Kia Ora, readers!
We knew the day would come. We spoke about it back in Canada, during our semi-frequent meetings, while purchasing our equipment or designing the blog or simply dreaming up whatever New Zealand would have in store for us:
Eventually, we’ll have to work. We don’t know where, or when, or doing what, but we’ll have to work. It is a working holiday, after all.
And so the funds have reached a record low to the point where we no longer feel comfortable hurling ourselves off bridges or stepping foot on a volcano. We’re here in Blenheim, in the heart of Marlborough (a region that produces about three quarters of New Zealand’s wine, despite being only one of ten regions!) and we’re toiling away in the vineyards. The work, while mindless, is repetitive, with long hours; work usually starting promptly at seven and often continuing past five o’clock in the evening.
We pluck out diseased fruit, string up nets to keep pests and birds away, or (our personal favourite, NOT) removing the ‘second set’ of grapes from the Pinot Noir vines.
Second set sucks. They’re the second round of grapes that won’t ripen in time for harvest, and so we have to pluck them from the vines so that the plant then focuses all it’s energy and nutrients into ripening the remaining grapes into producing a fleshier, more flavourful and softer wine.
It’s great to know that we’re contributing to a successful batch of wine in 2015, but damn are the vineyards massive here. Marlborough is this big, dry, almost desert-like valley surrounded by rolling mountain ranges, jagged and interspersed. The way they play with the sunsets and sunrises sports a very understated beauty (at least by New Zealand standards.)
We’ve pumped in about ten solid days of labour with Kula Contracting, which is a company employed by Montana Wines, which is a company owned by the beverage company Pernod-Ricard, which is a company owned by the company Louis-Vuitton Moet-Hennessey, or LVMH, which is a company that apparently owns every fancy luxury product in the world, ever, for the rest of time.
So naturally, it’s hard not to feel like a drone or worker be as we plod along the rows of vines, some 330+ plants long, scouring and studying the foliage for small little green buds of grapes that are just oh-so good at hiding from us.
We knew the day would come. We spoke about it back in Canada, during our semi-frequent meetings, while purchasing our equipment or designing the blog or simply dreaming up whatever New Zealand would have in store for us:
Eventually, we’ll have to work. We don’t know where, or when, or doing what, but we’ll have to work. It is a working holiday, after all.
And so the funds have reached a record low to the point where we no longer feel comfortable hurling ourselves off bridges or stepping foot on a volcano. We’re here in Blenheim, in the heart of Marlborough (a region that produces about three quarters of New Zealand’s wine, despite being only one of ten regions!) and we’re toiling away in the vineyards. The work, while mindless, is repetitive, with long hours; work usually starting promptly at seven and often continuing past five o’clock in the evening.
We pluck out diseased fruit, string up nets to keep pests and birds away, or (our personal favourite, NOT) removing the ‘second set’ of grapes from the Pinot Noir vines.
Second set sucks. They’re the second round of grapes that won’t ripen in time for harvest, and so we have to pluck them from the vines so that the plant then focuses all it’s energy and nutrients into ripening the remaining grapes into producing a fleshier, more flavourful and softer wine.
It’s great to know that we’re contributing to a successful batch of wine in 2015, but damn are the vineyards massive here. Marlborough is this big, dry, almost desert-like valley surrounded by rolling mountain ranges, jagged and interspersed. The way they play with the sunsets and sunrises sports a very understated beauty (at least by New Zealand standards.)
We’ve pumped in about ten solid days of labour with Kula Contracting, which is a company employed by Montana Wines, which is a company owned by the beverage company Pernod-Ricard, which is a company owned by the company Louis-Vuitton Moet-Hennessey, or LVMH, which is a company that apparently owns every fancy luxury product in the world, ever, for the rest of time.
So naturally, it’s hard not to feel like a drone or worker be as we plod along the rows of vines, some 330+ plants long, scouring and studying the foliage for small little green buds of grapes that are just oh-so good at hiding from us.
Of course, when in wine country, one has to drink wine. The Marlborough food and wine festival, NZ’s biggest wine event, took place on Feb 14th, with over a hundred wineries and food venders in one beautiful location at Brancott Estates. All told, I tasted about fifteen different wines that day. Each one *hiccup* more tasty than the last. There was great live music, excellent food (particularly the local seafood: paua, oysters, chili lime and macadamia scallops, the list goes on). Between cooking demonstrations and wine seminars and dancing, it was hard to notice that everyone there, of all ages, shapes and sizes, was steadily getting on the piss. Good thing there were water packs strapped to the backs of several people, who would walk around with hose in one hand and the pump in the other.
As hard as the work is, though, there is, I think, deep down, a part of us that is happy we are working in NZ. If we had just drained out money and taken off back to Canada, then really what we’ve done here is just a prolonged, budget-conscious vacation. But now that we’ve settled, sought out a job and put in some solid hours of work, I really think we’ve reached that level that changes ‘vacation’ into ‘travel.’ We’ve also befriended our co-workers, and in Blenheim we have managed to find our highest concentration of Canucks thus far in New Zealand. At a table of ten, all but one were canadian. There was so many toques and plaid flannel at the table, you’d half expect to see Bob and Doug McKenzie and their “strange brew.”
Two weeks is all we have, though. In a few days we head off to the Nelson/Tasman region, thus completing our full loop of the south island. There we will be back at WWOOFING, this time on an organic vineyard where we will help with harvest, winemaking, taking care of horses, and several other learning experiences to be had, we’re sure. This adventure keeps rolling on. We meet more and more people, seeing new places, it’s getting to the point that we’re glad we have to blog just to keep track of it for our own sakes.
As always, we appreciate the readers who take the time to gander at this site. Know that we often think of all of you back home and all the people we’ve met along the way! Thanks for sharing this adventure with us. Considering that we're making it up as we go along, without a single plan, it’s been such a blast so far.
But now, as always, onwards! Forever onwards.
Cheers!
-K&B
-K&B