Wine tasting in the living room – why wine-making is like writing

‘I like wine.'

That’s what Takaki Okada of Folium Vineyard says when I ask him why he’s decided to start his own vineyard in Marlborough Country.   Set amongst the vineyards of Brancott Estate and Cloudy Bay, he’s been busy making 1200 cases of wine, while around him Brancott produces thousands.

Tasting Folium wines - in Takaki Okada's living room

Takaki confesses, with a smile, that he doesn’t like Marlborough sauvignon blanc.  To him the grassy, fruity flavours that everyone knows mean the fruit is over-ripe.  So he picks his earlier and makes it in the French way.  He’s made two, the 2011 and the reserve.

We try the 2011 first – it’s delicious.  We do love the grassy Sauvignon Blancs, Brancott is our staple wine back home, but we also like the crisp dry French style as well – Sancerre being a favourite.  This was lovely and crisp and dry.  We’d have bought a bottle, but Takaki doesn’t have a cellar door yet, nor the facilities to sell wine – so he gave it to us.

The full range of Folium Wines

He also gives the reserve after we’d tasted it (lovely!).  And the pinot noir 2011 and the pinot noir reserve.  ‘I’m going away for the weekend, so I can’t drink it,’ he says.  Then we go out and he shows us his grapes.

He explains why he likes them planted closer together, why he doesn’t irrigate, why he doesn’t cover them.  And then he shows us his tractor.

As soon as we leave, he’s off to trim his vines.  He already has his working shoes on and his gloves are ready – it’s obvious that he has work to do, and there is no one else to do it.

Takaki Okada is Folium Vineyard.  He does everything himself, from tending his fruit, to making the wine, using the facilities of the nearby Fromm vineyard.  He does employ workers to pick grapes, but everything else is down to him.  But he is obviously passionate about his wine and is doing something he loves.

‘Not all the time,’ he says with a smile.

I know how he feels.  I feel the same about writing.  And, as we’ve been tasting and talking our way round wineries, I’ve seen a lot of similarities between winemaking and writing.  Winemakers tend their fruit the way we build our characters, they craft their wines the way we put our stories together but, most off all, they are passionate about what they do.

Then they have to find a distributor for their wines, by sending samples off, just like we send our work to agents.  Finding a distributor means your wines will be shown to retailers, the way our agents show our books to publishers.  It was Takaki’s distributer, Puneet Dhall, who put us in touch and set up our meeting.  It was Puneet who told us that Takaki makes ‘one of the best savs,’ the way an agent will enthuse about an author.

In wine, you have the ‘big boys’ like the Brancotts, who sell by the truck-load, or tanker-load, who are commercial and successful – there are authors like that as well. 

Winetasting at Brancott - no living rooms here

And there are winemakers like Takaki, who have small vineyards and make wine because they love it.  In writing, these would be people who had to have a full time job as well, so maybe it’s not all the same.

Or maybe I’m comparing the two, because I like nothing better than to sit and write with a glass of wine (which is what I’m doing right now . . .)

   

Bungy jumping gnomes, scary roads – and a bit of wine

Queenstown, New Zealand.

It’s where you go if you want to be chucked out of a plane, thrown off a high bridge with a Velcro bandage round your ankles, hurtled down the rapids in a dingy, or anything else to boost your adrenalin.

It’s also a rather beautiful spot.  Surrounded by craggy peaks, rolling hills and a dazzling lake, it’s a good place to take a scenic (and gentle) boat trip, or just go for a walk and gaze in wonder at the beauty of this land.

Or you can watch. 

That’s what we did.  We went to Kawarau Bridge and watched people jumping off it – with their feet tied with Velcro.

Kawarau Bridge - a scenic place to jump off a bridge

Here the scenery is entertaining as well as stunning – enhanced by the sound of people screaming as they plunge towards the raging river below, screaming as they’re jerked up again, screaming as they swing around.  For me, there was enough thrill in that, enough wonder at the parents who watched their daughter jump.  Brave of them.  And the poor girl who stood there 43m above the river on a tiny platform, screaming to the crowd that she couldn’t do it, with nothing to stop her toppling off apart from the man persuading her to jump.  But she did jump.  And for all her bravery, she ended up being hauled upside-down into a boat and then had to walk all the way back up again.  To heaps of applause.

After that, we visited a winery that was recommended in the information centre.  ‘You have to drive along a cliff to get there.’  Well, we wouldn’t expect anything else.  And, after taking a wrong turn a few days ago and traversing Danseys Pass while low on fuel, we up for the challenge.

The road to Chard Farm vineyard cuts high along the side of the river, in sight of the bungy jumpers. It’s a narrow unmade track and it twists and turns, giving views of the raging river far below.   ‘Hey, we’re higher than the bunjee jumping bridge!’ says Eddie, as I beg him to keep his eye on the road.

But it’s worth it.

The Bungy Jumping Gnome at Chard Farm Vineyard

This was our first New Zealand wine-tasting.  We went through the range, whites to reds, weren’t keen on the whites (chardonnay, reisling, gewurtzraminer, all too sweet for our taste), but loved the pinot noirs.  There was no sauvignon blanc on offer because ‘that’s a Marlborough grape, and this is Otaga – here we do pinot noir.’  And very good it was too.  So good, we were reluctant to throw it away (we still had a long drive ahead).  At least it didn’t go to waste.

At Chard Farm the left-over pinot noir gets made into brandy

Distilling for your own use is perfectly legal,’ says the cellar door manager, as he invites us to pour our left-overs into a large glass.  ‘So I make brandy from the left-over pinot.  Want to try it?’  I have a sniff, which is enough to make my eyes water.  ‘Good stuff,’ squeaks Eddie.  

‘Want to try the vodka?’  offers the cellar manager.  So we try the elderflower vodka – very good.

But we go away with a bottle of Chard Farm Pinot Noir.

Chard Farm and its cliff-top driveway

You can go and see what’s left of the cathedral - a night in Christchurch

More serendipity.*

We arrived in Christchurch in the rush hour.  That meant we had to wait behind at least one car at the traffic lights and at the most – one car.  Where was everyone? 

It’s easy to forget that we are in a country that’s bigger than the UK, but the population is about half that of London.  We’d been told that visiting New Zealand is like visiting England in the 50’s and I can see why – there's hardly any traffic.

‘You must go to the open air concert tonight.'  That’s what the lad said when we picked up our hire car.  ‘It’s near your accommodation (he showed us on the map) and it ends in fireworks.  You’re lucky because they postponed it due to rain.'

‘You must go to the open air concert tonight.’  That’s what the man said when we checked into our accommodation.  ‘It’s only down the road and there will be fireworks.’  We began to get the impression there wasn't much else to do.

He also made the quote about the cathedral.  I remember the devastation of the earthquake and really feeling for the people of Christchurch.  But it happened two years ago and back in the UK, it’s pretty much forgotten.  But, here in Christchurch, you can’t walk to the end of the road our accommodation was in, because it’s in an area in the middle of town that’s pretty much blocked off while the area is under reconstruction - two years after the event.  ‘It’s going to look great in another year’s time,’ said our host.  I hope so.

So, we found a supermarket, picked up a bottle of Marlborough sav blanc and headed to the park, where 50,000 were gathered for the annual Classical Sparks Concert

Christchurch's annual Classical Sparks Concert

We laid our blanket (aka our beach towel) on the ground and sat down with our wine as the night drew in. We listened to a piece called 'Estancia' by Ginastera, which was about gauchos on an Argentinian estancia, so we drank to our future time on an Argentinian estancia.  As night closed in, Tchaikovsky's 1812 began and shortly after that, the fireworks.

So much better than a tour of the devastation of Christchurch.  I'm not kidding, there really are tours for this. I can't see the appeal.  And it's not just me.  We met a lovely couple on the Tairie Gorge Railway who'd met in Christchurch, studied in Christchurch, married in Christchurch, who couldn't bear the thought of going back now, let alone something as ghoulish as a bus tour.

They also told us about several good wineries Marlborough - while we were drinking our favourite Marlborough sav blanc, which happened to be available in the buffet. And we told them about another bit of serendipity - the shortcut we accidentally took over Dansey's Pass.

Dansey's pass 

 This was a ninety minute hair-raising drive on a gravel road that hugged the sides of the hills in a series of hairpin bends and vertiginous drops.  The scenery was breathtaking, the car got absolutely filthy, we arrived in Dunedin two hours after we thought we would and we nearly ran out of petrol.  But it was worth it for the stupendous views that it was too dangerous to stop to take a photo.  And next day, we saw similar scenery from the comfort of a train while discussing Marlborough wines with a very nice couple.  

I call that serendipity - Eddie calls it getting lost.

The sort of road that took us over Dansey's Pass - but this time  viewed  from the comfort of  a train

There are 900 steps down – but you can take the cable car back up.

More serendipity*.

We arrived in Leura in a torrential downpour, so bad we were soaked as soon as we opened our car door.  Visibility was about the same as a severely foggy English day.  We’d had a bit of a job finding our accommodation because we couldn't see it. 

We’d woken up to glorious sunshine and had breakfast by the pool of our b&b.  We took the journey to Leura slowly, stopping off to look at the fantastic views.   We took a trail that promised a viewpoint in 1km.  The clouds were coming down, but it was still fantastic. 

There are many views like this in the Blue Mountains

We got a little lost on the way back, but managed to find the car just as we felt the first drop of rain.  Then the clouds descended, visibility disappeared and we were very glad we hadn’t been left out on the unguarded clifftops in the fog.

By the time we arrived in Leura, the rain was coming down like a power shower.  The temperature dropped and we had to dig out our few pieces of warm clothes.  But we found a great Italian restaurant (recommended by the checkout guy in Aldi) that was BYO (bring your own) and enjoyed our bottle of McLeish estate cabernet sauvignon.

The next day dawn grey and miserable as an English summer.  We went to a couple of chilly lookouts, but couldn’t see a lot.



The Blue Mountains under the clouds



The scenic route became a route.  No scenery at all, not even the mountains under clouds.  So, back to our accommodation for a rethink.  We found the Scenic World website, which offers various options of cable cars and stuff, plus a path down into the rainforest, which can be enjoyed whatever the weather.

So that’s what we did.

The walk down from the station at the top to the bottom - Scenic World, Leura

 The trail down took about an hour and involved 900 steps in various guises from log treads, steep stone steps to narrow metal stairwells.  Then there were the straight bits under overhangs, where you had to duck under the dripping water.  Plus several stops where you could take in the breathtaking scenery.

There were no clouds down here.  It was the most amazing walk I’ve ever been on.  And when we got to bottom, we met all those who’d come down on the cable, who went on the walkways down there and got the cable back up.  I don’t think they have any idea what they missed.  Even though the walkways were great.

.

So, we decided it would be fun to walk back up – another hour, another 900 steps.  Funnily enough, we hadn’t met a single person coming up as we were going down, but we met a few going down a we came up. 

And when we got up, we weren’t feeling a bit cold, the weather had cleared and we managed a few more look-outs, before heading to a lovely independent wine shop, where we bought a bottle of Opportunist Semillon blanc, which was delicious with our smoked salmon salad, plus a bottle of Tamburlaine Malbec, which was lovely drunk on its own in Sydney’s Hyde Park.

OK, the wine would have been bought anyway.  But the fabulous walk, with those gushing waterfalls, would not have happened without the inclement weather.

And it was clearer next morning, we got some more viewing in before we set off for Sydney, seeing what we’d missed under the clouds the previous day.

The three sisters - one of the iconic images of the Blue Mountains

*see previous serendipity blog