Vintage 2011 March - April

The grapes are ripening and lush.

 Some vines have lost their leaves so this weekend we pick the grapes and begin a natural fermentation process with pollen from the vineyard.

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We snip the bunches through the nets, careful not to cut the nets.

Bringing our buckets to the barrell, we strip the grapes and drop them into the barrell, juice, pips, skin and flesh.

And then we trample the grapes. This is fun. The barrell is covered and stored. The grapes will ferment and then we add these to the main pick in April.

Construction project 41 - The gingerbread house by Billie and Tamai

This is the roof Tamai decorated

This is my side of the roof

Darrin gave us a ginger bread house for christmas. It was in a big box and had icing, gummy bears, sprinkles, round stripey lollies and a few more tasty ingredients.

We took the gingerbread house to the farm, and early on boxing day, around 7 o'clock, we got up and made the gingerbread house. We had to massage the icing in the bag to make it soft and then we cut one tiny corner off, and then I piped it into the chanels for the sides of the house. I put the front and back in and Tamai put in the sides. I put one side of the roof on, and Tamai put on the other. And our house was made. Then Tamai put on the chimney. That was a difficult job but he worked it out. Then we decorated the house. Diana put on the snow on the roof and then Tamai decorated one side and I decorated the other. It looks fantastic.

Me and Tamai putting on the finishing touches

We stuck on the gummy bears, and some pineapple chunks, and drew with red icing. Tamai put some icicles on the chimney and then we decorated the snow man and a tree. Then we had to wait 15 minutes for the icing to set. That was a long time to wait. We took one side of the roof down the river for lunch and it was delicious. We wrapped it up in tinfoil. It tasted really yummy.

Nan is 84!

Nan flew in from Gisborne and we headed for the train to make our way over to Masterton. It is s a gorgeous evening and the sun streams into the carriage as we whizz by the luscious green rural scenes. By Featherston most of the commuters are off the train leaving us destination travellors. David met us at the staton in Masterton and we arrived at the farm by 6.30pm.

Next day the birthday treat is a pedicure at Che day spa. Ninety minutes later, Nan's toes are hot pink and sparking! We can't walk far after this as we can't put our shoes on - open toed sandles are needed!

Lunch is whitebait fritters and David has basil and sun dried tomato sausages and we sit out on the patio at the farm on this gorgeous warm day and remember waitbait catches from the Temuka and Rangitata rivers from long ago.

In the afternoon, I cut the lavendar and rosemary and teach Nan how to strip the stems. Nan sorts the lavendar by length of stems so we have 3 or 4 piles of different lengths, and then we tie them in big bunches. They smell gorgeous and will sit by the fire in their big willow basket to dry for the winter. We then graded the rosemary into bunches with 12 long straight branches and tied these with string to dry. these will go to friends to flavour their lamb dishes.

Its a great Wairarapa afternoon with the sun beating down and the air completely still. This autumn is more like summer than our summer was adn this weekend one of the best we have had for months.

Early evening we head out to Solway Park Grill for dinner. The sky was blue, and there was not a breath of wind as we sat by the windows of the dining room looking out onto the trees. It is an idyllic evening. We order our birthday meals. Nan chose corn fed chicken with roasted vegetables; Diana had the blue cod with new potatoes and beans, and David chose the sirloin steak which a heap of golden french fries, which he didn't want to share, although we managed to snaffle one or two.

After watching Master chef during the week and being intrigued by the banoffie pie, we spied homemade banoffie pie on the menu. David chose Banoffi pie, but it was a bit of a let down. The toffee mixture was too sweet, the chef had used a biscuit base instead of pastry, there was no taste of banana, and no cream in the mixture. aaagh. Nan chose the meringue filled with summer berries, which arrived filled with cream decorated with minimal berries and an inedible fern leaf! Ray McVinnie would have had a field day. Where were you Ray! Anyway, the evening was a great and a fun and memorable beginning to Nan's 84th year. Her birthday cake arrived and was a tiny carrot cake complete with icing, and a lit candle. The waiter arrived with a flourish at the table carrying a plate covered with a damask napkin and the knife lying graciously on top. Nan blew out the candle with a wish, and cut the cake into 6.

Hot day, hard work and a hot air balloon

We've been on the go since early this morning. Yesterday, we made several decisions. One was to net the grapes. David had thought it wasnt worthwhile. We had lost so many with the frosts. One of our pumps serving the frost system hadn't restarted after a power surge and we didnt know until after the frost. Damn. This meant 40% of the grapes were lost. With a lot of secondary growth, slower and a lot less sunshine this year, means we have smaller grapes, and no vraison, yet. Vraison is the redenning of the grapes in the sunshine. The continuous rains, has meant the vines are rampant, growing wildly like overgrown eyebrows shading the grapes from the sun.

Yesterday we talked with Virgil. He strongly encouraged us to net, pick and have a vintage, even if its just a barrow full. Then you are in the cycle of production. What an optimist, but after long discussion, we knew he was right. David had given up. I felt a bit miffed, and that our long hours of lard labour in the vines was being wasted.

To prepare ourselves, I make dinner of fried haloumi with lemon, thyme and baby cos and maroccan pumpkin and chickpeas, with cumin and corriander.
Inspired by a glorious sunset, we decided to begin early and net the grapes.

Up at 7.00 am, and out to hedge the vines. This means cutting the top and sides so the grapes have maximum access to the sun. That took us two hours. Fortunately, David had begun this last night so some of hte rows had been done. He then sprayed for powdery mildew. I like to keep out of the way when he is spraying so I went up to the shearers cottage, and dead headed the roses, cut the lavendar and harvested the oregano. By mid morning we were ready to begin netting.

David had rigged a chariot like affair on the trailer. It had a large arm out to the left, with a loop hook and the nets are fed through this high above the vines. Ideally three people do this job. We were two. I drove the tractor and David put the nets over the vines, then we swapped. By the end of the first row we had a system which worked with just the two of us. by noon we had done three rows. We had a break and many glasses of cold water before heading out.

Richard and David had put the nets in their bags after last years harvest and they had done a fantastic job. No knots, pulls or twists, amazing, and their care last year, was to our enormous benefit this year. By 1.30 we had two and a half rows to do, so large bowls of icecream and tinned apricots, then out for the final stouch. Hard work. It is a gorgeous day to day, which we both had hoped after seeing the glorious sunset last night. If it had been windy or wet we couldnt have done what we have. So the nets are up, the birds are foiled, and David is out there pining down the nets in the places where we have luscious grapes, ready to begin their ripening.

By late afternoon, we could hear a dragon breathing, great gasps of breath in and then out. Suddenly over the tips of the willow trees, looms a hot air balloon on its last legs. Wheezing its last breaths it lands in the paddock next door. We race over, and the balloon field guys bring their truck through our property to pick up the basket, the now deflated balloon, the pilot and his three passengers.

Pruning olive trees with Andrew Taylor at the Loopline Gove

More than 30 Wairarapa olive growers gathered in the warm sun at Kate and Mark Bunny's property at Loopline. Arranged by Andrew Priddle in the field day series for ONZ Wairarapa, this pruning session build on the two Andrew did last year in the Akrotiri Grove.

Taking several branches laden with ripe black olives, Andrew dramatically placed these on the ground; Koroneki, Barnea and Manzanilla. The trees around us were bereft of olives, with the Wairarapa harvest having been in early July. Where were these from? How come these branches still have olives. Its harvest time in the Hawkes Bay responded Andrew! This response underpined the keys of our session on pruning.

Prune for local conditions. Local being New Zealand rather than italian or spanish conditions. In New Zealand we have younger trees, better soils and therefore greater flower to fruit ratios. So pruning to enable the tree to hold these large amounts of fruit was essential.

Andrew took some time to teach us olive physiology as it relates to pruning. Prune to let the sun in and to stimulate growth of new branches in areas weak in canopy. In this grove Andrew was pruning to stimulate canopy growth and a tree structure to hold more fruit two seasons into the future. Right: Andrew deciding which is the central leader and which is the competition.

andrew worked with several principals: 3 large cuts per tree, 30% of the current canopy is taken. These cuts allow the sun into the inner part of the tree, and enable air circulation. Crucial in humid times after rain, when virus and fungi are in the air, wind circulation lessens the chances of these taking hold. Other pruning cuts are smaller and for tree hygeine (low branches remaining in the shade, and are likely to attract disease) or cutting low hanging branches for ease of grove management, e.g. mowing.

The inner structure of the remaining tree enables air circulation and diminishes fungal and other diseases. Dismissive of the 'bird can fly through the olive tree', Andrew proposed being able to identify who is on the other side of the tree was a more workable measure of density.

Using the branches he had had bought, Andrew showed how us to assess the internode length (the space between the leaves). Where the leaf meets the stem, the flower catkins emerge. Each catkin might have 8 flowers. In many countries, the ratio of flowers to fruit set is 2 - 3%. Andrew showed us the flower to fruit ratio on the branches he had bought. These were closer to 40%.

He indicated the short internode distance meant that the tree was stressed either by lack of water, disease or just too much fruit. This meant the stressed tree would not produce so much fruit in subsequent years which has implications for pruning and grove management.

I was fascinated by the manzanilla branch with lush black olives. I squeezed one, the inner fruit was moist and dark red. Bitter to taste but not too bitter. I was amazed the birds hadn't stolen these fruit and loved seeing the abundance on the branches. Right: The three cuts opening the tree to the north, to stimulate new growth and canopy mass.

Andrew linked several themes in his presentation to last years session in determining the number of olives per kilo, (1120 for koroneki, 240 for manzanilla), assessing the cost of harvesting trees when there is only a few kilos of fruit ($5 per tree and 10kg fruit means 50c kilo in getting fruit to the press, obviously less where there is more kilos of fruit per tree.

Andrew set to work. Begining on the north facing side of the tree ( where the wind and sun comes from in Wairarapa), he assessed little canopy or future canopy with the current tree structure. Thinking the trees would be harvested by shaker in the following season he looked for a central leader branch and a more open inner structure of the tree. Each cut was made to stimulate growth. He encouraged us to leave the 5 - 8 shoots which will grow in response to the cut. If these shoots are trimmed too early, the desirable shoots grow inwards and this renders them useless as structural branches later on.

To stimulate branches growing to the north, Andrew used his chainsaw to make cuts in the north facing trunks around hip height. These were painted immediately with Bacseal as were all the cuts he made. Spring pruning means moisture or disease can easily enter the cuts so sealing these immediately is essential.

Andrew identified January as the time of year to remove water shoots from the base of the tree. A dry January that is, so again no water carrying disease can enter the site where the shoots have been removed.

Over the next hour, Andrew pruned four trees; all different varieties and stages of development. The same principles were used with each tree. The session drew to a close at 4pm and we moved off to taste five different oils in the late afternoon sun.

The first oil was from Loopline and was a blend, then two from Leafy Ridge, the fourth from Odell's Stone Valley and the fifth from Julie's Greytown gold. We smelled the aromas and did our best to identify the aroma's; herbs, fruit and vegetable noses of the oil, then tasted. We tasted for harmony and balance, and for flavours. We noticed the kick or peppery bite distinctive of some oils. The colours of the oils we tasted ranged from deep greens of the newly pressed oils to bright yellow of the one year old oils. We discussed storeage of oils, pressing times, and blends. A great afternoon of learning, discussions and getting to know one another as growers and producers in the Wairarapa region.

Spring frosts

The first weekend in September, the nights are cold, the first lime green shoots are on the tips of the willow trees, the tulips are up and the sky is blue. Just as the new growth of spring shows its delicate toes, jack frost visits with a vengeance, intent on killing all new life. This interplay of nature and weather makes for a stressfull dance. Will the new growth survive the harsh chill? This interplay of weather also stimulates sugars and saps within the feeds the leaves and then flowers and then fruit. And the extreme of temperatures, while death defying, adds to the flavour and sugars in the fruit.

On Friday night by 9.30pm it was -1, by midnight it was -4 and everything was covered in white. This is the time of buds bursting into leaves on the grape vines. A frost kills these. It is a tense time. The second budding is weaker. The frost system David installed, last year, automatically activates at 2 degrees, then the flippers keeps spraying the water over the vines until 9.30 in the morning, by which time the sun has melted the ice which forms around the water spray on the buds and stem of the vine. The layes of mist builds into ice. This layer of ice protects the bud rather than freezing the water inside the soft bud tissue.

If there is no cloud and wind on spring evenings, the stars are bright, and the frost is likely. Frost doesnt survive with wind. And if there are clouds, the air isnt cold enough to chill the earth.

In spring we like wind, and clouds. By 9.30am the temperature is 14 degrees, warm and every trace of frost gone. We phone Oldfields and have bark chips delivered to go around the base of the water tank by the barn. A job waiting from February last year. The chips are delivered within the hour and the job completed and it looks good.

Sunday food market in Wellington

These pics: about to sample warm from the pan white bait fritter; Ruth Pretty's, Olivo and the french baker with their wares



This was our first weekend in Wellington for two and a half years. A chance to see Roger's Hall's new play Four Flat Whites in Italy meant we would have Sunday exploring the city. The play was fun, poignancy and a reminder of how awful and how lucky we New Zealanders can be when we travel. Leaving teh apartment around 8.30am, Roger, Dianne, David and I walked hrough the waking city to Chaffers Marina. Chaffers park was covered with an ocean of vegetables, herbs, chestnut sellers, and throngs of shoppers. We headed to the fine food market which is now every Sunday morning in Wellington. We were greeted by a feast of colour, tastes, smells, people and enticements. Flowers from Blooms, Nalini and Colin Baruch with their sensational olive oils and olive cuisine from Lot 8, the French baker with his freshly baked breads from Greytown, the sausage makers, exotic cordials from Shott, and a massive range of fabulously presented morsels. Most intriging and exciting, the suppliers and chefs were there to talk about and sell their wares. I bought a tin of ten Spice from Martin Bosely who told me to sear the meat, sprinkle on the spice, then finish the meat off in the oven. This I will do. What a great chance to meet one of the NZ masters of food and have him coach me how to use this exotic spice. Ten spice is a mix of 5star anise, coriander, dried orange peel, cinamon, cloves, vanilla pod and already my mouth was watering. www.martin-bosely.com
Then to a spread of books from Bookfeast in Petone. A Maroccan cookbook with senuous colours, textures and presentation of Moroccan food immediately caught me eye. I could smell the flavours coming from the pages. I recalled I already own three Moroccan cookbooks, and decided to keep moving. Go to www.bookfeast.com to see what delights they have.

Dianne and I had fried halumi, coated with breadcrumbs and coconut, and smothered in harissa.This is served in a tiny fine bamboo boat. Already I was enchanted. The taste - exquisite. I found David at the fine chocolate stall, Esque. He was captivated by their Manuka honey brittle seeped chocolate. Gorgeously presented in a see through burnt gold chiffon sack tied with moss green rope and paua shell tag, it was easy to dream of the treat moments when to have this, and our chocolate loving friends who would love this. www.finechocolote.co.nz and all your christmases will definately come at once. The French Baker from Greytown was there with an array of breads and pastries; the almond croisants and pain au chocolate remain my favourites of all time. You can see how happy I am. Pudding Lane was there with their fabulous pies. And all this by 9am Sunday morning. A chance to sit down with a coffee from Piazza on the waterfront, then Dianne and Roger headed off to Hawkes Bay and we were ready to walk over to Moore Wilsons and the great food heroes fair.

Part of the Wellington on a plate weekend, suppliers from La Bella Italia, Floriditas, cheeses, cafes and speciality providores were there to let Wellingtonians taste their fantastic offerings.

On our way we wandered through the Chaffers vege market, and picked up great bunches of corriander, plump bulbs of garlic, and a butterfly of fresh lamb from the Wai-Ora lamb farm www.wai-orafarmlamb.co.nz I'll be baking this will lemons, and finishing it off with the new 10 spices from Martin Bosely.

Stephen met us at the transformed carpark at Moore Wilsons. Hundres of people; talking, looking, eating. Ruth Pretty with books, condiments for sale and salmon frittata with salad greens to taste, Helen Meehan from Olivo had got up at 6am to bring her fabulous oils here. The apple and pear juice from Mela juices in Greytown was refreshing and sweet. I love anything with pears and this juice had a perfect balance, with the pear coming through. Stephen had fried ZanyZeus Halumi with lemon in french bread. I had a white bait fritter straight from the pan and on a slice of fresh white bread cooked by Adam Newell and his Zibbibo team. Caught in the Waikanae river, this fritter bought back memories of whitebaiting at the Rangitata River in my childhood. Dripping with lemon and butter, sweet, fragrant and light.....heaven.

John Conway was there with his Rosewood chopping boards and one had now found its way to our apartment. The chef from Rempah malaysian foods was making roti. Teasing out the pliable dough into gossimer like huge circles, then twisting the dough before grilling these on a hot plate. I bought a pack together with their famous curry sauce for a spring evening dinner. www.rempah.co.nz

Then we found Francois from La Cloche. Oh la la. A taste of french onion soup was full of flavour. This was morning tea time. La Cloche were serving snails with garlic butter, cassaulet, and succulent cakes, all with simple and tempting packaging. I am feeling we are actually in France and this is in our home city! How wonderful is that. Francois has lived in NZ for 13 years. How lucky are we. We discovered La Cloche is next door to where I have my car serviced! Flooded with memories of fantastic meals in France, already I am planning to breakfast there when I take my car in. www.lacloche.co.nz
There are many fabulous coffees roasted here in Wellington: L'Affare, Emporio Havanna, Supreme. If I am to choose, my absolute favourite is Supreme. They make the best coffee beans in Wellington. Justin, Supreme's master roaster was there making coffee. The Supreme stall had a great competition. With 36 tiny vials of different aromas, we had a chance to smell and guess. Like wine or olive oils, coffee is imbued with detectable aromas. I sniffed the first - light, and fragrant. I guess rose. Hmmm.. not even close....... cloves. Coffee will not be the same from here on as I now ponder what the smells are.

I came home with gluten free pizza bases from 58 Grourmet pizza bases. Amazingly this Pauatahanui company make these with rice flour, potato flour, soy flour and free range eggs and are a perfect size for pizza for one. They went into the freezer.

Wairarapa wines were well represened with Urlar wines, Escarpment, Alana Estate, and Paddy Borthwicks. I love pinot gris and gewertztraminers. Of all the pinot gris produced in New Zealand I think Urlars is close to perfect. And Paddy Borthwick was there with his wines. David loves his chardonnay. I wasn't quite up to tasting at this early hour ............others were. How fantastic and an absolute treat to meet and talk with these fabulous food and wine artisans on a sunday morning.

Inside there were cheeses to taste from La Bella Italia, tables laden with fresh sweet things from Floriditas, 1 litre tins of extra virgin olive oil from Geoff and Brigid Kennedy's grove in Martinborough, coffee and hot chocolate from l'Affare, large containers of dips and spreads from Genoesse; all this spread out invitingly for hundreds of Wellingtonians to enjoy the special delights of our wonderful city. Hundreds of people, yet room to move and a great mix of sampling, things to buy and to catch up with colleagues and friends. Great to see the marketing effort was matched by a fulsome response. Seeing so many producers from the Wairarapa, the Kapiti coast and Wellington this was agreat regional event.