RedbankJames’s WineBlog

With apologies to that marvellously heart-warming movie “Young at Heart”, I’m borrowing its title for my blog entry to tell you about our first gig as the Midday Singers. (I know I’ve used a cliche, but it’s nice to have one’s heart warmed every once in a while.)

I love singing. I took singing lessons all through my secondary school days and I’ve used singing throughout my life to get me through sticky situations. To calm animals for instance. If you’re riding a frisky horse and feeling nervous, singing is a good way to calm him (or her). You can’t sing, and be nervous at the same time. Horses sense when you’re nervous and they misbehave even more, so when you sing, they think you’re in control even when you don’t think you are in control, so they start to settle down and then you can begin to take control. I sing to my chooks and it calms them down – they look out the sides of their little eyes at me and think, ‘what’s she up to then, eh?’.

I used to sing to my babies, and sing nonsense songs to my children when they were little, and we were going on long journeys in the car. When Briar was little she used to love me singing songs about crocodiles: “She sailed away/on a lovely sunny day/on the back of a crocodile/you know said she/it’s as safe as safe can be/floating down the nile/the croc winked his eye/as she waved the world goodbye/wearing a sunny smile/at the end of the ride/the lady was inside/and the smile was on the crocodile.

Then there was another one which started “Never smile at a crocodile/no you can’t get friendly with a crocodile (that’s enough about crocodiles and children. Ed).

I sang when I was scared of the dark. I sang when I was deeply unhappy. I probably should have burst into song when I was being attacked in Parliament – that would have shut them up. Now I sing because I’m blissfully happy. And I have joined a singing group in Martinborough, which started with just six of us and has grown to, at last count, I think 18.

Last week, we had our first house concert. Under the expert musical directorship of Jancis Potter, former head of music at Kuranui College, we practised and practised these songs: Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, Go Down Moses/Joshua Fought the Battle, A Maori Hymn “Tama Ngakau Marie”, An African Hymn “Siya Hamba”, When the Saints/Goodnight Ladies, I’ll Be Your Candle on the Water, Schubert’s “To Music”, and The Rhythm of Life.

We’re an eclectic lot – tenors, altos and sopranos – men and women just singing together because we love it. Ineke accompanies us on guitar for the Cohen piece and it sounds great. For the last piece, Rhythm of Life, Cherry joined Dawn on piano because it’s written for two piano parts and that gave it a bit of zing. Here we all are:

And here are the two pianists:

Then yesterday we did a repeat performance at the local retirement home, Wharekaka, and the residents enjoyed that. One gentleman in particular was especially appreciative, calling out after each item, “lovely, lovely! The sopranos are lovely!” So that went down a treat.

Now we have a break for a month, and Ineke and I are keen – or slightly mad – to plan a show to raise funds for the renovation of the town hall!

Well, yes, but this?

These hills are known locally as the three canoes, or the waka of Kupe, because they look like three upturned canoes. This morning we awoke to snow on the waka.

The photos say it all.

I’ve been most remiss lately – haven’t updated the blog since we pressed the Syrah on Ben’s birthday and being busy is no excuse but it will just have to do. That Syrah is now in barrel, with tannins and fruit tasting good already. We certainly feel a lot more confident about winemaking than we did this time last year.  So that’s one more task ticked off before we head off overseas in late July, or at least we hope to head off overseas. At the moment it’s an exercise of “will we, won’t we?” as the hysteria over swine flu rages. Not that we are frightened of a few sniffles, but the last thing we want is to be pulled aside and shoved into quarantine in Singapore for a week, throwing all our plans into disarray.

Meanwhile, in an extraordinary effort to make the local medical centre mortgage free, the local people over the past couple of years have staged successful fund-raising events, including, about two weeks’ ago, an art auction at which some real bargains could be had. The standard of artworks was exceptionally high – Gretchen Albrecht, Grahame Sydney, Anna Stichbury, Robin White, Matt Guild, Tim Wilson, Stephen Allwood  - even artists I didn’t like but there was no rubbish. At the viewing, we fell in love with two works, “Light on the Tararuas” by Jane Sinclair, and “The Riding Lesson” by Piera McArthur. Unfortunately we couldn’t get back to the auction because we had visitors, but amazingly, both these works didn’t sell and we were able to purchase them after the event. We collected them on Saturday and now have them hanging.

The weather’s been very kind for several days, enabling me to plant all the perennials I bought from Doreen at Nikau Hill Gardens in Marton, who really does sell high quality plants. Then I covered the ground between them with wet newspaper and mulched them with pooey straw from the chookhouse. The garden’s starting to come together now. Here’s a photo taken across the perennial bed, over the pavers and the herbs and in the background is where the orchard is going (the fruit trees arrive next month).

The bantams, Pip and Squeak (not their real names), were also happy that their little house was cleaned out of the old straw so they can nestle into the clean pea straw in their warm, macrocarpa-lined, abode. Actually, it was a brand new kennel bought for Taja but she refused to sleep in it.

Colin’s also been able to get out and mow/mulch the entire vineyard in this good weather, prior to pruning, which gets underway in a few weeks. It looks a picture now. We’re into our programme of sustainability. This photo’s taken looking down the valley, through the lower terrace of pinot noir.

This is the last light of the day, even though it’s four o’clock the big hill already blocks the sun from the upper terrace. But you can see the blue sky – even in mid-winter on a glorious Wairarapa day we still get those azure blue skies, with the frost machine silhouetted against the light.

And that’s it in the outdoors department for a while, unfortunately. Tomorrow the southerly blast will be back again. Snow will be touching the tips of the Rimutakas, and I still have about 100 daffodil bulbs to plant.

Queen’s Birthday Weekend in New Zealand – the first weekend in June – means we have a public holiday on the Monday, and this year it was the coldest weekend I can remember in many a long year. We woke up on Sunday to snow on the hills:

We’d made the decision to press the Syrah on the Saturday. Ben, Colin’s youngest son, came over from Wellington on the train for the day, it being his birthday. First we pumped 1000 litres of free-flow Syrah into ‘Annabel’, the stainless steel tank. Then I changed into shorts and an old hoodie, with only a baker-boy hat for warmth, and climbed into the 2000 litre tank and shovelled the fruit into buckets for Colin to haul up and out and tip into the white 550 litre tank, on to the trailer. A messy business:

The fruit filled one 550 litre tank, and about a quarter of a second. This was taken next door to Te Hera Vineyard, the winery of our neighbour John Douglas, and pressed in his red wine press. It’s a slow process.

John’s on the left, with Ben centre and Colin on the right, slightly out of focus but it was a freezing cold day and we weren’t standing still for long.

The Syrah berries were interesting. Unlike Pinot Noir, they stubbornly hold their shape as long as they can, even in the press, and burst through those wooden slats you can see, even exploding up to the ceiling of John’s winery, dripping down over his hair and back. We had quite a fun time over there. But it’s great seeing the cassis-coloured juice pour out from the fruit – we pressed another 500 litres out of the fruit before we stopped when the tannins started to taste too bitter.

This took the whole day – 8am to 5.30pm with no stops for lunch or cuppas. Hard work but very satisfying, and boy do you appreciate that glass of wine at the end of the day, and the long hot bath. The other two very happy customers were the pigs, who are still gorging themselves on the pressed grapes taken out of the wine press. I fully expected to go down on Sunday morning and find them moaning about having hangovers, but no. They have red snouts, and they’ve made a good job of levelling the pile of fruit, but they are really enjoying their diet of sweet Syrah.

For now the pressed juice is settling. Tomorrow we’ll pump it all back together into the 2000 litre tank, then this weekend it will go into barrels.