New Book – “Wine-Lover’s Companion”

When I was a little girl growing up in Waipukurau I always wanted to be a journalist. There was another person in Waipukurau who was a journalist, Karl du Fresne, who went on to become editor of the Dominion. I won’t say he was a mentor, because that’s a stupid word, nobody was my mentor. But I will say that it was comforting growing up as the daughter of a farmer, where most young gels my age grew up to be wives of farmers, that there was someone I knew of who was a real, live journalist. Karl now lives not far from here, in Masterton, writes as a freeland journalist and writes a blog – http://www.karldufresne.blogspot.com

Last night I went to the launch of his new book, “The New Zealand Wine-Lover’s Companion, An A-to-Z Guide”. It is a beautifully produced little manual, published by one of this country’s most prestigious independent publishers, Craig Potton Publishing. The wraparound jacket is matt black with a printed gloss label which resembles a very finely designed wine label. Class, all class. The ISBN is 978-1-877517-12-9

Karl describes this book as “the sort of book I would have liked when I started taking an interest in wine. I found then that many of the books written about wine assumed that the reader already had a certain level of knowledge. They were often written in a language that newcomers to wine may have found puzzling, perhaps even intimidating, and they tended to bombard the reader with more technical detail than the casual wine enthusiast really needed. So with this book, I set out to fill what I perceived as a gap in the market.”

Quite. I find, even though I know a fair bit about wine, there are still those who like to write, and speak, about wine in a “I am considerably more knowledgeable about wine than thou” tone of pen or voice. Well, they are just tossers. They are like contemporary art experts. They are insecure and they are terrified about being questioned because they will be exposed as frauds, really not knowing as much as they think they know.

This book of Karl’s is a treasure. It is both informative and amusing and the perfect (I hate this phrase but it is very apt) stocking stuffer. I think it retails for about $30. Although I bought a copy, The Silver Fox was there, we were having a good time, and memory does not serve me well. This is not a book for wine snobs (then again, maybe it might take them down a peg or two, featuring as it does, a comic entry for cresta dore [I can't do an acute over the e on this blog] an old classic New Zealand wine about which English wine writer Christopher Fielden pronounced after tasting, “if  it smells of nothing and tastes of nothing it must be Cresta Dore”) but one for everyone - even beer drinkers – to enjoy. Cheers, Karl. 

Meanwhile, as I write this I look out with considerable pleasure at my garden which, despite the southerly today, has been progressing nicely. CCQC bought me a very smart lawnmower last weekend which went for a day before it died and has been sent back to the shop, but here are some photos of the garden, including the first roses to bloom:

See those hills? Those are Nga Waka a Kupe , the canoes of Kupe, and Meridian Energy, a taxpayer-owned electricity company, wants to put a windfarm up there with 45 turbines, each twice as high as the Auckland Harbour Bridge with blades twice the diameter of the Westpac Stadium. You can read about it this Sunday in my column in the Herald on Sunday.

 

What a Star

One duckling is all we have left. He or she was one week old yesterday, and he or she has been named Star. The second one died on the third night, and Star would have departed this mortal coil also if I hadn’t realised that Pip was treating them like baby bantams, not ducklings. Blimmin’ teenage mothers! This last remaining duckling was looking very sickly, falling down, eyes rolling back, so I brought him inside and squirted some water down his throat with a syringe, put some water in the kitchen sink and dumped him in it (I’m presuming it’s a male). Well, that revived him! He paddled around, dunked his little beak in, shook his head, stopped his plaintive peeping, and perked up immediately.

I let him get thoroughly drenched then took him back out to Pip to be warmed under her feathers again (she just sits on him all the time). Then I whipped into PG Wrightsons and bought a huge bag of chick starter meal and force-fed him some of that until he got the hang of eating. Now he’s thriving.

Meanwhile, it’s back to the serious business of running the vineyard. Budburst is well and truly upon us. As you look out across the vines, you can see the haze of green as the leaves start to colour up and so far we’ve had no major frosts but that doesn’t mean we’ll escape. Snow’s forecast for tomorrow on the Rimutaka Ranges. Today the wind is fair whipping across the property; CCQC’s out on the tractor mowing that spring grass and I’m feeling pretty satisfied with some of my winter planting, like these examples of the 500 daffodil bulbs I put in.

And before we went abroad we planted our orchard which is now blooming. Apple blossom is my favourite, quite delicately pink at the same time the pale green leaves appear

and this is the crabapple blossom

In between the pavers this sweetie bravely flowers

And of course there’s no show without my three devoted companionsAnyone would think they were deliberately colour coordinated. Imagine how crazy this is going to look when I have following me one dog, one cat, one bantam rooster, one bantam hen, and one Peking duck.

 

Birth Notice

Born today, in a cold easterly, to Pip and Squeak (not their real names), triplets!

Mother and babies doing well, thanks to midwives DC and Taja (who is so curious but thankfully well past her duck-retrieving days). Kete refusing to have anything to do with this baby-producing nonsense and asleep in her basket. Squeak (not his real name) fluffing around the perimeters, squawking about how a man can’t get a decent cigar out in the country. Gone off to skite to Winston (hasn’t actually seen what his offspring look like yet). Phoned the QC who tried his best to sound excited, but I suspect didn’t really think it was important enough to hold up the nation’s judicial affairs and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “cluck, cluck”. 

I’d just about given up on those eggs. I thought they were infertile and this morning I heard Kete yowling. Thinking she might just have nabbed a newly hatched duckling I thought I’d better check. She actually had a half-drowned fieldmouse, which I let her keep, and when I went to check on Pip, there she was, the proud mother of one fluffly, yellow, peeping duckling. So cute.

About two hours later I could hear more peeping so I lifted Pip up and she went berserk, and the third one was still pecking its way out of the shell, so I’ve left them to it. I shall take photos as soon as I can get her off her little darlings without her flying into a post-natal rage.

Any suggestions for names? And not Huey, Dewey and Louie. Maybe Snap, Crackle and Pop?

 

Chablis

I’ve always loved the flinty taste of Chablis wines which, though made from chardonnay grape, you can not replicate anywhere else in the world because of the special chalky terroir which only occurs in this part of Burgundy. Although, as our guide at Domaine Laroche told us, these deposits do surface for a very small area in England. How boring it would be if they were everywhere.

Chablis is a very pretty town, with leaning walls which you’d never get away with building here -

and lovely colours -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were taken to Domaine Laroche for a tasting and tour of the cellar. They also have an amazing old wooden pressoir, made totally of three oak trees, transported there by hand centuries ago by monks (as this was started by monks and used to be a monastery). It was difficult to get photos of this incredible wine press which is still used once a year by Domaine Laroche, as a kind of party piece, but I took several snaps to give a general idea of how it works. Even the screw part is wooden.

The show-winery is beautifully laid out with antique picking baskets, barrels, and such.

On our drive back to the barge, James took Colin and me to one of Domaine Laroche’s grand cru vineyards as we were interested in their viticulture. No birds! No birds! How lucky they are.

See how old the vines are, from the thickness of these trunks. I guess they were about six weeks off vintage when we were there, and it was already very hot, some days it was 47.8C!

We loved this visit. It’s great to see other styles of viticulture, and I wish we didn’t have a bird problem in New Zealand. It was so amusing also to learn that the French government dictates the start date for picking grapes, and before that date no one must begin picking! I can’t imagine New Zealand growers taking any notice of that, but that’s the condition of having appellations in France.

And for dinner that night? We began with baked goats cheese en croute with red onion jam, wrapped in jambon, followed by fillet of beef with glazed shallots and spicey couscous. The cheeses were:

St Maure de Touraine, a soft, nutty and slightly salty goats’ cheese from the Loire, rolled in black wood ash, with a straw in the centre which if cut brings bad luck.

Morbier, from the Franche-Conte, a mild and buttery cows’ milk cheese with a pungent, yeasty aroma, containing a thin layer of ash in the middle separating the morning milking from the evening milking.

Reblochon, known as the tax evasion cheese as it is made using the second milking which used to take place after the tax inspector had measured the milk quota for the day, a soft cheese from the Savoie with a mild fruity taste.

And then, of course, in the French way, the desert, which was lemon and blueberry tart.

The wines were Chablis 1er Cru ‘Les Beauroys’, from the 1er Cru vineyard of Les Beauroys, where the grapes are harvested first so that the wine doesn’t get too heavy, it’s naturally the least acidic of the 1er crus. And Crozes Hermitage, a large appellation which covers almost 2500 acres, across 11 villages. It has a smoky flavour and is predominately made using the Syrah grape, but can be blended with Grenache and Cinsault. It is a powerful, tannic red, peppery with raspberries and blackberries on the finish.

The next day, it was up on deck again, hard at work relaxing.

 

Paris

How you gonna keep us down on the vineyard, now that we’ve seen Paree?

Well, we’re actually back at the vineyard now, and my computer sulked all the way round the rest of the world after the United States. I guess it didn’t want to leave the Krsuls. Neither did I, but I was more adult about it. So I couldn’t log into the net, and blogging had to wait until now, and since the London leg of the journey was all about whanau, I’ll leave that section private and skip to our Paris jaunt.

We were staying away from central Paris, at the Hotel Ampere, which turned out to be really very good indeed. We were on the top floor, with a private balcony which looked across to these apartments.

Beyond this we could see La Tour Eiffel and l’Arc de Triomphe. Here are two images, day and night: We could lie in bed and look out at this.

I love the rooftops of Paris. I love the fact that the people of Paris, after one modern towerblock was built, thought it was so ugly they banned the building of any more similar edifices in the city and now they all must be erected outside the city ring. The chimney pots remind me of that last scene in the film, “Last Tango in Paris” when the camera pans down and across the rooftops of Paris.

Paris, because of the recession, has suffered badly from a downturn in tourists, but this was good for us. Not so many “les rosbifs” – as the French so disparagingly call British tourists – meandering around and clogging up the Champs-Elysees. We were also lucky as this neighbourhood was very quiet but with good quality restaurants just a stroll away from our hotel. In particular, a seafood restaurant, where we each had half a dozen oysters (les huitres) and a glass of champagne, then grilled carrelet, a white fish, which was excellent, with a bottle of Condrieu. No tourists in sight, just Parisiens.

Next morning, I looked down from the balcony and the streets had been washed clean, creating this pattern on the pavement.

We did the usual walking for miles, Paris being a walking city. Up Avenue Wagram to the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs -Elysees, across Place de la Concorde, through the Tuileries to the Louvre then out and along the banks of the Seine all the way back past Pont d’Alma where Princess Diana met her Waterloo, and home a different way to the hotel. We’d been walking about five hours by the time we arrived home so needed a nap, then drank the bottle of rose we’d bought before going out for dinner at the Bistro next door.

Next day we walked to the Bois de Boulogne. Despite both of us having visited Paris numerous times, neither of us had been here before. It’s worth a visit, though not at night – you can see why it has a seedy nocturnal reputation. Look at the state of this seat and its surrounds after someone has enjoyed a picnic lunch:

But the walk there and back was pleasant, along the Boulevard de Pereire, where gardens and roses line the centre strip.

And here’s CCQC enjoying our balcony back at Hotel Ampere:

 

 

Wine Tasting in Carneros Region

What a fun day that was. I love America, and it irritates me the bad rap Americans seem to have in New Zealand. Kiwis tend to think all Americans are like George Bush, but over here, they’re so friendly and they sure know how to have fun. I haven’t laughed so much in years. On Friday afternoon we climbed on buses and visited two splended wineries in the Carneros region.The first, Artesa, was breathtakingly beautiful, as you can see from these shots:

They have their own resident artist, Gordon Heuther, who created six  sculptures around the pond and stairs leading up to the winery. We had a great time tasting six wines, matched with six cheeses. Americans seem to like ‘hot’ Pinot Noirs, high on tannins, a little different to ours I think. I loved, adored the first wine we tasted, a Spanish varietal I’d never had before called Albarino. This was 2007 Limited Release Carneros Estate, described as “layers of seductive aroma such as lily, honeysuckle, apricot, and lime as well as a hint of orange zest and tarrogon in the nose”. If I lived in the States I would have bought a case. It was perfectly matched with Prima Donna Young cow’s milk Dutch cheese.

Then we moved on to Domaine Carneros, a winery which specialises in methode, founded by Champagne Taittinger. Spectacularly sited on a rise and modelled on the French Chateau, this was one impressive operation. The seemingly endless rows of stainless steel vats – 5150 USgallon capacity each – put our little 2000 litre vat to shame. The guide (I think his name was Jean-Claude, I can’t find it on the website and after so many wines tasted I apologise for forgetting) was really informative and in no way condescending. I think even someone who thinks they know all there is about winemaking would have found this interesting. The photos didn’t come out so well because of the light – the first is Jean-Claude in the room with the champagne riddler where the bottles, still with their ‘coke-caps’ are turned just a quarter so the yeast doesn’t settle against the side of the bottle. Scratching his head, because the process is so complicated, is the QC.

The second photo is the cellar with long rows of huge stainless steel vats.

Then a bus full of snoring people headed back to the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco. That night we caught a streetcar down to the Ferry Building where, surprisingly, most restaurants’ kitchens were closed by 9pm but we went into One Market and had lovely dinner – Alaskan Halibut – and, according to the waiter, “the best Chardonnay in California”, 2006 Kistler Chardonnay.

 

Going Abroad

The pig trauma is over and I coped, despite Ron, from Superior Meats in Carterton, telling me I am “a butcher’s nightmare”. Bratwurst and Crackling went off looking like this:

And came back looking like …..actually I’m not going to show you what they look like now because some of you are just too sensitive. I’m just proud to say I coped. I did give Ron a long letter setting out the cuts I wanted, and he just laughed and threw it in the bin, before threatening to shut me in the chiller. I got my cuts out of the New Zealand Cook’s Bible, which he told me to burn, and I now have in the freezer two beautiful hams for Christmas, numerous roasts, cutlets, masses of loin bacon, seven spicy salamis, steaks and slices, trotters, and two heads out of which I shall make brawn. Piggies, you did us proud.

But now it is time to depart for warmer climes. Our bags are packed. We have house-sitters, retired farmers, moving in for four weeks. Taja, Kete, Winston and the chooks, and Pip & Squeak (not their real names) will be well cared for. My littlest daughter (23) came to stay for two days last week and took some snaps of pip & squeak, taja, chooks in the blimmin’ garden, and kete in her basket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colin’s littlest son (25) came to stay and brought a wild duck shot for him by his boss, which I cooked for dinner, and it was delicious.

So, temporary family farewells over, our first stop is San Francisco. Colin, two years ago, was inducted into the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and they have fabulous conferences around the world where social discussion of cases is forbidden. There will be wine tastings, cocktail parties, and a private dinner near the Golden Gate bridge.

Next stop, Chicago, where Colin, as President of the New Zealand Bar Association is a distinguished guest of the President of the American Bar Association. More cocktail dresses. A black tie dinner. You can see I shall have to mind my P’s and Q’s. But first we catch up with our dear friends the Krsuls, whom we met in New York last year. They will pick us up from O’Hare and take us to their place at Bridgman where we will see some sun! (oh joy) and do some swimming (oh more joy!). In Chicago we will also see much of Colin’s daughter Tracey.

Then to London and my other two girls, my biggest girl whom I haven’t put my arms around for 19 months – too long. We stay with them for a long weekend in the Cotswolds (much laughter), have dinner back in London with my journalist mate Stryker McGuire from Newsweek, then over to Paris for three nights and a barge trip through Burgundy to check out if they can make Pinot Noir as well as we can.

Yeah, sounds like hell doesn’t it, but someone has to do it. If I can master wi-fi along the way (I’m a techno-retard) I’ll keep blogging as I go.

I bet the time goes all too quickly, and right now I’m pretty anxious about getting everything done before we go. But when I sink down into my seat on that plane on Wednesday night, heading towards San Fran, with a glass of Champagne in my hand, I will allow myself to start getting excited.

 

Tarlant Express

Several weeks ago Peter Rumble who owns Rumbles Wines in Wellington organised a trip from Wellington to Wanganui on the steam train. But that was the least of it. This was a special trip, a Tarlant Vintage Champagne tasting, no less, with around a dozen different vintages to sample on the way out and on the way home. How could we refuse?

I love travelling by train. You get to look into people’s back yards – washing on the line, kids hitting balls or just mooching around while Mum cleans the house. Then you hurtle past Saturday morning playing fields, kids playing footie, further into the outskirts of towns and the semi-rural industries like fake lawns, alpaca farms, and then you’re into the real agricultural landscapes with farmers feeding out. And at every level crossing, every town, the people drop what they’re doing to wave to the steam train. Whoooh-oooh, goes the whistle, a strangely haunting sound, and families come running. Even grown men step out of their utes to wave to the train. Young mums with babes on their hips part the curtains of their front rooms and wave to the steam train. Horses take fright and flee across the paddocks, tails in the air, snorting wildly, and gallop from the steam train. It was a splendid day. Half way to Wanganui the driver stopped, we all got out and clambered on to an overbridge while he backed up the track then whooshed under us while we took photos, and I took this video.

When we got to Wanganui, we got on a riverboat and steamed up the Whanganui river a bit, then turned around and came back to catch our train home. And all throughout the journey Rumble and his staff trudged up and down our carriage, dispensing champagne and good humour.

The Tarlant Express – travelling in style.

 

Au Revoir, Piggies

The time has come to load the piggies on the trailer and drive them to Parkvale. Last weekend we made a ramp for them to walk up into the trailer, then we parked the trailer in their yard so they could get used to it. They’re so accustomed to me now that they don’t spook at anything I do around them so they just thought it was a new toy. This week I decided I’ve give them a lovely week of big feeds of pig nuts, but I nearly overdid it, because when I went down this morning, they weren’t interested in eating at all.

They knew. They knew it was their last day. Brattie wouldn’t get out of bed, and Crackling was standing in the corner. I got in with them and we had a little chat. ‘Look here, boys,’ I said. ‘Everyone has to die. I have to die one day too, and I don’t know how I’m going to die. I might not die as quickly, and as humanely as you. I might go ga-ga and linger in a home somewhere, dribbling, losing my marbles, wearing nappies, unable to run around in my final days or hours like you guys have been able to. What’s more, after you die, you are still useful, because you are food. When I die, I’m useless, I just take up space in the ground and am no use to anyone. In fact, I’m a burden, because someone still has to look after the space in the ground I take up. They’re not allowed to eat me, which is stupid because it would make a lot more sense if they were allowed to eat me, or feed me to some pigs.’

Then I gave them a good patting, and a bit of a cuddle, and I had a little sniffle (but not too much because someone might think I was going down with swine flu), and they perked up again. Their tails curled up, and they tucked into their breakfast, and they joshed each other, and shoved each other, and I could almost hear them saying, ‘yeah, she’s right, we gotta go so let’s tuck into these pig nuts and enjoy.’

They let me take these photos:

I know I’m going to cry when I drop them off tomorrow but that’s nothing to be ashamed of, I reckon. As I said to someone yesterday, ‘How would you like it if you died, and nobody cried?’

 

Young at heart in Martinborough

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!