Friday, August 23, 2002
Hello World.
I’m in Queenstown. Got here a day early. Here’s how…
Dunno, it’s a landmark for sure. Another pretty girl. This one’s married… now. Sigh. I had my chance.
Isabelle, Turlough (sorry dunno how he spells it), and I got in a car and drive south-west. It started flat and dull. A little dusty even as we powered across the foothills of snowy peaks. Eventually we turned up and into the hills. A little greener, a few more sheep. But gradually it got colder, and less treed, more tundra, brown, bleak and perhaps a little mean.
The mission was to scope out the Otago wine region. What have they got? What are they planning? What does it taste like? Can they give us a job?
Isabelle and Turlough are doing a one year course on Viticulture and Oenology (spelling?) at Lincoln this year. They want to work on a vineyard, or in the cellar. They like wine. So much so that they want to make a career of it. Isabelle dreams of a little winery in a nice place with James by her side. Turlough, I dunno, the fireman turned wine merchant turned wine distiller, as long as there’s a beautiful blonde and a dog in his future, he’ll be jolly.
After finding a room in Cromwell (the ‘Chalets’ are a little more remenisent of school camp than my recent idea of chalets, but no mind). We set out and launched our assault on four of the local wineries. Tasting, schmoozing, critiquing, and asking good questions. I may now know more about the South Otago wine region than any of you ever will. Frost was the most amusing. One cold morning and the whole crop could be lost. But each had only just pockets lost unusually. I’m surprised by the terrain they are planting in. Some of so rocky terraces were blasted out. One grower is working hard to establish a reputation for Pinot Noir, to distinguish the region from the famous Sav Blanc’s coming out of a more northern region. The wines all taste fine to me, but i’m just not all that into it at heart. I’d be proud of any one of them. Some beautiful rugged country these people are living in. Very much like the Okanagon region of interior British Columbia (Canada). It was curious to observe the personality and business differences between the small risk takers who have pioneered this area. As large investors gobble up sheep farms at spiralling high prices. Grapes are going in everywhere. Golf, what else… Restaurants, and helicopters from Queenstown. Welcome back to the rest of the world.
‘The most photographed winery in the world.’ So I took one too. I’m the short one
Night Two was a summer cabin in the caravan park – no heating. Lots of empty $70 motels in town, but the backpackers was washed away by the flood, two years past, along with the oldest pub in NZ. Alexandra was a mining town which seems to be doing very well. We couldn’t really work out why. Just a rural intersection I think. But nice local people, and probably beautiful in a few more weeks – spring. A couple more wineries this morning, and time for goodbyes. I really enjoyed my time with Isabelle and Turlough on their adventures, and I learnt heaps. But dizzy lights of Queenstown beckon. They dumped me at Wanaka, and I got a bus into town.
That’s it. I’m the advance party for the mission beyond on Queenstown. Cya.
posted by John Mee at 6:24 PM
