Gazza smashes F7!

15 Mar
2010

You’d think the guys have never seen a chick in the cellar before!

This morning Stephen Henschke told the press guy Pete that it was my turn to do a fermenter and they’d set aside a ‘small’ 4.5 tonne red fermenter for me to shovel out of the rectangular concrete vats. They’re about as tall as I am, and you have to dig around yourself and shovel skins high above your head into a pump. FRICKEN HARD WORK!
I got in there in my jeans, gumboots and singlet and all of a sudden ALL THE GUYS come up the stairs and climb up to the red fermenters or stand by the side and yell at me, ‘GO GAZZA!’, and Stephen Henschke’s there with his digital camera snapping a gazillion shots away, then five minutes later returns with a photo he’s printed off and sticks it on the front of the press with the words, “GAZZA SMASHES F7” (fermenter no. 7). Boys!
Gazza smashing Fermenter 7…notice the red hands
I suppose I did ‘smash’ into it well after the first 10 minutes of dodgy shovelling. Then Pete gave me a 5-minute breather while I rested my wrist, then I hopped back in and finished it all off. What an effort! It added 4 points to my Gazza tally on the board. I’m behind the boys, but what can you do?
Some of the office ladies saw me and yelled, “GO GIRL!” as they passed which was motivating. Towards the end you’re in the swing of things and you can see that the end is nigh…and your arms are bulging with pain but you’ve JUST GOTTA KEEP GOING! Show the men you’re man enough! haha.
My boots got grape skins in them from the start so for the rest of the day I had one purple painted jean leg and then people patting me on the back as I passed afterwards. What a bloody workout!

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Widow Beater and Monkey Men

14 Mar
2010
This weekend we worked all of it, Saturday and Sunday, such is vintage hours.
This morning I helped out Jacky boy by plunging the Pinot Noir open fermenter tanks. I had to put my plank of wood across it, climb up with my plunging tool and start pushing down the hardish cap of skins. Obviously it’s hot work so I took my long-sleeved top off and had my black Bonds singlet top underneath.
Just so happens that as I start getting into it, Fella and Josh come up to the red cellar, see me atop the tank and start hooting comments, “Muscles from Brussels!’, ‘Look at them guns!’, ‘She’s got the widow beater on!‘ (instead of wife beater, it’s widow beater because it’s black). They left me alone after 3 minutes then once I thought I had peace to myself, they’d sent Stephen Henschke up to check out the scene that they relayed as ‘Gazza’s up plunging in the widow beater go check out her guns!’ All in good fun. Bloody men.
The Monkey Men business related to another story. We have forklifts that are capable of taking 3 tonnes worth of stuff around. Sometimes though we’re bordering on the forklift’s capacity when they need to move the open fermenters full of grapes from one area to another. The fact that the landscape at Henschke is up and down and hills everywhere provides for a dangerous terrain. In other words, you need to really think about which direction you’re going and with what load and how it’s going to impact on if the forklift is going to tip one way or the other. A lot of the time there are scrapings across the road now because if you lift the open fermenters more than a few centimetres, the load is so heavy that it lifts the back tyres of the forklift right off the ground! To combat this what do we do? We monkey it!
The story goes like this. I was in the cellar minding my own business when Fella comes running in, ‘Gazza, come on, we need another one!’ That’s all the information I get before he bolts out of the side door. I hurry after him and see two boys, Disco Stu and Jacky, already sitting atop the back of the forklift hanging off the top railings like monkeys. I arrive and Fella and I hop on the limited space left and the four of us act to create a more balanced load in the back against the large load of grapes in the front. Hey it works! Totally dodgy in an OH&S way but Stephen had a good laugh when he saw all four of us squatting and hanging off the back of the forklift making monkey sounds 😛

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Just call me GAZZAAAAAA!

13 Mar
2010
No don’t, seriously.
I have been boganised here at Henschke and they have nicknamed me Gazza. Short for Gazzo. They could say my last name correctly too with the Italian accent and everything. Then one day, Fella (my winemaker boss Paul) swung his rolling chair out of the upstairs office, poking his head out onto the catwalk and down to the wine cellar where I was somewhere working and yelled in an ocker voice, ‘OI GAZZA!’ to which I responded from somewhere, ‘WHHHAAAAATTT!?’
Since then, everybody, even the big boss Stephen, refers to me as Gazza. They also love to not only say it, but say it in the ockerest accent they can adopt. It makes me feel like this dude:
He looks more like a Gazza than I do!

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Interesting ‘actions’ in the winery

10 Mar
2010

My oh my what a day! It was definitely not as busy as usual which was a nice break from the craziness of it all but there was fun to be had in the winery today!

OK so I didn’t start off the day amazingly well. Harry cracked it at me because I put a 1500L tank accidentally on top of a hose…hence we had a very squashed wine hose. Five hours later Harry got around to heating the hose up and stretching it back out again. But he wasn’t initially very proud of me…a bit of swearing got thrown around, but that’s Harry.
In the afternoon after redeeming myself by completing most of my work I went on the white ferment Baume round with assistant winemaker Josh. We had a good look at everything, having a whiff of the ferments, tasting them, recording the temperature’s and sugar levels, then noticed the Pinot Gris tank 54’s level was really high. We knew it was probably filled too much in the first place (thanks Stuart), but were hoping it wouldn’t crack along too quickly for it to overflow. The temperature was getting in the 19C area so we decided to ‘ultracool’ the ferment.
Anyway, I’m waffling. I want to get to my interesting ‘actions’ story! Yes, I know all your dirty minds want to hear it too!
So I’d finished up my area and was going to go up to the lab and see if the winemakers had anything going on for me. Paul my boss was up there and didn’t but we had a good chat working things out about how the reds are all going to fit in when they’re coming in, then he asked me to hang around while they crush this last Shiraz fruit that just arrived and I can see how they set up the open fermenters.
Basically, the main area of the Henschke red fermentation lot is made up of 10 rectangular concrete waxed pits that hold about 4.5 t of fruit each. They use wooden boards over the top short way, then two longer boards the length way then little wooden blockers to keep the skins submerged under the liquid. They call them ‘heading-down boards’. I told Paul I was a heading-down board putterinerer virgin as I’d never worked in a winery where they were used before. Him and I climbed up to the fermenters and precariously made our way around the edge of the pits and began slotting the boards in. At one stage while I was grabbing boards off the guys below I had my belly resting on the concrete edge with my legs dangling over one bubbling pit of shiraz wine and the other body resting over the shiraz juice where I was trying to place the boards. Fun fun fun!
Anyway, we got one lot in then had to squash the lot down to fit in the wooden blocks which keep the whole thing down and are under a lot of pressure. The best way to do it is to get the weight of people behind you and sort of jump up and down (without really jumping) to wiggling the block in. I don’t know if I’m writing this well to create a picture in your head but I will hopefully get a picture in here one day.
So I was on one side, and Stuart climbed up and was in the corner with his back facing Paul who was behind him. They sort of had their arms in front of them and were moving up and down forward and back at the same time trying to work up enough of a see-saw movement to squash the load down with their weight. It would have been more helpful if I was over there putting my weight on it too but at the time all I could do was crack up laughing because of the angle I was at meant that the two boys looked like they were going at it Mardi Gras-style on top of a bunch of grapes. Paul got wind of what it must look like and before we knew it him and I were both keeling over laughing, wishing we had a camera to YouTube Henschke to fame…in a totally unorthodox way!

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Too busy to type, so here’s photos

7 Mar
2010

Glenelg Beach

The barrel hall (aka Air Force One) where I spent my first week climbing these racks and filling them up again. In the far corner is all the Hill of Grace barrels



Adelaide city graffiti


Relaxed Sunday breakfast at the Company Kitchen


My machine in a time-warp…or just on the main street of Tanunda



Doing a ripper white juice racking off the solids on some Riesling


Sunset on the way to Greenock pub…warning to self not to drive and take photos at the same time in the future

Fringe Festival ‘Zeitgeist’ show: Naked woman surrounded by naked bodies


The drive from work


The drive to work

Sunrise near Air Force One


The trees in Coultard Reserve Park


Sunset in the park



Me shifting barrels on the forklift


Young Jack (aka Slick Slackety) measuring the red ferments

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Cellar Update

28 Feb
2010

Work has been dandy the last week. I am finally out of the barrel hall where I spent a week sulphuring then topping all the wine. It was a long process not facilitated by the fact I had to wait occasionally for the laboratory to keep up with my red wine samples. Nevertheless, it was all done to a T in the end and I am sure the winemakers are pretty happy with my efforts as it’s usually ‘one of those jobs’ and I did it with a big smile on my face and a radio blaring Adelaide FM’s hits whilst down there on my own.

Since I haven’t been in the barrel room anymore I have instead been in the cellar where the rest of the gang are and where the action is really happening. I was a little rusty I will admit on my first full day in the cellar. I work with young Jacky boy and the poor guy has to put up with some of my blonde comments to which he just shakes his head to. He thinks I am funny though…possibly in a sad way, but we get a long well and he is pretty easy going to we’re making for a good team so far. Stuart from uni has been up in the top cellar processing the fruit that comes in. I do not have to deal with the crusher or presses as they have two people assigned to that job. Though the other day I came up there to check out the Riesling fruit and Stuart let me dump the rest of the bins in the big hopper so that was fun.
In the cellar my work days usually involve lots of different tasks, from racking white juices of Riesling, Semillon, Gewurtztraminer or Chardonnay from one tank to another to get the clear juice, then heating them up with another pump, then inoculating them…or ‘knocking them up’ as we say. Normally it is the responsibility of the assistant winemaker Josh to do all the yeasting but I had a chat with him and let him know I feel comfortable doing it and know what I’m doing so he has handed over all the yeasty beasty duties to me which leaves him free to go to the vineyards with head winemaker Paul to sample fruit. It’s more important for him to see that side of things knowing that I’ve got control on my side here, and I like smelling like a bakery so we both win 🙂
We don’t stop for much of a lunch usually. I will grab my food and munch on the go or grab a tea and leave it in the cellar to go cold when I forget about it. You want to get the job done so no fluffing around. In the afternoon is usually when the fruit that they have pressed is ready to be taken ‘off the floor’ (out of the old waxed underground tanks where they’ve gotten a volume) to the stainless steel tanks in the white cellar. Things are starting to get a little sticky, especially in my area and with all the work I’m doing with juice…so I’m hoping not to adopt the nickname ‘sticky fingers’ or something. They’ve already labelled Stuart ‘Frosty’ because he is a bit of an aficionado with the use of dry ice.
This week coming we start getting some red grapes in so that will start making life busier for the boys up top, but it’s welcome as that will give me more peace down below.

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Gazza’s MuscRat fortified

23 Feb
2010

That’s right, I said MustRat! It’s our kid name for the Muscat that today was to be fortified.

This morning I got into the skins with my feet again, discerned the detectable rise in heat, grabbed a sample and rushed back up to the lab to check the sugar level (Baume) and alcohol already produced on it. We don’t want it to drop too far, around about a 2% v/v alcohol drop would be perfect. The reading on the machine said that around 1.8 % v/v alcohol was present, which was a good thing, because it meant that Harry and I had to shift our arses into gear, get this thing cooled and pressed off then fortify it up!
But fortify it with what? SVR 96% v/v spirit of course!
Fortunately for us, the TARAC distillery is only 20 minutes away so we were able to receive some by 14:30 today. In the meantime, I got the mini-press out and loaded it up by bucketing in the two bins worth of Muscat fermenting skins and juice in, getting that going, then ending up with 250L more of juice than what we had originally anticipated! Awesome! More to go around!
The two winemakers and Stephen came around while I was working and Harry quizzed him about Gazza’s Undie Parade over the weekend to which Stephen commented that his glasses had fogged up upon entering the shed the first time, but gave me kudo’s for my spunky legs. Haha! Thanks!
Once that was ready it was a matter of waiting for the spirit to arrive then Harry and I added some sulfur, then dumped in like 80L of almost pure ethanol whilst mixing the tank.
That should kill those yeasties (shakes fist in the air)!
Stephen came and found me an hour later, telling me he’d gone to taste it. I was worried it might taste like jet fuel because it takes a while before the spirit and juice will be integrated, but he was impressed and said it is looking good. At least we didn’t overshoot how much we added. We considered a safety factor of around 10% because well, you can always add more, but once it’s in you can’t go back! So tomorrow we shall have a look and work out how far off we were then go from there. It tastes a little like fortified apricot marmalade at the moment! How about spreading that on your toast! What a shame…you can’t 😦

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Worthy of writing about!

18 Feb
2010

Dinner:
Bucatini pasta with good extra virgin olive oil cooked to infuse with garlic, mixed with chilli, parsley and anchovies

Wine:
Glass of 2005 Henschke Hill of Grace

Score:
Fricken awesome

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Winding our way into the Valley of Clare

13 Feb
2010
Saturday and possibly our last Saturday totally free for awhile since we will begin fermenting juice as of next week. Hence I took the opportunity to not waste an opportunity to head up to the Clare Valley wine region. I initially was going to go up on my own which would have been fine, but well, a boring drive for one, and a little less exciting tasting stuff on your lonesome. Fortunately I got a text from Stuart again who wanted to go up and see the area again. Happy days.
I made pancakes for breakfast in the morning for my housemate Monica and myself then Stuart and I headed off just after 9:30am and were at our first stop by 10:30am: Taylors. Taylors is a huge winery and they have heaps of different labels and styles available but the only one that impressed was an 04 St Andrews label Cabernet Sauvignon. Moving right along. We were going to stop at O’Leary Walkers but it was closed. The Clare Valley region is made up of a number of small towns that lead up to one another along the main road. There are lots of wineries alongside the main road and it is all really well sign-posted so I think it’s great to get to and see in this one day we had. You do take turns off the main road and head up into really gum-tree/eucalyptus country, which was a real surprise for me because I had assumed the valley would be more open, rolling plains instead of this stereotypical Australian bush-scape.

We made it up to Watervale township and stopped at Crabtree Watervale Wines and got stuck talking there with the owner for an hour and a half about growing their Tempranillo vines, their crew, the size of the winery etc. They make some great wines actually but I didn’t end up buying any at this point. I was waiting for something to really appeal. Olssens was closed because the winemaker’s wife had unexpectedly passed away a month ago. I had been told to check them out by the winemakers at Henschke so it’s a shame about the circumstances. Instead we went to Kilikanoon Wines where I bought their Block Road Cabernet Sauvignon, then up to Jeanneret Wines where there was a hilarious possibly-alco character behind the cellardoor looking after twelve cats and a fat labrador. Stuart bought some ripper reds for a hefty price. Thanks goodness we can claim some of this stuff through tax.

The Wilson Vineyard
We decided to fill a hole that was emerging in our stomachs and shared a little greek-style pizza and salad before driving up through the slightly boring township of Clare and heading to Knappstein Wines where I bought their excellent single vineyard Riesling and finished off with their palate-cleansing lager that was on tasting! Our last stops were in the Polish Hill region of the Clare Valley and here we stopped at The Wilson Vineyard and I bought their 09 Riesling, then down to Pikes were I was going to work the vintage (but turned it down for Henschke) and bought their Reserve Riesling which I’ll put down, and their yummy Luccio Sangiovese wine which will be great with Italian food…mmm mmm I can imagine the pizza I’d make with that!

Pikes vineyards

The road to Pikes Wines
What a day though, the area is lovely, though a little too secluded from the sea or the city in my opinion. Anyway we got some great wines which will be enjoyed one day in the future.

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Cellar work at last

11 Feb
2010

Summing up how the next few weeks should pan out, my winemaker boss Paul told me today I will be focused in the bottom cellar during vintage, looking after all the white tanks and all that other general stuff. Probably be yeast queen again too maybe. I don’t mind smelling like a bakery at work so if they gave me that role occasionally I wouldn’t complain! The other boys will be up in the top cellar where all the red ferments get going. I told them as long as I get to dig out (with a shovel over the top of the concrete fermenters) a few of the red ferments I will be happy.

I had my first real day doing proper work in the cellar to commence all that work: doing four wine rackings* of white juice and keeping the chilling on so it doesn’t commence fermenting prior to the weekend (Paul would like to have Sunday free before the craziness starts!)…fair enough!
racking: taking the clear liquid off the solids that have settled down the bottom

I knocked that on the head before lunch with the help of Stuart then got some more barrels sulphured, cleaned up my stations, cleaned some open fermenters, took grapes off trucks with my amazingly improved forklifting skills, then in the lab at the end of the day we were chatting with Prue & Stephen and he brought a ’62 Hill of Grace up to check it wasn’t corked before taking it to a tasting tonight, leaving us a glassful to take a whiff off and sample. Held up surprisingly well!

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Is she a drug dealer?

10 Feb
2010

I thought that getting up at 6:30 in the morning when I was over in Italy to go for a walk before work was bad…here at Henschke I am starting at 6am…that’s right, you heard me: START WORK at 6am! Hence I wake up at 5:05am (that five minutes makes a difference, I swear!), dress myself, try and look presentable, have breakfast, grab my pre-made lunch from the night before, and head out the door by 5:30am, making it to work on time. Talk about keen to work!

This week has been warm and humid with rain starting to come in. It makes for hard work in the afternoon and we’re usually all wrecked by the late afternoon from the mugginess draining your energy. We’re working through getting barrels sulphured and stacked, I have been sulphuring up the Hill of Grace, the Hill of Roses, the Mt Edelstone, the Tappa’s Pass and the Cyril. They’re names of some of the red wines belonging to Henschke here. I was so proud of myself yesterday because I managed to manipulate the barrels racks to get one I wanted several rows in from the side with the forklift which is bloody tricky, but clearly do-able if someone like me who doubts themselves can do it!
Today I was lucky to be inside so topped up the barrels with wine from one barrel, so that was nice to be by myself and have some alone time in the back shed they call ‘Air Force One’. After lunch crazy Harry found me and got me to simulate the life of a drug dealer by measuring accurately 100g of a suspicious white powder into small plastic bags for the vineyard crew. Sounds dodgy hey, but really I’m just being a smart-arse and I was getting measured bags of potassium metabisulphite (PMS) sulphur powder for the vineyard to be able to throw over the fruit bins easily. I did about 160 bags going through 16kg of sulphur. That stuff is potent!

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We drink a drink a drink a drink

6 Feb
2010
The other cellarhand at Henschke, my old mate Stuart and I got ourselves organised and ventured on up to Angaston for a fulfilling breakfast on this Saturday morning at the Blonde Cafe on the main street. After lining our stomachs we set off to our first destination on what was to be a day of wine tasting in the Barossa Valley. Stuart was driving, so like my brother David would say, ‘You can get smashed‘, but considering I’m not the type to get ‘smashed’ per say, I knew that most of my day would be spitting these palatable libations.
Yalumba called upon us from just outside of Angaston and here we sampled their extensive range, finally finding myself reaching for the wallet and purchasing two bottles of Riesling: 09 Pewsey Vale Riesling & 09 Heggies Vineyard Riesling. Moving along we stopped at the Taste of Eden wine bar in the main street and sampled a range of amazing Rieslings on offer from tiny producers in the Eden Valley, here I bought a Radford 09 Riesling that will be put down for a while I reckon. Can you tell I’ve got a thing for Rieslings yet?
Following on we walked up the road to the small producer Small Fry where we got talking for a while to the wife of the winemaker and ex-viticultural manager of Penfolds vineyards. She was fascinating and they had some really good wines. I ended up buying their food-friendly 09 Barossa Grenache Shiraz Mataro Carignan Cinsault blend from the Vine Vale sub-region of the Barossa Valley. Should look good in two years.
We stopped at Kaesler’s where my ex-boss Matt Harrop suggested we go as they have good wines and they crush Shadowfax’s Sauvignon Blanc the last two years. When we arrived there was a large tour bus of old people gradually leaving and buying up big on sweet white port and telling me ‘this one’s lovely, make sure you buy some too’….ahh….no thanks 🙂 The list on the cellar door was customised for the tour bus so at first I thought they had a pretty dodgy offering, until they realised that the two young un’s here weren’t with the old foggies and gave us the proper list and we went through and tried some ripper reds ‘Old Vine Shiraz’ and ‘Old Bastard’ were favourites of mine, and their McLaren Vale Nashwauk range was really interesting too.
By this stage our stomach’s were getting a little peckish so we winded our way first to Torbreck’s and were served by one surfy and totally ‘tubular surf man‘ free-lovin’ dude behind the cellar door and another who offered to take us down to Adelaide Hills sometime when we’re free. They also whipped out from behind the back a bottle opened up from a dinner the night before of their new 2005 Laird wine to be released sometime this year that will retail for $750 or something. It was an incredible wine…I will never buy it…but I’ve tried it and I can testify that it’s a bloody awesome full-bodied red. In an Arnold Schwartzenegger kind of accent I would say it had ‘the power’.

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Welcome to the Barossa

2 Feb
2010
BAROSSA VALLEY
I arrived here not even a week after landing back in the country after completing a vintage in Bolgheri, Italy. What am I here for? Henschke winery up in Keyneton. I’ve got a vintage placement here while there’s work to be done so will make the most of the opportunity and work as hard as I can. Considering the ‘work’ I did in Italy was so ridiculously easy in terms of workload and hours, I am really looking forward to getting down to some dirty work, earning some money, learning heaps from these guys and just having a ball!
WORK

It is only my second day working and my hands are already stained a dark colour from working with barrels…Lordy Lord, help me!
The work crew in the winery are a lovely bunch. There is the head boss and figure head Stephen and Prue Henschke who are so small, so cute, and incredibly nice people. Well-spoken and really interesting. Then I’d go onto my winemaking boss Paul Hampton who is really cool, funny, full of information, youngish and just great, so am really looking forward to working with him when he’s around. The assistant winemaker is Josh, a young, tall guy who’s really cruisy but really passionate. His family have a winery which he will take over one day so he’s in a great place to practice! There’s also the jovial Jack, the baby of the Henschke team, at the young 21 years old. He’s studying the same Wine Science degree that I did and seems older than his actual years say but is easy to work with and gives good direction. There are a whole bunch more of people of course but the main character would be Harry. My housemate warned me about Harry saying his language could be foul (if every second word turns out to be ‘bugger’ or ‘shit’ or ‘bloody hell’ then that’s what she was referring to), and he will tell you like it is. Turns out, I really like Harry so far! He explains things clearly and in a quintessentially male manner he knows everything about alloys, pumps, and stuff…most of the time I get the gist of what he is on about and other times I don’t…hey, I can’t be a full man here, can I!?
The winery is old, creaky, and quaint to say the least! So different from all the ubiquitous modern wineries around so it’s a great change and funny at times to see an ancient pump whirling around that’s been there since the 60’s or something. The floor where we empty/fill barrels is a purply colour at this stage because of the wine-tainted spit we cover it with. At least here they are pedantic about quality control and we taste every barrel that we come across. Thank god! There is Triple J radio playing in the background, not so loud so that you can hear the shouts for when the tank is almost full from across the other side of the winery. Sweat drips down your forehead as you careen the forklift in to pick up four barrels on the side – not a normal situation but Harry says you can fit more barrels into a warehouse this way. The sweat is because you’re dealing with quite the expensive product here, especially when one barrel can contain 225 litres of wine, you times that by how many bottles you’d get at 750mL, then by the retail price of each bottle…so if you drop it….shit.
At least my second day finished in true winemaking fashion: we all went upstairs to the lab where there were samples of the 2009 Henschke Hill of Grace from about 20 barrels. They would eventually make up the final blend and each was interesting with slightly different flavours, tannins, texture, length, depending on the cooper, the barrel (American or French), the forest the oak is from, the vineyards of course, whether the vines were 150 years old or 20 years old, the type of soil, the aspect of the vineyard…so many variables so it was really great to do with all of us there.
I also gave them my box of seven wines from Shadowfax winery that Matt Harrop had given me. Initially my housemate Monica who works in production told me that they don’t drink alcohol during work hours so no wine will be drunk she thought apart from beers on a Friday afternoon. But after chatting with winemaker Paul he told me once it’s vintage and we’re working long hours, we’ll have dinner here us six at the winery and they’ll usually go down to the ‘tunnel’ (the old wine storage area like the caves of Portugal) and select a mystery wine for everyone so we’ll get to drink some interesting stuff there he said. Yessssssssss!

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Arriverderci Bolgheri

20 Jan
2010
Casa dolce casa (home sweet home) 20th Gennaio 2010

Having spent the best part of January travelling around south-western Europe it was nice to come back to my old home Bolgheri in Tuscany for three days to just relax, eat fantastic food, and hang out with my friends and take the time to show mum around the countryside by bike and foot. We had a great time here and I got to show mum just how wonderful the Meletti-Cavallari’s really are at Grattamacco. Below are some of the last photos of our trip. Enjoy. The next instalments for La Donna Del Vino will be when I am in South Australia. I move there on Saturday to begin work on Monday at Henschke Winery in the Barossa Valley.

La macchina bella di Claudio (il meccanico di Piermario)
Claudio’s beautiful car (Piermario’s mechanic)

L’albero famoso di Toscana (the famous Tuscan tree)


Facendo una passeggiata nella città di Bolgheri (strolling through the town of Bolgheri)

Portando la Zaira per una passeggiata a Castagneto Carducci (Taking Zaira for a walk in Castagneto Carducci)

Il modo vecchio per asciugare i vestiti in Toscana (the old way of drying your clothes in Tuscany)

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Back with the La Spinetta gang and the Pilates experience

22 Dec
2009
This afternoon I finally made my way to the Castagnole delle Lanze winery where the La Spinetta gang are based to catch up with everyone else that I missed on Saturday evening. I took the train over from Alba and Pinuccio the agronomist picked me up in his beasty Fiat 4×4 and we had a brief but lovely chat on the ascent up the hill before he dropped me off.
On entrance into the winery I gradually ran into, hugged, kissed and talked with Gianni (only a little because he’s always quiet in general!), Salvatore (sono stata attacato a lui per un po’ parlando delle cose – a me lui e’ molto simpatico), Stefano (non ha detto tanto purtroppo, neanche all’inizio piu’ di ‘ciao’ e un bacio), Zwonko (con chi si parla delle cose piu’ vere e giuste nella vita, mi sembra comunque)m e Natalia (a lei ho detto sinceramente, ‘ma non hai cambiato per niente, sei ancora bella!’ e mi ha dato un bacio e un sorriso e ha detto ‘tu mi manchi’ con gli occhi blu (finto). Manuela came down and we all eventually went into the tasting room and had a bollicino to drink. Andrea finally arrived and we had some more. He doesn’t talk that much but Andrea has such a lovely presence it’s difficult not to smile when you look at him in all his lankiness!
Natalia wanted me to stay instead of going off with Manuela to Alba to do Pilates, but I informed them that Manuela is my passagio(ride) back to Alba so I have to go, despite Natalia’s suggestion that we do Pilates here at the winery all together! She wants me to work for them, they’d all heard I was going to be hired, then wasn’t, but still got work in Toscana. So they’re up with it!
Too soon it was time for me to go and I left with a kiss to them all wishing them all the best for the new year and festive season! Manuela and I did pilates for an hour. Manuela explained to the instructor that I’m keen to try out the class before committing in January, so it turned out to be free! Score!
It was only the two of us in this peaceful room and I followed the lady’s movements considerably well, taking into account it was my first time – the ol’ Pilates virgin hey! It was calming to focus on breathing for so long and working on all the core muscles starting from the legs to the trunk to the arms then stretching yourself out. There was only one time where I was struggling to do a certain pose on my knees and stomach so the lady came and sat behind me and was repeating what I had to do and I was concentrating so hard,finally I clicked that she wanted me to open my knees, raise my feet with my toes pointed outwards while holding my core…then I had to crush her hand she’d placed in-between my thighs (don’t get excited boys) as I breathed out and lowered my legs. Believe me, it wasn’t easy! I did it though in the end and overall she was impressed!
After farewelling Manuela I returned to Ornella’s place and she’d prepared a lovely salad with tuna and eggs. Back upstairs I prepared my bags for the train tomorrow as I am finally off to Sauze d’Oulx to see Lisa and Liana in the mountains after so long!

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Mangia Krystina, mangia!

20 Dec
2009

Whilst the ex-boss and wife and child were still sleeping I got up and had breakfast on my own in the kitchen and dressed for lunch as they informed me we were going to the ristorante Bovio in Ceretto Langhe with Ornella also in attendance. Together we rugged ourselves up and braved the chilly winter air and sat down to a wonderful lunch. We ordered and pretty much were all having an antipasto and a secondo but then the restaurant chef who knows Giorgio well ended up bringing us an antipasto on top of our other orders which consisted of carne crudo di vitello in small balls on bread, a spoon of insalata russa and grissini…the child of Anja and Giorgio, Lidia, is two years old and eats like an adult. In fact she ate more of the antipasti than everybody else. On top of that she also ended up eating an adult sized primo of agnolotti, then a smaller sized steak. Hungry kid.

My choices were coniglio then polpo caramellata. I brought Giorgio Meletti-Cavallari’s 2006 Impronte red wine for lunch. First we had a Spumante that was lovely, followed by a Vermentino done by Antinori which was terribly simple and bland. Then we had the Bolgheri rosso, which Giorgio said he liked but Anja wasn’t so keen on. We talked a little about the wine and how La Spinetta’s going etc. The coniglio was delicious in an involtini-style dish cut into slices with an orange-coloured sauce alongside. They followed up with a surprise primo of beetroot-coloured gnocchi with lobster sauce. Again delicious but rich and thankfully portioned well. Giorgio ordered another red wine blind as he wanted to be surprised and it tasted really good and ended up being the 2005 Sezzana (La Spinetta’s reserve Tuscan label) that he would like to put down for another 10 years even. I was really impressed with that one. I also came to learn that the reason for him drinking so much Vermentino of late is because La Spinetta Toscana are doing a Vermentino, 2009 being the first vintage from bought grapes.
My secondo of caramelized polpo (octupus tentacle) was ordered by Ornella and Giorgio also, and was too sweet and the balsamic darkness of the sauce overpowered the freshness or any polpo taste you were hoping to get! It was on a lovely bed of polenta but the sweetness dominated and ruined the dish overall. I mean, it wasn’t horrible, it just could could have been much fresher for fish, y’know?
Afterwards we had said no to dessert and they still brought us coffee cups of tiramisu, probably the best tiramisu I’ve tasted with a yellow-creamy topping, not white, so I wasn’t disappointed they brought us this, but we were trying to eat light! Che ridere! Amazing dessert.
Anja, Ornella and I went for over an hours walk after lunch up the hills to attempt to work it off and chatted about everything. I mentioned how I am going to start studying again and how I’m interested to learn the business side of things also. Anja was interested in that and I think in the new year we will see what we can work out, whether there can be some sort of arrangement. Can’t really say anything just yet.
Later on I went back to Alba with Ornella to her place and we reheated her pipes with a hairdryer to get water as it had frozen. The joys of living where there falls snow. It worked anyway, no matter how funny it looked blowdrying a box. We then went for a walk together and got an espresso in the centre of town before heading back. At 7pm Manuela Rivetti and her boyfriend Simone passed by the house and picked me up and together we had an aperativo first at Piazza Duomo in Alba with rockclimbing friends of Simone, then had dinner at ‘Il Corsiero’ in Cinzano with his group of rock-climbing buddies. The night was spent chatting away with Manuela about old times. Good times, good times.

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Oh how I missed you, Piemonte!

19 Dec
2009

This morning I grabbed my bags (plus 6 bottles of wine of Giorgio’s to pass on) and we drove to Cecina and had breakfast at the Principe Cafe. They took me to the station and I asked for a train ticket from here to Alba…the man behind the counter laughed and gave me the most doubtful look. Why? Perchè ha riso?

It’s snowing here still a little but they have had a surprise dump last night so trains that were leaving this morning from Firenze, or from the north have been delayed an hour, or two, or three. He suggests I leave tomorrow or try my luck anyway but anticipates I will run into problems in Genova. I call Anja (I am headed to Piemonte fyi to stay with the La Spinetta gang for whom I worked last year) and tell her I am going to try my luck! I will just buy my ticket to Pisa Centrale for now then we will see what they say there. Giorgio tells me if there is no trains, to use the same ticket to come back and try tomorrow. Anyway! With all this negativity about my subsequent journey I decide to give it a go nevertheless. Also because Anja informed me that tonight there will be a surprise birthday party for my old boss Andrea which means it will be a great opportunity to see everyone again.

Arriving into Pisa it’s a bit of a brothel. People everywhere in the main foyer, a queue a mile long to buy tickets from the teller, and the main screen is blacked out because perhaps there’s no point with so many delays. The smaller screens in the station list only those trains from this morning that are hours behind so there is no space to write the new trains on arrival. All one can do is wait! I decide to buy my ticket from the machine – stuff having human contact – and wait patiently at platform 4 in the bitter cold with others for our IC510 train to Torino Porta Nuova. We’re all hoping there’s no delay, it seems that only trains from this morning are really late. Otherwise, others have arrived a maximum of 20minutes late. Finally at 12:30pm the screen lights up to indicate our train exists! Woohoo! But will it arrive punctually? That is the question my friends! Everytime the screen goes black for some changeover we all expect to read that it has been cancelled or to read how many minutes ‘in ritardo’ it will be. Fortuunately my stars were well-aligned and the train arrived and we departed a measly 10minutes behind. Che fortuna!

The coastal landscape we took was beautiful and interesting as it was like winter in Pisa, spring in La Spezia, and winter again with snow in Genova. Overall, no problems and we arrived on time! My next train at Asti I took to Castagnole delle Lanze. Ahh…memories! Here at 17:30pm Anja with Giorgio and Lidia in the back picked me up and whisked me away from this cold, bitter chill in the Piemontese air. -1C outside it said. Brilliant.

I learn that Giorgio has lost his licence for drink-driving, and Lidia has grown and says my name and sings ‘Tanti aduuuri Andrea’ the whole way as we drive up Via Annunziata to the Castagnole delle Lanze winery of La Spinetta. I haven’t told any of the gang here that I am coming – only Clara knows as it was her organising the surprise party for her 30-year old son Andrea. When I get out of the car my old Italian mamma Emiliana was there and trying to see who it was so I said, ‘Ciaooo Emiliannaaaa’, and she got a shock and after a bit of ,’O Dio‘ (Oh God) I passed cautiously over the icy pacement and gave her a big hug and recollected what I am doing here, etc. Then I saw Clara and France, the other mums who live above the winery, and did the same. They haven’t changed, though France cut her hair short so she’s cute!

I grabbed a bottle of Impronte to give to Andrea as a birthday gift then went inside to the new degustation area they’ve finished. Impressive room! Eventually the parents of Andrea’s partner Noemi arrived and I chatted with the mum for awhile, she remember me from the Tuscany party last year. I went into the bathroom and when I came out I gave a surprise to Ele and Manuela, the girls I lived with for three months. Manu has cut her hair short and is a little pixie! We were speaking in Italian and she congratulated me on how well I speak. But then it was strange for her to be speaking Italian with me as last year all we spoke was English. I also met her boyfriend Simone who is very handsome and lovely and on meeting me said, ‘Ah, si si, Krystina Menegazzo, ma non sei in Turchia?’ Strange that he knew my last name and they’ve all seen my Turkey photos from Facebook!

Andrea finally arrived and was a little surprised, he also had his new baby boy Giulio with him too. Andrea had a big smile when he saw me. Stefano wouldnt be coming tonight which is a shame, I would have liked to see him too! Clara had made everything herself so we ate delicious Piemontese food. I tried a morsel of most things, insalata russa, carne crude di vitello, etc, everything bar the cheese and salami. Giorgio was doing the right thing and made sure I always had something in my glass as did his son Andrea, showing me the next vintage of La Spinetta Campe’ Barolo 2006…just like old times…vini vini vini! Turned out to be a superb evening seeing most of the crew, but I will try come back on the weekday to see everybody else properly too.

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I sogni dei ragazzi di Bolgheri

17 Dec
2009
Giorgio, Francesca and Greta have given me a new notebook as a christmas gift. Totally lovely of them! I just so happened to finish my other diary too so it is perfect timing. Plus the fact that they filled the first few pages with memories and notes makes it all the more special. The first page of the notebook reads: I have a dream and underneath it leaves you lines to write your dreams…this is what they wrote for themselves: 

Sogno di Giorgio:

  • avere almeno lo porsche
  • fare sesso con m…f…
  • fare il vino più buono nel mondo

Sogno di Franceseca:

  • girare il mondo
  • imparare l’inglese come Krystina
  • fare tante vacanze
  • imparare surf con il fratello di Krystina (cioe Davide)
  • conoscere tanta gente carina

Sogno di Greta:

  • vedere NYC
  • fare passito
  • avere una mia cantina
  • imparare l’inglese
  • imparare il portoghese
  • comprare un paio di Jimmy Choo
  • venire a trovarti in Australia
  • sposare il cantante dei Green Day

E poi ho scritto il nel spazio vuoto:

Sogno di Krystina:

  • avere una cantina piccola come Sorrenberg
  • girare il mondo, avere tante esperienze
  • assaggiare i vini più buoni con il cibo più buono
  • avere una enoteca buonissima e figa con la Amanda
  • fare il mio Masters in Wine Business
  • avere una casa mia con tutte le mie cose
  • avere una macchina dell’epoca – Fiat 500!

Nice thoughts, no?

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Ti disturbo?

23 Nov
2009

This is one of those things that I wasn’t sure if I should write about, purely for the fact that my mother reads this blog…or is at least my most avid reader (perhaps my only reader)…and to whom this will be the most disturbing. Nevertheless, I believe it is worthwhile to not only recount on the events that were exciting and interesting…but also those that are a little more disturbing. This, I am afraid, is definitely the latter.

I was up at 6:30am for my usual walk down the hill and along the quiet road that runs parallel to Via Bolgherese. Everything was fine and totally normal during my walk up until about 7:30am when I was on my way back towards the house and heard a car through the music of my iPod coming up behind me so I moved over to the right to let it pass. Turns out it was one of those ‘Api’ utes, I think they call them, the tiny one-seater utes with only three wheels that old men seem to use to carry stuff from A to B and not much else as they don’t have too much potential.
Anyway I immediately recognised the driver as the nice old man I’d met two weeks ago out the front of a private Olive Oil factory. That time he had been out the front with his car and as I was passing by he stopped to ask me if I knew the German people who lived up the hill as they’d closed the gate on him or something. After a bit of conversation I obviously slipped up and he realised I wasn’t Italian but we had a quick chat nevertheless and then I continued on my merry way. After then, a few times a week he would pass by on his truck and we would give a wave and I always thought, ‘Such a nice old man’ … can you tell where this is going already?
Back to the present, and the old Italian man in his car drove by slowly and I waved, smiled, and he opened his window and paused his car and apologised for disturbing my walk.
Figurati. (No problem), I’d said.
So we had a casual chat, why I’m walking (the Italians don’t fully understand the concept of purposeful exercise), what I do for work, how my Italian is going, do I like it here, sei fidanzata? (am I single)…?
Si, non ho un ragazzo. (Yes, I don’t have a boyfriend).
Ma ti garba i uomini in Italia? (But do you like Italian men?) (OK so I thought we were kidding around here, it seemed like he was).
Si, non sono male, sono simpatici. (They’re not so bad, they’re nice), I had said.
Ti do un passagio su? (Do you want a lift up the hill?)
Ah no grazie, devo fare la mia passeggiata. (No thanks, I have to do my walk).
Sto lavorando nel oliveto, sai dove? Si passa….ti aspetto li? (I am working in the olive grove past such and such, I will wait for you?) followed by a rude gesture with his lingua.
Ah…no…., I said, stepping away further from the vehicle.
Ma dai, si deve divertirsi nella vita! Sei veramente bella! (But you need to enjoy life! You are really beautiful!)
No grazie, sto bene, buona giornata! (No thanks, I’m OK, good day!) and I slammed the car door and he drove off.
That’s the end of the story thank god…but suffice to say I will be taking a completely different route from now on. My boss Giorgio and the girls have said they will be my bodyguards from now on anyway! Or perhaps I’ll just carry a golf club around with me to knock these vecchi on the head the next time they try something!

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Colle Massari winery visit

18 Nov
2009
Before venturing off on a bit of a day trip today, my boss Giorgio and I had to stop off at the winery first. As instructed I was dressed nicely with my little red Dorothy-like shoes. When we arrived at the winery in Bolgheri, Giorgio decides to inform me that I will need to transfer the heating ‘banana-looking’ device from tank 21 to 20. Normally a job accomplished in pairs, it turns out that someone arrived and I ended up doing it on my own instead (safety first, I changed into my gumboots!). Then I got some water and sulfur and back in my little red shoes I scaled some barrels that were going through malolactic fermentation and cleaned one of them that had bubbled over and had vinegar flies around it. Finally we were ready and Francesca, Giorgio, Stefano & Fabio from Michele Satta winery and myself drove off in the sleek and silver Mercedes Benz to Grosseto, eventually crossing into the hills to at last visit Colle Massari – the winery business that acquired Grattamacco a few years ago from Piermario Meletti-Cavallari.

The guy who owns the business now is obviously rolling in moolah and has not overlooked any expense to create a magnificent winery of the utmost materials. The barrel hall is roofed and walled in the material that one uses for the interior of sauna’s… is that pine or spruce? Of notable cellar geek importance was that the winery has the Bucher Vaslin Flavy FX 5 cross flow, which can go through their standard-sized 100hL tanks in under an hour. Very impressive!
Luca, the director of Colle Massari and Grattamacco, gave us le grand tour and a taste of their current Vermentino in tank from one vineyard, and another in the huge barrels that was undergoing malo. In the barrel hall we tasted 2008 and current Sangiovese wines. Some that were quite powerful and others that were not so interesting.
For lunch they have a chef and waitress on duty so we had six sitting down for a deliciously, exquisite full-course meal of a small appetiser with some fresh white beans and barley, porcini mushrooms, and some liver pate’ artfully arranged on a white china plate. This was followed by the primo of a small amount of perfectly al-dente penne pasta with a chingiale (wild boar) and funghi sauce which I added a little pepperoncino to to really set it off. For secondo it was meat that melted in your mouth, and dolce was a little bowl of macedonia (fruit salad). Afterwards Luca took us to the other properties that this very rich owner behind the Colle Massari project has invested in, including a castle, more vineyards, and an agriturismo. I noted that the roads to these destinations have been recently asphalted to accommodate his Ferrari…typical.

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