Tag Archives: Haha

Top 10 Wine Trends to Avoid in 2011

29 Mar
2010

1. Mixing OJ and bubbly

Why ruin a good glass of fizz with orange juice? Just serve half a glass on its own, and leave the OJ to those who really need the taste. Same goes for Midori and bubbly. Eeek!

2. Having ice with white wine

Not even on the hottest of days is this allowed – unless the wine is under $5. It ruins the taste and looks stupid. Sink your feet into an ice bucket if it’s that hot, and sink your palate into the real flavours of the wine. Spritzers excepted.

3. Sparkling v champagne

Champagne is the bubbly that comes from the region of Champagne only, in France. That $12 bottle of Jacobs Creek is not.

4. Red wine with lemonade/coke/water

The only people allowed to do this are Italians – usually with their own home brew because it was made in 1986 and there’s still heaps of flagons in the shed.

5. Pouring a bottle straight away

Wine is full of rich, complex intense flavours. You need to let it breathe/decant before it’s at its optimum. I don’t need to explain the concept of foreplay here, but it’s the same thing essentially.

6. Hibiscus flowers and strawberries

Sure it looks fancy mixed with bubbly at those B-list parties but, c’mon… They go to waste and then we’re left to dispose of them on the floor when no one’s looking.

7. Small wine glasses

We’ve come a long way in recent times in realising that wine evolves better and quicker in bigger glasses (see point five). But some restaurateurs still insist on serving top-notch wine in those archaic, shapeless 200ml things. Open up!

8. Drinking wine too cold

The colder your white wine, the less flavour it will impart on your palate. Most whites are drunk way too cold. The more expensive whites should be taken out of the fridge and drunk about 15 minutes later. Try it – you’ll find the flavours are more robust. The same rule can apply for heavily-flavoured, Belgian-style beers.

9. Cheap New Zealand sauvignon blanc

There’s such an over-supply of this NZ grape, particularly from the Marlborough region, that people are confusing good value with good wine. If you really want to try a cracking sauvignon blanc from NZ, give the Cloudy Bay Te Koko a ride. Then try going back to drink that $15 crap.

10. Being scared

It might seem unnatural, but swirling and sniffing your wine (in a big glass) will make the experience of drinking it doubly enjoyable. Get into it, don’t worry about looking like a wine snob. Or of spilling some on your clothes. Embrace what’s in your glass and let it fly open to your senses.

Courtesy of your Daily Wine News

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Skidmarks…

26 Mar
2010

Not the ones in your undies…ewwwww

The one’s on the roads I mean.
Today was a bad day for the roads. This morning on the way to work there were three of us one car in front of the other on our way towards Keyneton when right in the middle of the bitumen sat (yes sat) a sheep. Swerrrrrve! Kamikaze sheep at 6:50am is a little scary!
Then on the way home from work I was heading around a wide bend when my car started veering onto the dirt and as I turned to adjust myself my car swung to the side, turned 180 degrees, chewed up a massive cloud of dirt and left me facing the other way on the opposite side of the road. I wasn’t shaken up, and luckily there was no on-coming traffic, just Stuart from work behind me who pulled over and made sure I was ok, wiping a generous licking of dust off the side of my car. From the burn marks my tyres left it doesn’t look like I turned 180 degrees somehow. But it was all slow motion and I just tried to control my car so I wasn’t hit the barbed wire fences and just keep skidding along the road. It was the right thing to do, and I’m OK. First little incident for my little car. At least no damage was done to it or myself.
On a much brighter note, at work today the boys asked me if I would like to be the Temp Goddess…the Temp Goddess? I hear you say. We had Tempranillo grapes come in yesterday and we’ve sectioned them off to be fermented and made in several ways so since Jack is busy with the other reds, it is going to be my duty to make these my babies and care for them. Will keep you updated on how I fare!
Over and out! Buon weekend

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Gazza’s boots are full of wine :-(

22 Mar
2010

Whoooaaa OK so I just finished work at 8:15pm. It didn’t seem like it would become such a long day, yet it did. Things just happen like that.

Alas, today the Gazza Gone Wild in the Muscat Undie Parade is no more. I arrived in the morning to see the lid on top of the fruit bin about three inches up on top of the rising grapes. So I had to use a bucket and put half the bin into another, meaning I can now get in there without having to take my shorts off. We were all a little disappointed by that news. It was good fun while it lasted though!
This evening we crushed some Mount Edelstone fruit that came in and I was helping Jacky boy outside then decided I would put the heading-down boards on top of the grapes, seeing as I’d done it before one time with winemaker Fella. It seemed like it would be no problem. Stephen Henschke saw me and decided to give me a hand, even though I told him he shouldn’t because he was wearing a nice blue shirt and pants.
As I traversed over the sides of the fermenter there was one next to me, Fermenter 5, still bubbling away with Cabernet from Blenky. The boards I’d laid out on the side were waxed and had a little water on them meaning when I stepped on them (when I should have stepped over them), I slipped, and right in front of Stephen, I fell onto the boards and into the wine of Fermenter 5. Lucky for the boards otherwise there could have been more damage. I didn’t hurt myself, I assured Stephen, but my shorts have one purple leg, and my boots and socks were drenched in Cabernet ferment. Put simply, I smell like wine….a lot!
The boys had a good laugh, I think I am the first person to officially ‘fall in’ this vintage. I knew it would be me. I blame it on the fact I wasn’t wearing my glasses at the time. Whoops. The second fermenter I boarded up after that went fine, no dramas, and I had put my glasses on for that, so for now I am sticking to that theory….and not clumsiness!

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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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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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