eveades the atentions of my thirsty travelling companions. The Pinot Noir was also excellent, although youthful. A few years in the bottle and it will be a real star. Interestingly, Quartz Reef’s vineyards up at Bendigo are in the process of being converted to biodynamics.

                  I was also invited to coffee with Ann at Stuart Elm’s house. It was a wonderful afternoon and Stuart dug a 1999 Block 1 Riesling out from his Felton Road library. It was still lively, with a warm, nutty nose followed by a rich, sweet palate with plenty of acidity. He then showed us his cellar, which contained every vintage Felton Road has ever produced as well as early Gibbston and Rippon wines. Next to those, as an after thought, were such old world luminaries as 1953 Petrus, 1966 D’Yquem as well as Cos D’Estournel, Poyferre and other great classed growths of Bordeaux. Cue much mouth watering, which continued in the garage, where I spied a Ferrari Daytona. Jeepers. I would like to take a moment to thank him for his generousness and his hospitality. Having sold Felton Road to Nigel, he continues to return every year to pick and keeps us entertained with his ready wit and general warmth. My hat goes off to him and the vineyard he founded.

So I found a mine…..

                And fortunately I didn’t have a flashlight. I discovered it after following a track up the left-hand side of the Kawarua Gorge, one I had seen from the road. I had to ask permission from the owner of Olssens Wines to use it, and it takes you alongside the river before up to a higher plateau and above the old gold mining settlement, now a museum and home to the Goldrush jetboat. I say I was fortunate not to have a flashlight because I have a fondness for holes and if I had I may have ventured further in. The minute I stepped into it years of extensive training kicked in (watching horror movies with best friend C and Housemate A) and I got the fear. It was one of those moments where in the film you’re screaming at the girl not to go into the sinister building, except I’m not a girl and it was a sinister mine not building. Common sense prevailed, mainly because I almost tripped over about ten metres in, otherwise I may have been lost, fallen down some shaft, perhaps hunted by some unknown predator of the depths. They would have found faithful Ol’ Blue, still waiting for me at the entrance after several years and would have said ‘oh that’s what happened to that English cyclist that disappeared’ and they would have finally been able to close that missing persons file. But maybe I would have survived, discovering a lake down there full of blind fish to eat. Over the years I may have changed, skin becoming palid, eyes enlarging and growing pale, lamp-like, to compensate for the blackness down there, fingers elongating  to better grasp the fish in my cold lake, and perhaps to strangle some stray goblin that ventured too far from safer tunnels. I may mutter to myself, in a whispering, gutteral way, and repeatedly clear my throat. Who knows, I may have even found a ring.

                  But I didn’t, I emerged safe and well, but I would love to go back there with some chums and some flashlights but I’m yet to convince anyone in the pub. I did manage to kick a bit of ventilation tubing rather loudly as I left, which reverberated menacingly behind me. As I ate my lunch outside I kept glancing rather nervously at the entrance, just in case a Balrog came out looking for a BBQ. Anyway enough of my flights of fancy, back to picking (no groaning at the back please), which continues apace. So apace that I am almost done at Felton. Wednesday will see the traditional early finish after the picking of Block 1 Riesling (always the last to go) before another lunch cooked by Nigel (the owner) before the rest of the day spent in the pub. I will endeavour to pace myself. Talking of lunch from Nigel, he’s down 3 or 4 so far. Add to that the BBQ cooked by Owen Calvert on the last day of picking at Calverts, factor in the fresh coffee and food we get at smokos prepared by Gareth’s wife Karen and the frequent glasses of wine sometimes at lunch or at the end of the day, times the keg of organic beer (Emmersons) tapped by Nigel after picking on Saturday and x equals one very spoilt bunch of pickers. I said as much to Andrea just as we tucked into lunch on Saturday, which is ironic because I got tapped on the shoulder by Mervyn afterwards and was told I would be leading the note of thanks to Nigel. I’m not given to public speaking but any nerves vanished when I thought of the people I was about to address: friends every one, even given the short time I had been with them. I can remember exactly my words, but I thanked him for the food and everyone else for the welcome, and said how spoilt we were and what a special place it was to be.

                 Nigel turned round and thanked us back immediately. He cited how Blair, the winemaker at Felton, had been to see a modern sorting table the day before but wouldn’t be buying one. Then he used a joke to illustrate his point: two men using a urinal, one finishes and washes his hands the other finishes and does not. The first reproachfully tells the other, ‘in my country we are taught to wash our hands’. The second one replies ‘well in my country we are taught not to piss on them in the first place’. Basically they don’t need a sorting table in the winerybecause we the pickers don’t pick crap. And unlike a lot of vineyards that are on the phone to contractors screaming at them for a picking team while the fruit turns, or rots, or is eaten by birds, Felton Road has a crew of dedicated pickers, some of whom are here all year, some who come back every year and some, like me, make a pilgrimage to one of the finest wine estates in New Zealand. Felton Road’s position gives it the enviable luxury of being able to pick and choose….it’s pickers. It all works out rather neatly: Gareth runs the vineyards aided by his managers Nick, Sam and Sarah. One or two of them will pick with us, making sure the rows are getting picked evenly. Alongside them are the interns, full-time members of the staff often from vineyards abroad, like the Frenchies Manu and Marian from Muscadet, the mad Swiss Fabian and ze Germans Johanis x 2 and Stefan. There’s also Andrew the Californian ex-sommelier who is studying viticulture and his Chilean girlfriend Flor, who is a vet. In another time he would have been a warrior-poet and we have a good time discussing the more ethereal side of wine. It is generally a mix of these that run the bikes, quads with small trailers that go up and down the rows, dropping off empty buckets in front of us and picking up the full ones behind. One person drives and the other picks up, and they swap jobs regularly during a session. The buckets are taken to the bins, big blue things that hold about a ton of grapes. On top are metal trays the grapes are poured into where Mervyn or Gareth with check through them. If there is too much botrytis, bird peck or second set (a later fruiting, not fully ripe) the message gets relayed by walkie-talkie to the manager leading the picking crew and we get shouted at (but not very loudly). We are an eclectic lot: there’s Stuart Elms and his sister Audrey. Stuart planted Elms, putting the first vines in in 1992 and producing its first vintage, and the vineyard is named for him. He picked the spot after studying maps of the soil and ‘degree days’, an average of the temperature during the growing season once it gets above 10, below which the vine won’t be up to much. To have picked this place, possibly the best vineyard in the area, is a real coup and I hope he is very proud. There’s Martin, the Swedish sommelier with a Monty Python obsession, Andre,  ‘ze German’ who loves beer more than anyone in my memory, Andrea, the American girl with a ready laugh and no volume control, and Ann, the eccentric German/Brit who I tease mercilessly. She asked Andrew, Nigel’s nephew who is a drum and bass DJ, what instrument he plays. When he told her he plays other people’s music but does make some himself, she asked ‘but how do you make music without an instrument?’. Love it.

                   And Bruce the other Brit, who is possibly one of the most generous and genuine people I have come across. He shuttles me to the supermarket when I’m too cream crackered to cycle to Cromwell and has lent me two books, a history of New Zealand and one of the English Language. This way I manage to stay intelligent. Incredible but true. There’s also Nikki, who offers me lifts I can’t take when I’m freezing my arse off riding to work, because I wouldn’t be able to get the bike into the car. She also shows concern when I schnip myself, which has happened three times, two of them real bleeders, which require a lot of sucking and usually about 5 plasters. Think I’ll be left which some scars to remember this time by. And what a time. Most of the day picking is spent laughing, with the occaisional outbreak of grape wars which the Germans always start. They insist their innocence but we simply cite Poland.

A curious Easter….

                 It seems Otago is quite the destination of choice for Kiwis at Easter, and my previously peaceful campsite is awash with…well the great unwashed (actually I’m sure they do wash, but it makes for a nice line don’t you think?). Now there are small gangs of children roving around. So far it is safe, but I’m worried they may get organised. I shudder every time one groups goes up to another and shouts ‘what’s your names?”. The sanctity afforded me and Jerry up till now in the TV room has been shattered by the arrival The Moody Girls. Obviously well-versed with the TV pages they appear just as a suitable TV programme is about to start, like ‘New Zealand’s Next Top Model’ or ‘American Idol’, sit on opposite sides of the room and proceed to ignore said programme and instead hammer out seemingly endless numbers of texts on their rather arcane mobiles, like morse-code operaters on crack. At first I assumed they were sending these to boyfriends or other friends but as far as I can deduce they are sending them to each other, as the hammering from one will end just before the vibrate alert goes on the other. They are able to talk though, as they begin as soon as I leave the room, and go silent as soon as I re-enter, which either reminds me of a Morecombe and Wise-esque sketch or the scene as the two Yanks enter the Slaughtered Lamb at the start of ‘American Werewolf in London’, I can’t decide. I do make a point of being mindfull of both road and moon however. Then at some unspoken (but presumably texted) signal they get up and leave. Apart from the incessant tapping it doesn’t bother me too much because as Housemates A & R will testify I am quite happy to watch either programme, but Jerry imposed a self-exile on himself and goes to his room.

                  And apart from kids and The Moody Girls there are also suddenly boats everywhere. However they don’t seem to serve their traditional purpose. Instead they pull up and out from between caravan and tent figures emerge and gather around. The the melodic tinkling of glass is heard as someone distributes the Speights. Then for the rest of the day they lean on the boat, drink the Speights and chat. I’m yet to see a boat leave and come back wet. Apart from that my Easter was spent avoiding singing a song at the Kareoke night in the local (called The Bannockburn Hotel by most. I choose to call it ‘The New Kemble’), cycling up a mountain and picking yet more grapes. I do now have a pair of jeans though, so I’m very happy. In my own way I couldn’t just buy any old pair, so they are nice but not massively expensive. I could have bought Superdry ones, but I’m not travelling 10,000 miles to buy clothes that originated in my home town (although they did say Superdry Jpn. Perhaps Cult employees would shed some light). Plus they were more than twice the price. The jeans do illustrate a series of mistakes made by me before and throughout this journey, but it is all a learning curve and hopefully next time I will have learnt the lessons of this and be perpared. Given the changing demands of travel/work/season, I may just roll up to the airport naked and then buy everything there/here/wherever. It should mean you breeze through security and the metal detector at least, unless you’ve eaten too much spinach.

                So the mistakes? I should have invested more in the tent. It was too small and ultimately too cold for the trip. Yes it was light but it was also an essential. More money would have bought a larger, warmer tent that weighed less. As with the tent I underestimated the cold, and although my cycle gear keeps me warm, it also starts to smell very funky very quickly if you don’t have something else to wear. That said it is doing me proud during the picking but I do need something else to wear that a) doesn’t smell and b) isn’t covered with mud, spiderweb, sulpher and grape bits when I’m maxing and relaxing, or at the New Kemble. Hence the purchase of jeans, hoodie and dabs. I also wish I had better camera. Mad thanks for the loan of the one I have, but there are things I want to be doing with it that are beyond it. And while I don’t regret the cycling down the West Coast I think motorised transport and trail-riding would have been more fun, and less of a challenge, so I am glad I did it this way. If there is a next time though…

Otago Living

                 I’ve had five days to ponder, procrastinate and debate so prepare yourself for a long, and ever so slightly sticky tale of life here in possibly the best place in the world. We’ll start with something I skimmed over in the last post: my visit to Queenstown. It’s a quite straight forward bus trip there: essentuially you head out of Cromwell and turn left. Straight forward that is unless you are me. After buying some postcards I went to get the coach. My old chums from Atomic Shuttle were there waiting for me. I ask the driver ‘is the bus is going to Queenstown?’ ‘yes’ he replies, ‘and going soon’ and takes my ticket. Huzzah I think to myself and wait for us to set off. Another Atomic Shuttle arrives and various transfers take place. I loiter while luggage and passengers are switched before alighting on the bus with the driver I had spoken to. The other bus heads off, the driver does a head count including me and does the same. I must admit to mild concern when we left Cromwell and turned right, but I theorised that the bus went to Wanaka before doubling back to Queenstown. In any case there was little I could do till I got there. So, back to Wanaka, and I admit to missing that place a little. It was still all there; same pretty little town, same beautiful lake and also the termination of that particular bus. ‘But I asked you if it was going to Queenstown’ ‘that was the other bus’ ‘but you took my ticket’ ‘don’t worry, there’s a Connexions here in about fifteen minutes, I’ll see you right’. And to his credit he did, getting me on another bus from another company for free and all the way to Queenstown, and it only cost me an hour and a half.

                 So anyway, the journey to Queenstown is nothing short of epic, through the Kawarau Gorge and into the Gibbston valley, all the while the river I have fallen in love with thunders along below you. You pass an old gold mining town and the so-called Goldrush Jetboat run, and later the AJ Hacket bungy, where that ever-so-slightly idiotic practise of hurling yourself from high platform attached to an over-sized elastic band all started. There are adverts and images of these activites all over and I saw the Goldrush Jet on the river as I was cycling and while I am sure they are all huge fun, the inner-hippy whispers that they are disharmonius with this amazing landscape. Too much whooping and a hollering for me: give me a kayak over a jetboat any time.

                   Along the road I noticed with interest the various wineries, including the pioneering ones of Gibbston Valley and Chard Farm Valley. Sam Neill has one somewhere along here too. Apparently he mainly drinks his own stuff but if he is to err he likes a good Cahors, but only on a dark winters night. Amazing what you can learn reading an ancient ‘New Zealand Woman’ when you are bored in the TV Room of an evening. Apparently Prince William is to wed too. And Queenstown itself? Well I can say with some assurance the Remarkables are, well, bloody well named. Once again Kiwi creativity comes up trumps. But the mountains do provide an absolutely stunning backdrop to the town. As do pretty much everything around it. If there is a town with a more beautiful setting than this one than I am yet to find it, as I am yet to find a more relentlessly commercial one. The main drag is dominated by places selling adventure packages, or shops selling things to take with you or wear while adventuring. It took me a while to negotiate myself away to a takeaway for a falafel and humous wrap. And I checked: no pig, cow, sheep or possum present. Anyway the earlier delay meant I only had time to eat and buy leg and arm warmers there before I was away but it came as a pleasant slice of urbanity, and the map from the bike shop of the local trails means I am salivating at the prospect of getting back there once I’m done picking grapes.

                 Oh yes grapes, been picking them for well over a week now don’t you know. Anyway who tells me I have never done a hard/honest days work in my life can officially fuck off. You pick up to 9 hours a days, with breaks for morning and afternoon smokos and lunch. So far we have picked chardonnay at Cornish Point, Riesling and Pinot Noir at Calvert and all three at Elms. And this includes the famous Block 3 there. And I’ve eaten them all. The variation in taste of the Pinot is particularly interesting: Calverts is sweet and jammy, while those of Block 3 are brooding with depth and intensity, echoes of the wine it is to become. We were told to be ‘less fussy’ in Block 3 because these are some of the best Pinot Noir grapes in the world. Gareth encouraged us to taste the shrivled grapes that we may have thrown away otherwise and they burst with roasted currant and raisin flavour. Not rotten or affected by bird peck, these are ever-so-slightly over-ripe and enrich the final product. The grapes also give you a welcome burst of glucose if you are flagging during a session, by the end of which gloves and top and face and in my case the center of my glasses where I push them back on my nose are sticky with this amazing juice. That and every bobble your clothes have are covered in spiderweb.

                  But these are great days, despite the unpredictable weather. Jerry, the grizzled veteran picker who shares my TV room and kitchen, tells me it is because of sub-cyclonic conditions coming from Australia which means we are experiencing a south-westerly rather than the more usual nor-westerlies which pulls in cold air from the South Oceans. So it’s the bloody Aussie’s fault again. Andrew expanded on this during smoko, as we looked out accross the basin on a particularly nasty day. Three weather systems pile into it, along the Kawarua Gorge to the West, from Alexandra and Clyda along the Clutha from the East and North from Wanaka, all of which run slap bang in to each other over the lake. From our vantage point you can see each of them, particularly from the West given our proximity. During picking occaisionally this grey mass looms out over us, accompannied by a light spray of rain. Only once has this threat manifestated itself, sending us running for the hut and eventually me for home. More often than not it the cloud that retreats, sucking its eldritch tentacles back up Mt Difficulty and back along the gorge. It is the mountains that deny the storms, only ones of peculiar vehemence breach their defensive line, and usually are then greatly disappated. You know at times like this Queenstown and the West Coast are getting a proper soaking, but the rain shadow formed by the Southern Alps keeps Otago dry for the most part. It is another reason this region is a such a special place for growing grapes, and it is fascinating to see it at such close hand. But it requires human diligence too.

                  And all this means the frost fighting continues apace. I don’t now how much sleep you get on frost-watch but I’m sure it isn’t much, but it didn’t stop Mike (from another vineyard up at Lowburn) drinking jugs and doing shots of Chatreuse at the Kareoke night on Thursday. It took me about three attempts to remind him and once he remembered the look on his face made we wish I hadn’t. I’m not sure he had a Good Friday. There is a genuine comarderie working at Felton. You’re picking alongside Gareth’s Mum, Diane and Nigel’s (the owner of Felton) nephew Andrew. Nigel occaisionally cooks you lunch, and you get food at both breaks too. Owen Calvert, who guess what, owns Calvert vineyards, flew in with his family at the start of the week and picks with you, before offering you a beer at the end of the bay (only for Gareth to tell you you don’t deserve the beer yet and make you lug around a huge grape bin). You’re fitting in with people than have been working there many months and years yet they are all eager to know your name and hear your story. I have a little UK contingent too, Ann and Bruce. Ann like me is blogging, but she’s doing it for Harper’s and Queen so I guessing the content may be a little different. Bruce has been here four years and it shows: it took him telling me he was a Brit for me to recognise it, so infected his accent has been by the local one. There’s Manu and Marian, the French who have offered me work in Muscadet for their harvest, and Fabian the mad Swiss from the Valais. There is also Andrew, a Californian ex-sommelier now learning viticulture and Martin a Swedish sommelier. After seemingly endless interviews where I would expound my philosophy of wine only to find it fall on stoney ground. I began to doubt it myself but here at least I have found some like-minded fellows. We all come from similar backgrounds, and in Andrew’s case from a wine bar/shop the same as me (‘Awesome’ as he put it) and all seem to have a similar tase for the more leftfield wines. From them at least I can draw inspiration and see a direction for me to go within the industry that at the moment seems to have spat me out (he says as he picks grapes for one of the finest wineries in the world). But quite frankly I am grateful for that. It is by chance I come here, but it seems to me that I should be here. I only know that I sent three emails to New Zealand, one to Marlborough, one to Canterbury and one to here and it was here that replied and said yes. And after the journey I have had, and the reception I have received now I’ve got here I grateful no-one else bothered to reply to those pleading emails. I’m yet to visit Canterbury but Marlborough sruck me as a bit boring. After the giddy excitement of crossing the Wairau and first night in Blenheim, which I would equate with seeing the Hollywood sign for the first time, the environs don’t grab you. The vinification too is far more commercial than Otago. Too commercial according to the rumblings coming out of the region, after over-production in 2008 and a reported 40million litres of unsold wine in tanks. Growers have been told to thin their crop this year and are being offered substantially less per ton than years before. Marlborough isn’t quite the goose that laid the golden egg it once was, and while it still makes stunning wine, one begins to wonder whether it’s Sauvignon can continue to excite, particularly when you taste something like the Neudorf one I had in Nelson. IMO it was streets ahead. So I ended up here, and here there is still the sense of the frontier, of a wine region still establishing itself amongst a landscape of immense and beautiful proportions. Here you touch the hem of nature everyday and truely appreciate your place within it. Here is a spirituality I had lost back home.  And after so much angst in previous employment suddenly there is an unfamilar sensation: that of working and living simultaneously.

Strange days….

                 First day picking was at Cornish Point, several rows of Chardonnay. I got up in the dark, donned all my cycle gear, put my head-torch on, switched on my rear light and headed off to work. I can cut across a field and down a short little downhill trail before joining to road which turns to dirt track. It’s makes for one hell of a commute. I was first there so got the number 1 snips, which you have to guard with your life. Loose one and you’ll replace it and suffer beer fines in the pub on Friday. Leave it in the bucket where you place the grapes, and it goes into the press and you cause $4000 of damage, cost the winery several days and suffer the wrath of an Otago lynch mob. I was suitably sacred as Gareth gave us the pep talk that first morning, but also gradually lapsing into a sub-zero state. There was a frost on.

                 Unseasonal frosts are one of the reasons that Otago was initially disregarded as a viable grape-growing region. They can strike in the spring or autumn and unchecked they can devastate the crop. Many of the vines are planted on north-facing slopes, which means the colder air drains away. On flatter sites the grapes may be sprinkled with water, which freezes around them and insulates them. Another way is to put blooming great propellers in the middle of the vineyards and they literally blow the freezing away off the vines. These fire up maybe 4 or 5am when a frost is due and sound like a swarm of helicoptors. Close your eyes, put on a Doors song and and bang! you’re punching mirrors.

                 And so we were there, 8am listening to Gareth tell us the ins and outs of grape picking stamping our feet and rubbing our hands in an effort to keep warm. I was wearing leg and arm warmers bought in Queenstown (an elegant and cheap solution rather than buying a long-sleeved t-shirt and trousers), lycra shorts, baggy shorts, merino base layer, t-shirt, cycle shirt, soft-shell and buff. By 4pm, when I got back to the hut, I was down to shorts and t-shirt and was stretched out on the sun-lounger. Within the span of the day I experienced an early English winter and by the end of it I was in mid-July. Surreal but amazing and an illustration of what makes this region make such special grapes. The diurnal temperature variation, i.e. the difference between the temperature at night and the day, is extreme and contributes complexity and flavour to the developing grapes. It also makes picking them complex, as you gradually peel off during the morning as the sun grows in strength, and soon us pickers and often the ends of the rows, are festooned with various items of excess clothing. Smokos, the mid-morning and afternoon break (although nobody smokes) gives you opportunity to chuck these in your bag. They one hell of a good bunch of people here abnd an eclectic bunch. Kiwis of course, but Germans, French, Czech, Aussies, Brits, Yanks and Swiss all add to our melting pot. Some are on exchange programs, from vineyards in Muscadet, Burgundy, the Valais and California. Others, like me, asked and have been invited to join the merry crew. As Gareth said, we are here picking some of the best grapes in the world. I think he followed that by ‘so don’t fuck it up’ but it does feel like a real priviledge to be here.

                 And lastly the grapes themselves. So far we have picked Chardonnay at Cornish Point, then Chardonnay and Riesling at Calvert, then young Riesling vines at Elms, before moving on to the famous Block 6 Chardonnay vines, 15 years old and bursting with fruit. You frequently taste the grapes for quality. As Nick said, if you’re in doubt try it, if it tastes shit throw it away. There’s a beautiful simplicity to that remark. Occaisionally there are errant vines in the rows, and best of this was when we found Gewurztraminer amongst the Chardonnay. It tastes incredible, sweet but intensely floral. Yummy. Finally we were picking Pinot Noir in Calvert. All the time I’m asking questions and hopefully learning something. Apart from the taste of a grape there are other things you look for; smaller berries which give a higher pulp to juice ratio, the berries should be crunchy with seed, the flesh should be beginning to brown, the skin should be opaque. And the biodynamism is evident all around you, from the weeds and other plants left to grow alongside the vines, to the spiders and other insects that live amongst them. One fellow picker bemoaned the fact she had just sliced a earwig in half but there is sometimes no avoiding it. I’ll cover biodynamic viticulture another time, when I have fully understood it, but for now just consider what herbicides and insecticides are: toxins, which when sprayed on the vine anter the vine and so enter wine it eventually produces. Biodynamics taps into a more ancient understanding of growth and nature that does not rely on chemical agents to promote growth but instead utilises natural compounds that bring out the strength and industry of the vine. My inner-hippy loves it.

Sometimes it just hard to be good….

                  I’ve mentioned before it’s hard to be a vegetarian in New Zealand. I went into a bakery and asked if there was anything without meat and was answered ‘no’. Then as an afterthought she remembered a sandwich with only salad in, which equalled tomato and lettuce. To me it looked like they forgot to put the meat in. I bought it gratefully and it wasn’t half bad. Go to the supermarket and it is similar story, which leaves me eating a lot of fresh fruit and veg (given my very primitive cooking options. I have a fork and a pot). I found quiche the other day happily bought a tomato quiche. I was halfway through it before I actually read the ingredients: much was to be expected, eggs, butter, flour, tomatoes and right on the end, bacon. Now there was certainly no lumps of bacon in it so I can only imagine they added some bacon juice for flavour, or simply out of spite to make sure it wasn’t vegetarian. I’ll be checking ingredients more carefully from now on. I’m guessing the egg and cress sandwich will read: bread, egg, cress, cow.

               So to life at Delta House. So far pretty dull actually: the campsite is remote, well off the tourist/backpacker route so habited mainly by premanent residents. I have free run of the kitchen and TV room but it leaves me with no-one to chat to, and it is all fairly primitive up there, so no internet access to bring relief in the evenings. And both nights so far under hut have proved two of my more disturbed ones: bad dreams and not much sleep. I really need to watch my cheese intake late in the day. The first morning I felt proper down, for the first time this trip since Franz Josef and all the rain. However a blast up a trail alongside the Kuwarua River soon blasted all melancholy away. What a land and I simply love that river, coloured as it is this ethereal pale blue and when calm incredibly reflective, absorbing the colours of the autumnal leaves, the mountains and the sky. I’m not sure I could ever get tired of looking at it. That evening, back at the hut, while gazing at the bruising sky, I witnessed a struggle as old as time when a bee flew into a web on the next door caravan. The spider quickly closed on the bee and starting working on trapping its legs. My first response was to free the bee but I fought it. It was not my place to save that bee and deny that spider its meal. Anyway I hoped the much larger bee might free itself. I decided I could not watch any longer but checked again in the morning: the spider won, boo, hiss. It reminded of a late night/early morning spent in a stupor watching a small green insect run around my ceiling, in the perpendicular manner of insects, a long straight run, then stop, then rotate, then run again off at a different angle. I watched transfixed for ages and then suddenly it headed staright for a web. I shot up and clapped 3 times and it stopped dead, heeding my warning. Then it shot off again on a different axis away from danger. I felt very pleased with myself until I suddenly started to worry about the spider.

                  See I warned you about my inner-hippy. Surrounded by this land and these skies he’s gaining strength. I need to get home so my inner punk-rocker can beat the crap out of him. I tried to get my inner goth to do it but he’s depressed. I promised him the skull necklace he saw in Remix magazine and and that seemed to perk him up, but not enough to set him on the hippy. Besides despite being polar opposites they both approach situations the same way: that of general inactivity. The punk-rocker will sort him, but for now the hippy is ascendant.

                 Been reading about the early days of wine production here in Otago. I say early days but it is a very young region indeed, the first vinyards like those of Rippon, Gibbston Valley, Taramea and Black Ridge going in around the 1970s. At first the thought of growing vines here was met with general bemusement and gentle condescension by the majority. The region was thought too extreme, with too few hours of sunlight, low temperatures and unpredictable and unseasonal frosts in Spring and early Autumn. You do actually get plenty of sun here, very low rainfall and big extremes of temperature between night and day. These are key ingredients of cool climate vine growing, giving the grapes long maturation affording good complexity of flavour. Early growers had more to contend with that just the whether: the feral rabbits would strip the bark from the young vines, killing them, and eat the buds. Vines were protected by plastic cleeves, rabbit-proof fences, ropes soaked in bitumen and angry farmers armed with big guns and even Burmese cats. The Black Ridge vineyard was protected by several generations. Lord knows why the region is full of lurchers: my two would have a field day here to the point where they would probably burst a lung. I reckon with a pack of lurchers and maybe Jack Russels/Burmese cats you could earn a packet here. You would clear a vineyard easy, just will have to put up with them peeing on the vines and pooing in places. Not pretty killing the rabbits but given the fact New Zealand was a country of birds before we arrived and wrought particular devastation to a delicate eco-system with the rat, possum, rabbit and deer there is no other way to protect the countryside but a regular cull. Hence the pretty much endless boom of gunshot across the hills of Otago. In Alexandra there is the Big Easter Bunny Hunt. And no they’re not after chocolate ones; they even offer 10% off ammunition.