Vineyard

Whoa. I’ve been working hard the past two weeks. My body is actually sore when I lay down to go to bed at night. But don’t worry, I don’t mind because the work is fulfilling.

You may recall that I said I was in Blenhium working on an organic vineyard and olive grove.  This vineyard is located in Marlborough, which is known for its wine. Paul and Jacqui, my hosts, have only 7 acres of grapes and maybe 10 acres of olive trees. During my stay with them I only worked on the vineyard because olive season is the opposite time of the year. For the sake of management I’m going to break my blog into 4 parts: people, work, play, random.

People

My hosts were Jacqui and Paul. During the week Paul would live in Wellington working for an advertising agency while Jacqui would stay back in Blenhium taking care of their kids and Wwoofers. Jacqui had worked as a corporate for a while before deciding to buy land to plant a small vineyard.  That means that most of the time Jacqui giving me jobs to do. I’d say that Paul and Jacqui make a great couple because they are opposites. Jacqui is very outspoken and a strong personality. Paul is more soft spoken and gentle, but still very engaging and talkative like Jacqui.

They had two boys who were homeschooled by Jacqui. Apollo is 11 and William is 14. It surprised me how engaging they were for their age. Both of them talked during dinner and would want to talk or play games or cards during the down time.

Aside from me there were two other wwoofers, who came at separate times. The first was Sara. She was 25 years old girl from Sweden and a fantastic baker. We would have different delicious bread almost daily. She was also really into art and an easy person to talk to abut controversial things. She left on December 1^st and another girl, Hanna showed up the same day. Ironically she was also Swedish, though a little older than Sara at 27. Hanna and I got along really well. We had a similar personality, and both enjoyed to laugh. We both also didn’t really like going to bed early, so we’d stay up watch a movie and hang out.

I’m including animals in the people section. They had about 5 or 6 chickens which were hilarious. They were a breed that didn’t have long legs so they’d waddle everywhere. They also had three cats. One was black that was terrified of everything. One was yellow but not that social. The last was this huge cat named James Brown. He was a boss. He thought he was the king of the house and made sure the other cats and humans knew. He would just lie down and chill most of the day in the most ridiculous positions. Lastly they had a horse named Lucy. She was an older horse with an attitude.

Work

Blenhium’s climate makes it perfect for grapes. Relatively cool nights and hot days. That doesn’t mean it was great for the people working in it though. Since it got hot in the afternoon Jacqui and Paul liked to get up early and work to beat the heat. Early being 6:30. SO every day I would get up nice and early around 6 eat a quick breakfast, and start working by 6:30.

When we would start working at 6:30 we would always do the same thing. Turf flip. Since they are organic they can’t use chemicals to kill the grass beneath the vines. The only way to try to kill it is to cut the roots then go row by row flipping over the mounds of grass so make sure the roots didn’t regrow. So, for the two hours every morning it would be up and down up and down up and down flipping a mound of cut grass then moving on to the next. Eventually I got the shoveling job, which involved helping to cut roots that regrew or helping to flip large mounds.

At 8:30 we had an hour break.

At 9:30 we would start work again for two hours. Each day the job varied which was nice. A few days we would mulch underneath the plants we cleared of weeds. One day we wire-lifted, which involved lifting the wires and tucking all the growing stems inside the wire.  I weed-wacked for two hours once. Collected some fallen sticks. Tied irrigation back.  A few times we put cardboard beneath the plants after they were mulched to prevent grass from growing.  After that work was all done around 11:30-12 each day. In addition to that we were expected to help cook and clean during meals each day.

It sounds like a lot of work but it really wasn’t bad. It’s always nice when the work varies so I don’t get bored. However, at the farm I did actually get some blisters and calluses cause it was tough work at times.

Play

After lunch we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. Most of the time we were exhausted and would go to our separate hut, read, then take a nap.  But we didn’t do that every day.

Twice I went to a nearby river: once with Sara and once with Hanna. The river happened to be the one Peter Jackson is filming The Hobbit on. The first time Sara and I just hiked to the river to dip our feet in. It was about a mile or so away, through endless expanses of vineyard. I have literally never seen so many grapes in my life. It went on FOREVER.

The second time, with Hanna, we went swimming. We had to hike a little farther up the river to find a calm spot. The spot we did find was perfect. The water was cool enough to be refreshing from the heat of the sun, but not cold enough to hurt. We would start by jumping in at small rapids which would pull you down to a deeper calmer area where you could stand with the water up to your chin.

Random

Another day Sara and I decided to take a shot at making homemade ravioli, which FYI sounds a lot easier than it is. We spent about 4 hours in total making it. The first step is to get the dough consistency just right. It’s only egg and flour, but that took a while. Then you have to cut it up and put small pieces to roll it thin. Then we had to make the filling, which was spinach, ricotta cheese and sautéed onions. Once we did that you would put a piece of rolled pasta down put a dab of filling on top then cover it in another small piece of dough.  Then cut the edges and set aside. Do about 60x. We also had to make a tomato pasta sauce from scratch, and a salad. Even though it took so long it was rewarding in the end.

A different day Hanna and I made homemade vanilla ice cream (with the vanilla stalk, not extract) with walnut brownies. The brownies didn’t take long at all. The ice cream didn’t work out as well. It involves a lot of waiting. We also didn’t give it long enough to freeze so the first time it was just liquid vanilla ice cream. The next day it was completely frozen and tasted great!

On the last day we were there Hanna and I wine tasting. There are a lot of them surrounding a town nearby called Renwick. We had Jacqui drop use off there. The first place we went was Gibson Bridge and costs $3. They had multiple kinds of white wine, which is mainly what is grown in Marlborough. That vineyard had a great presentation and personality. You could tell the owner really felt passionately about their wine.

The next place was Mahi. It was kinda lame. The lady didn’t seem to really care, and their wine wasn’t as good; probably because it was a lot bigger. On the other hand it was free, and had a cool wine cellar which they let us into.

The last place we went to was called Te Whare Ra. I forget what it means. We got to taste for free, even though it should’ve cost $5, because we were nice and talked about wwoofing and stuff.  They had the largest selection of wines at about 9-10 different blends. I really liked a white wine there that was made with a Reising grape.

After that Jacqui picked us up and brought us home. The tastings took about 2 hours, because every winery likes to talk about the flavor of the wine, what the difference between wines are and other things that I didn’t understand.

Random

I’m a Blenhium celebrity. No joke. When I was wine tasting TWO people said, “Hey were you in the newspaper?”.YEP, I was in the Marlborough Express. It’s a local newspaper that came to do an article about the wwoofers at their vineyard. I just happened to be at the farm at the time she came. There are two photos of me in the paper and also says a little about what I’m doing and where I’m from. 07901 is an internationally known city now people. Just ask NZ.

Jacqui and Paul are fantastic goods. Legit restaurant style food every night. Like for example the first night I was there I had risotto with asparagus, bread with their own olive oil and wine made from their fruit. The food for the rest of the week was just as good, if not better than that first night. The only difference was that it was all vegetarian. That was great for the first few days but after that I desired some meat. I mean I’ve done the whole, full or partial vegetarian thing, for the past 9 years. My mind had just been reopened to the wonders of beef! 

Wow, sorry for the HUGE post. It’s hard to imagine I was only there for a 9 days. 7 days till the end of my NZ experience. Holy Crap.

Cheers