no. 756

i apologize for leaving such a long gap between posts. to be honest, i wasn't sure if i should continue posting. once i returned to the good ol' u.s.a., i realized how little i wanted to take any photos. and what's a good blog post without photos? besides, all the photos i could have taken were with all the people who would probably be reading this so it seemed like a moot point.

i have been so lax in taking photos that i didn't even bring my camera with me to my 1st giants game on monday, august 6th...even with the prospect of witnessing homerun #756 by the one and only barry bonds. lucky thing i didn't stress over it because the lil' bitch didn't even hit anything! but i was sad that i couldn't share my view of that "crappy" game (crappy only in the fact that i didn't see the record breaking home run because the giants still won in extra inninngs) since we had some pretty awesome seats in the view box behind home plate with views of the bay. i can rip a photo off the internet and post what #756 did look like, which he hit a day later...


anyway, i've moved into a room in napa with a really nice roommate/landlady who is a portfolio manager at moet & hennessy so it's nice that we share wine in common but work in different parts of the industry. i started my next job as a vintage cellarhand at patz & hall on august 1st. the owners are super cool and they really know how to take care of their own, which is refreshing. heather patz even hosted a bbq at her house that following friday with plenty of food and wine. nate has been a breeze to work for too and i can tell it's going to be wicked to work with the other interns. tom, the standard aussie intern, has helped remind me the sweet lingo from that part of the world that i forgot about (e.g. he just lost the plot). and, unsurprisingly, knows most of my aussie friends. he mentioned how he would like to take photos on one of our many drives after work, so i pulled over and figured this would be a nice photo for all you non-californians...
well, i'll try to be better at adding new posts in the future, but i'll sign off for now 'cause i feel like some serious relaxing after an intense 1st full week of bottling (i woke up on thursday with my hands locked into a bottle gripping pose since i had half the previous day grabbing bottles as they came off the line and putting them into boxes...

M.F.P bids adieu to N.Z.

well the time has come for me to face reality and return to the united states. as for M.F.P., the joke started when the craggy range winery vintage hats were unveiled and someone said that i should have received a tiara due to my special scholarship status. all of us just took the joke and ran with it. the pinnacle was reached in wellington when we passed a shop that had the above poster in the window. since then that has become my joke nickname. conveniently enough, M.F.P. also stands for mother f*&!@ princess :)

so i have since finished my tour of the south island and, as i mentioned before, it is wicked beautiful down there. i've uploaded some photos since words (and sometimes photos) just can't
do it justice. i definitely want to return to new zealand and work vintage in central otago...hopefully at felton road.

i also stopped in kaikoura, which is very similar to the new england coastline. this is where i splurged on a d.i.y. dinner and bought new zealand rock lobster and greenshell mussels. an absolutely superb dinner!

as i prepare to return home, i am very sad to leave but i am also very excited to return home and catch up with all of you so be prepared to receive phone calls from me!

i will also decide if i should continue posting entries to this blog...could still be interesting but the posts may just be fewer in between...we shall see...

middle earth

yeah, yeah....you can stop snickering in the peanut gallery but the south island does look straight out of tolkien's imagination (long before peter jackson came along). look for my next entry when i'm smart enough to remember photos of otago/middle earth (lake matheson will have to be a stand-in for now). it is also true that it is A LOT more beautiful than the north island. don't get me wrong, the north island is also very pretty, but the south island is more dramatic in its beauty. it is also very reminiscent of new england and maine's coastline.

obviously you can gather that i'm having an ah-mazing time on the south island. it does get a little lonely traveling alone, but i still have daily conversations with my "vodafone best mate" katy (sometimes on speakerphone with brittany and naughty caine :). my first days were exploring marlborough and its multitude of wineries. nautilus (craggy watch out 'cause this place is quite flash too), fromm (note to my german friends from gesenheim...if you make it to marlborough, then go to fromm and check out their german-styled rieslings), and neudorf (owned by new zealand's answer to robert redford) were definite highlights. i found the spy balls that gave spy valley winery its name...very x-files like but also a great picnic spot.i took a detour drive to punakaiki and the pancake rocks. i turned the corner and found myself in hawaii looking at a scene out of lost, but with a more plausible polar bear encounter.i didn't have time to make it abel tasman or milford sound (note to jenn...next campervan journey?), but i did make it to fox glacier and lake matheson which were unbelievably gorgeous. i drove into glacier country and was met by rain that turned into buckets of rain ("il pleut comme une vache qui pisse comes to mind"). i still had luck on my side because the next morning i was greeted by an amazing sunrise. i made it to lake matheson before the winds disrupted the lake waters so that i could see firsthand the mirror effect of mt. cook and mt. tasman (see the first photo at the top of the blog entry). i also made it before the busload of kiwi experience teenagers came to ruin the serenity. i hit gillespies beach and finally found the crashing waves of new zealand (the east coast waves are definitely smaller). i then made it to fox glacier and tramped right up to the terminal face. unfortunately, i ate it big time crossing one of the rushing streams that feed into fox river and twisted my ankle, which effectively ended my tramping day. pretty much not pretty handy, but at least it came at the end of my tramping itinerary. i next headed down to queenstown, driving with my injured foot on the gas pedal and my left foot on the brake pedal. dangerous, i know, but it hurt too much to move my right foot back and forth.near punakaiki and at the terminal face of fox glacier, i found some classic kiwi signs. i will say, after these many days of being on the road, the kiwis do have great road signs that clearly explain what i should be aware of on the road. and not just great fun signs like warning me of a potential penguin crossing but also what kind of turns to expect on the road ahead. you may have to zoom in on the first photo below, but that's right, you may catch your bike tire in a rut and fall headfirst over the handlebars. and this sign depicts what almost happened to me, except my fall wasn't due to being hit by falling ice/white rocks.

ferry shenanigans

the 18th was my last day of work at Craggy Range and i temporarily bid adieu to hawke's bay today as i headed on a tour of the south island and its wineries. before i get into the exact nature of the shenanigans, i must post one last photo of the kopanga crew (from left to right, me, Katy, Marine, and Brittany) on our last dinner together at Terroir Restaurant. besides the absolutely scrumptious dinner (braised Wagyu short ribs for me) and delectable wines (hate to name drop but a '00 Bouchard Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Le Cailleret, '95 L'Arlot Grand Cru Romanee Saint-Vivant, and '02 Chateau Suduiraut 1er Cru Sauternes), we even got sparklers. i know, i know, name-dropping is a sin but i couldn't help myself...

even before our last day, the kopanga crew went on a date with each other and went horse-back riding in Waimarama (where i had previously taken the photos of the sheep on the road). if you're ever out at Waimarama, i would definitely recommend Waimarama Horse Treks. the horses are beautiful, the guides are awesome, and they let you canter/gallop on the open beach. i hadn't been running on a horse since i was 14 or so...good times.
so after some frantic last minute packing, i headed off to wellington to catch the ferry to the south island. my father taught me well, so i was about 2 hours early (you do have to check-in by 1 hour before departure). i thought i had turned my car off all the way and was happily checking out my itinerary and reading the newspaper. lo and behold, when it was time to drive onto the ferry, my car wouldn't start. note to self, if you let the radio run for 2 hours, make sure that you've turned the car off to the last setting and don't let the car battery run. i was completely embarassed as i had to wait for the ferry people to bring over jumper cables, while a line of cars were probably wondering why they weren't being allowed to board even though they got there quite early. just further prooves my theory that bad things happen to me in twos. dear earl's (my car's name... little white nissan pulsar with the lil' engine that could) battery had died a couple of weeks earlier when the lights were left on for the entire work day (although that wasn't my doing but we won't quibble over minor details)! eventually i made it onto the ferry and got to see this delightful sight as we entered the home stretch before docking in picton.

more to come of my adventures on the south island, but first another addition to my miniature winery run by oompa-loompas...a tiny centrifugal pump found at Clearview Winery in hawke's bay.p.s. i've decided to work vintage at Patz & Hall (thanks Nate!) in napa in order to lock down some california winery experience. yeah that's right, i've actually not worked in california yet.

pretty much not pretty handy

craggy range's te muna vineyards in martinborough
our neighboring cows seen one foggy morning on the work to craggy range's sh50 facility or "shfifty" as we like to call it now.
craggy range's gimblett gravels vineyards robed in fall colors as seen from the top of the 80000L tanks.

yeah! the last of the fruit has arrived at craggy range! i'm actually going to be starting at 8am from now instead of 7:30am. i know it's only 30 minutes difference, but it makes a big difference when you work long days. i'm feeling pretty good in my cellaring techniques too now...so much so that i definitely feel ready to work my 1st vintage in california!

as for the title of this blog entry...our beloved french intern/roommate, marine, made a comment to the assistant winemaker (matt stafford...aka staf...aka dodgy) about the lids on the 8000L wooden cuves as being "not pretty handy". i know it's not correct english, but it's stuck in my head and we at the kopanga house have started using it ALL the time especially in conjunction with "pretty much" which we've taken from napoleon dynamite. we've also taken to bits from dane cook's retaliation cd. it's great to yell "where's the !@#$ van?!?" and "the van was supposed to be here" when you're really frustrated. "monkey?!?" and "i'm in the closet" has also become our call signs when we're trying to find each other at the winery.

in other news, one day, i woke up and it was fall in new zealand. the greatest thing about it (especially since autumn is my favorite season) is that the fall colors are quite beautiful and totally reminiscent of new england. makes me a little homesick until i read about all the shootings that are occuring back home...tragic and unforgiveable is all i can come up with.

on a more upbeat note, i did find a tiny karcher (i.e. pressure washer) that i think will go wonderfully with the tiny filter i found in germany in 2005. wouldn't it be great to have a tiny winery run by oompa-loompa cellar hands.

sheepish traffic jam

well, it's official. i am in new zealand! i was on my way to waimarama beach when i got stopped on the road due to newly shorn sheep being herded down the road. just has to put a smile on your face. in other news, for the past week i have been working at the Giants facility of Craggy Range Winery working pumpovers for the merlot fermentations that will be going into their Sophia wine. my pumpover partner, katy (roomie 1), and i have worked out a system so that we can switch cuves as fast as a NASCAR pit crew changes tires. it's a whole different ballgame at Giants because this facility is connected to their Cellar Door and their Terroir Restaurant, which means that we have to be on our best behavior and there is no room for big messes. it also means that sometimes we get interrupted by tours passing through or magazine photo shoots. definitely cuts into your time when you've got more than 20 pumpovers to do in a day!
on the flip side, we miss terribly our other 2 roommates and the rest of the crew that are over at the SH50 facility. we also missed an awesome display of rainbows that were photographed by brittany (roomie 2).
and 1 final photo of my fellow roomies (from left to right, marine, katy, me, michael scorsone visiting from california, and brittany) as we dined at Terroir Restaurant before we got put on separate shifts.

insert creative title here

ahhh...a day off...great after working 7 days of 12+ hour shifts. my feet thank me for not putting on those kiwi work boots and my hands thank me for not having to wrap themselves around 2” hoses. and yes, graham, a 2” hose is no longer my nemesis. i’ve upgraded to the 3” hose, especially when full of juice and with a big honkin’ ball valve that weighs about 10kg on one end. so we started receiving contract grapes from delegates wine estate, which has been great for me to hone my cellar skills before we get going on the big guns or craggy fruit. i must remember in the future to be very wary of a winery that has a contract crush because that delegates fruit has been the source of many frustrations. and just when we thought they were done, they come back to inform us that they “found” about 200 tons of fruit...yep, you heard me right. well at least i get some giggles in whenever those kiwis walk or ride by with their short shorts on!

i’ve also moved into the girls vintage house as we like to call it. it’s a quirky house but with a sweet garden filled with chard, rocket, mint, basil, scallions, lemons, and feijoas (the best fruit in the world according to most kiwis). i’m living with the aforementioned french girl, Marine, and with 2 californians (Katy and Brittany) that graduated from cal poly. it’s been awesome working with those 2 because i’m definitely learning a lot from them.

there’s really not much else to add because all i’ve been doing is working, working, and more working. i believe it’ll get much more exciting in terms of learning and actually seeing awesome fruit now that we’ll be starting to harvest craggy grapes. oh yeah, a note about the top photo. we got a storm front that came in and dropped buckets of rain on us. but before that happened, i was on the outside catwalk taking a dip (volume measurement) of the 80,000L tank when i looked up and saw this sweet view, complete with a hot air balloon in the distance. even though i was wicked tired, it brought a grin to my face because let’s face it, i’m working vintage in new zealand!