Now With Pictures!

Alright, this is just a placemark blog to let you all know that I'm here and you're there and I need to get on my update, like, yesterday. I'm in Nelson (please refer to your maps), where it has just turned to drizzly Fall, and am slowly moving toward Wellington and back to work. I am well and will be better when my laundry is dry.
In my next entry - coming shortly - I will attempt to cover the winetasting roadtrip (9 in one day - an alltime record), the glacier and how to do nothing in Hokitika and have a great time doing it.

Thanks to my web gurus - Mr. Johnson and Phineus/Tom/Dad - I have added photos to my previous posts. Feel free to browse down thru past entries and note the colorful images. Also note the prominent placement of the EnZed map, and new links to eMail me, or link to the website of my upcoming employer.

I love and miss you all . . . Matt

Mr. Anti-Freeze

Greeting from Central Otago, the southernmost winegrowing region in the world. 'Cold climate viticulture' is what they call it. As Dom sez: "if you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room" And he'd know, cuz he's the the one that has to spend the nights in the vineyard fighting the Spring and Autumn frosts. The weather here is schizophrenic to say the least. Before I arrived temps were in the low 30's. My first couple of weeks here were 25-27 - singlet and jandal weather. March 1st the thermometer dipped to -1.1, before bouncing right back up. Two days ago there was a freak tornado in Greymouth, snow-capped mountains down to 900 meters, and serious risk of another freeze in the vineyard.

I got the call around 9 'o'clock - did I want to spend a cold night out at the Bendigo Vineyards with a thermos of hot water, a digital thermometer and the possibility of a helicopter ride? Hell yes. Now this is the romance of viticulture; 4-wheeling the dusty vineyard roads, rabbits and opossum scurrying through our hi-beams and under our wheels, walking the rows watching the digital readout in our shivering hands. Three factors contribute to a freeze - I learned in my crash course - 1) temperature, 2) relative humidity, 3) wind speed. If the wind is blowing or the air is thick with humidity, or both, ice won't form on the plants even at lower temps. There are two ways to combat this sort of freeze; water and fans. Many vineyards have overhead sprinklers installed. Before the freeze occurs, the sprinklers are activated. A layer of ice forms on the plants, trapping the warmer temps beneath that layer and thus protecting the plant. Fans come in two forms, wind machines or helicopters which force the warmer inversion layer down onto the freezing plants, warming up the lower air around the plant and creating an active environment where ice cannot form.

It's really a hang out and wait situation. The helicopters were waiting in the dark - the pilot just a phone call and 45 minutes drive away. We caught a brief sleep in a forty-footer shipping container that Dom has converted into his vineyard flat. Queen-size bed, couch and armchair set, front porch kitchen through the glass sliding doors - luxury bred out of neccessity. We woke around 1:30 and began our vigil. Between 2 am and 4:30 the temperature dropped from 1.8 to 0.5. We sipped hot tea and debated the variables. It was a new moon and the crystal clear sky revealed the stars of the Southern Hemisphere - the Southern Cross riding just over the snow-kissed ridge of the Pisa Range. But no cloud cover paired with no wind is no good. We turned the sprinklers on the lower Riesling block. Back at the West Pinot noir block, ice crystals were forming on the deadmen that anchor the trellising system, but there was a bit of dew on the cold leaves and the temp was holding steady. Then it jumped a degree, went down 0.2 . . . We waited. No protective ice was forming on the Riesling. The thermometer fluctuated barely in the mid-1 degrees. At 6:30 Dom decided that if it did freeze, the sunrise would beat out the pilot to warm the fruit, and we crawled into our container cold and tired and ready to do battle another day.

Ah, the drama. One more week in the vineyards I think, then Margo and I will head-out on a tour of the Canterbury, Waipara, Marlborough and Nelson winegrowing regions. She'll head back down here to prepare for Vintage, and I'll spend a week or so on the Wild West Coast of the South Island - home to pot growers, glaciers, bushmen and hu hu grub eaters - before getting back up to the North Island. I'll update and post pics when I can.

Luv Ya -

- Matt