Archive

This is for all the traveling winemakers, backpackers and adventurers  planning to, thinking of or about to be persuaded by to work harvest in New Zealand! It’s the middle of Kiwi vintage #NZV15 and I bet in about a month or two when harvest ends, some of you (if you haven’t already) are going to embark […]

The first thing to know for Chasing New Zealand Verasion is that harvest is in the spring, or is it fall? Ok let’s keep this universal and say ‘New Zealand’s wine harvest happens in or around February-May.’

Harvest in New Zealand, or anywhere in the southern hemisphere, is another way to get great experience and a different perspective, especially if you had worked harvest in the northern hemisphere exactly prior to that. Hopefully you’ve saved up enough money to travel and get to your destination, sold your car to afford your next plane ticket and you’re off to another adventure, new land, different wines, more great friends to make.

Home Sweet Home   Harvester; totally power rangers, right? Ten tons of Gewürtztraminer – first fruit of the crush in the middle of the night   The Office     Johannes – Crush Control   Jenny – Punchdown Princess   View from the top of the 5-ton fermentors, trying not to breathe too deep. CO2 […]

We pulled the slightly dirtier-than-when-we-left Falcon into the dirt lot by our double wide.  The winemaker and our new boss, Stefan, was probably slightly surprised to see us return (alive), although we looked a bit battered, bitten by sand flies, unshowered, and slightly hungover.  Your interns are back!! We started the next day, 60 TONS of […]

We only stopped off the road for Pegasus Bay on our way to Queenstown and Central Otago. We walked through the door and into a German conversation between our host and her cousin. Sometimes even all the way across the world can feel like home. The first wine, a Sauvignon Blanc/Semillion was done in the […]

We packed our co-worker, Tony’s 1991 Ford Falcon station wagon with our backpacks and left for Marlborough with the parting words in his best Kiwi accent: ‘it doesn’t lock, but don’t worry, do what I do – whenever I bring my kayak out, I just back up to a wall so no one can steal […]

As the early winter made itself at home on the Mosel River, experts were saying it was going to be a long, dark and cold winter, perhaps the most so in history. We were living in the house next to Johannes’ family, lucky because his mom made a delicious lunch (the biggest meal of the […]

We initially started this blog to document our story, travels and wine adventures, but many followers later, we’ve got a reputation to hold up!  *No slackers please* Over the course of the next several posts, we’ll tell a story of how we met, and the one August, at which part our two journeys became one. Undefinable, […]