Self Call

I wrote a little piece about the 2011 vintage in South Australia for a publication edited by my gorgeous friend Natalie.  Do check it out... the pictures are pretty :)

Kangaroos, Wallabies, Emus, Oh My!

The view from our KI rental home

Yesterday my two closest friends both departed Adelaide for holidays with their respective families.   Chocolate does not taste as good today.  I'm fighting sadness with memories of happier times.

Time has flown since I last wrote.  I was hunkered under a pile of academic work for a while, and then, relieved of that duty, have been indulging in a bit of travel, filling the rest of time with work of the money-earning kind.  I've had two spectacular trips in the past 3 weeks, one to the Coonawarra, and another to Kangaroo Island.  Let's do a brief rundown of each!

The Coonawarra is a iron-board flat strip of land about 80 miles from the sea on the Limestone Coast.  It is famous for its Cabernet Sauvignon, a varietal which (in my old age) I am coming to appreciate as the king of grapes.  Distinctive though it is, a good Cabernet displays a singularly wide range of aromas and nuances as it gracefully, elegantly ages.  Just like a well-raised person, it is neither subject to fashion nor pleasurable to fools.  Its best expressions require proper oaking and diligent care, and only in very specific spots (Bordeaux, Coonawarra, Stellenbosch, arguably Napa) does it ripen to the sort of perfection that results in a strong, velvety, developed, and thought-provoking wine.

There are many wines that get me excited: muscled & sexy Barolo, pensive & earthy Pinot Noir, outgoing & dynamic Grenache... (this is just my homage to reds)... zesty & gritty Zinfandel... But Cabernet Sauvignon... heavens, this isn't just a wine you want to take home to mom.  It's a wine you adore and want all for yourself, even as you want to share its joy with the world.  It's a wine for now if impatience strikes, and it's a wine to cellar for 35 years and enjoy in old age.  It only improves with age.  In every bottle is the opportunity to learn more, grow into a deeper appreciation, and be inexpressibly happy with the tutorial.  By my rough estimate, one really good Cabernet is worth ten bottles of lesser stuff, yet it does not need to be pricey nor flashy nor hip to earn its respect as a noble grape.  In fact, what I liked most about the Coonawarra is the close-knit community and the sense that the winemakers there are just winemakers, the viticulturalists are just farmers with a specific passion.  The terroir is perfect for Cab Sav, and so that's what they make, humbly as that.  And, boy, what they make is brilliant.

Sparing everyone the details of the itinerary (I recognize that most people aren't as nerdy as I am about wine), suffice to say we tasted a whole heap of good wine, and were really impressed in particular by the vintage wine available for sale.  Any day you're drinking wine older than yourself... that's a good day.
The company was pretty spectacular too.  Six of us piled into my roommate's big red Holden station wagon (affectionately called "Ed"), and with the exception of a flat tire on the return drive, we tooled around the region in real style and passable comfort.  We rented a cute little beach house on the coast, and basically spent four days cooking one another good food and drinking good wine.  Hedonism?  Bring it on.

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Remarkable Rocks

This past week I went to Kangaroo Island with three friends for a much quieter and calmer getaway.  Aptly named, the 90-mile long island is home to lots of native and extremely cute Australian wildlife.  We saw many wallabies, one big bounding kangaroo, sea lions, seals, and birds by the score.  The major disappointment was the platypus, who would not emerge from his watery haunt to show us his beak and webbed feet.  I suppose I'll have to go to the zoo... because I'll be bummed if I leave this place without seeing the world's most bizarre mammal.

Remarkable Danger!!

A return trip to KI is definitely in order.  We checked off the tourist must-sees, including the Remarkable Rocks (see right... complete with obligatory fear-mongering sign), Admiral's Arch, and the sheep dairy.  We had an awesome, butter-filled lunch at the Marron farm... marron are Australia's delicious little answer to Louisiana crayfish and Maine lobster.  We tasted some small-production gin and liqueurs at the tiny island distillery.  Wish I'd taken a picture of the copper still.  We checked out Clifford's Bee-and-Honey operation, which I found utterly fascinating.  KI is home to the world's only remaining pure strain of Ligurian bees, which makes it biologically special and important because Ligurian bees are prized for quality honey and a good temperament... It is now on my list to learn more about bees... absolutely fascinating creatures.

The evenings in KI passed in good company, eating good food (probably eating way too much, honestly), and then staying up late chatting about life and plans.  My friends might say I've been inexhaustibly talkative on the subject of "life" recently.  Lots to think about, lots of logistics and hopes and dreams to sort through.  It's nice to feel as if I'm on the right track, however hard it is to stomach the reality that not everything is within my control.  One lives in hope, and continues to work hard.

That's a nice thing about this summer.  I'm here, at the massive sacrifice of family time and traditions and comfort, in order to work... Working hard keeps the mind busy... and it's hard to do much heavy lifting with fingers crossed.  So I'll just keep my head down and keep posting the good news! 

me, worried,  in a rock

Bragging? Maybe. Only a little.

I am so very, irrepressibly pleased with the newest development in my life: a job at a gorgeous winery in McLaren Vale.  For those of you tracking my progress, this means I have two jobs... both fantastic in their own ways... to keep me busy all summer.

The general theme of this blog has been not to name names or specify places (protect the innocent), so I'll follow suit here.  I will however, show off a picture from the winery's website, just to emphasize what I mean when I say 'gorgeous:'

It's such a great feeling to have a position for the right reasons, at an organization where the philosophy jives perfectly with passions I was already developing.  The winery is very keen on sustainable development, organic growth (of the business and the vineyards alike), and honest creation of quality.  And the wine is definitely quality.

The whole place resonates with a lovely purity of spirit and practice.  Sheep and cows graze in pastures alongside the vineyard, cover crops grow freely between rows of grapes, fish swim in the reservoirs that provide irrigation to the property, a pile of natural fertilizer sits in the sun with its earthy rich stink filling the air.  The winery dogs are as adorable and friendly as can be.  The winemaking philosophy is a modernized, hands-off approach: wild-yeast ferments, natural malo, aged oak regimens.  And there's a window in the cool, dark barrel shed that looks out across the vineyard, so it's impossible for workers in the cellar to forget that this product--which demands scientific attention and will be shipped to all points of the globe in glass bottles--this wine actually comes from a real place... right up there, where the sunlight is hitting the crest of the green hill.

Perhaps I'm obsessing a little bit, but perhaps that's as it should be.  I feel incredibly lucky to be included in this business and in this industry, and am thrilled to get to work.  I've been pooling my talents, honing the resources for a good long while now, and finally I'm in the position to use it for a good cause!  And there's more to learn!  Always ways to grow!

Then too, this position finally gets me on track towards a happy future that I've been blueprinting for some time now: working hard to cultivate, sustain, and promote a beautiful little piece of the world... (somewhere!)... hopefully one day adding in the blessing of my own beautiful family to raise, take care of, and proudly send into the world.  Its a profoundly fulfilling and edifying dream.  It's all about living in the now, for the betterment of what is to come.

I don't think it's totally crazy to think of wine as a savior against a robotic and soulless future.  Really now:  What better product than wine--with its hedonic peaks and scholarly valleys, its modern growth and ancient roots--to draw the everyday consumer into its nuances?  A lot of people want to get geeky and proud about wine knowledge, but I think wine lovers revel in yammering on about wine because it's fundamentally a glorious, unanswerable mystery.  Every vintage, every vineyard, every bottle offers a new opportunity to marvel at what nature has produced and man has harnessed for a moment.  How is it possible to drink wine without honoring the grapes, the vines, and the land from which it is born?   Nature--given her own way--never fails to awe those who are still, and quiet, and looking out across the landscape.  There's a beautiful, inexplicable flowing continuity of life bound up in the land, and wine invites us simply to bask in it.  

Or get nerdy about it, or pay too much for it, or share it with friends on the beach, or simply unwind.  What a gorgeous, happy life!

An Update, for You

In recent months, I have had the joy of stumbling across and spending time with a superb individual, one of those types I knew at hello would be worth keeping in my life forever. Such a rare and precious gem is a true friend: someone who makes the day bright with their presence, and--as the cocktail-hour line quips--knows me and likes me anyway.

I am flattered and heartened that this friend emailed tonight to remind I must update my blog. He knows, perhaps better than I, that there are other equally wonderful people in my life who are interested in my comings and goings, and I'm blessed to have a community that cares about me, however far-flung we all may be. Thanks for the love and the emails... let me offer up a slice of the current life Down Under.

I've felt happily busy here in the springtime of Australia, awakening as it were from a strange several-year-long slumber of directionless curiosity for life. Perhaps that was the post-college slump the books warned me about. Thank heavens I made such a picturesque adventure out of it, or else the time might have been maddeningly sad. I feel now as if I'm really getting my head around a path and purpose, and I'm invigorated for the next steps.

Are you in the mood for music? Check out Stornoway. I can't get this song out of my head.





As for the updating...
Today was spent in the glistening sunshine of a spring day, serving wine to people at a croquet "match" (if you could consider it that organized) at a beautiful spot in the Adelaide Hills. This is my new job. Or a component of it, rather. I'm working at the cellar door/tasting room for a winery, and my responsibilities range from pouring tastes and selling wine on gorgeous sunny days in a warehouse full of (filled) wine barrels... to fixing broken, leaking, hot-water spewing dishwashers during a 120-person charity dinner. On any given day, there are hundreds of 40 lb boxes to move here and there and back again, thousands of glasses to polish, sales quota to be met, wedding seatings to set up, crowds to control, cash drawers to reconcile, port wine to siphon out of the big barrels into the little one, the winery dog to tame, company politics to interpret, over-exuberant drinkers to calm, flower arrangements to maintain, dishes to wash, group events to oversee, complaints to field, driving directions to explain, local attractions to recommend, bathrooms to keep tidy, recycling to take out, bread to bake, cheese platters to make, small children to entertain, olive pits to clean up from the floor, inventory to track... all (preferably) in a skirt... though today I wore a flouncy white dress to fit the croquet theme. Yes, I enjoyed the flouncing.

The bulletpoints on a resume never really do justice to the nuances of a position held. Let it be said that the best hire must be able to maintain good humor and think on her feet. And be on her feet from now until whenever. It's a little like being a mom, maybe!

(Thank you, Mom)

I actually love the job. The work is exhausting in all the right ways, and days pass amidst the splendor of nature. There is no shortage of ways to make other people happy, whether with wine, a smile, or a reference to the pretty sky outside. What a blessed way to earn some money and fill a day.

When I'm not making money, I'm working. School this semester has felt like a grind, not nearly as thought-provoking as it could be, and demanding a lot of grunt work to get the grades. To what end? For the degree... for the job... for the resume... yadda yadda... I look at these academic pursuits as a means to a very agreeable end. I've also started attending lectures outside of my major, which have added a fantastic dimension to my little world, both in terms of people met and knowledge acquired. Truly I would implore my current professors (on the really really off-chance that they're reading up on my blog!) to step up their game and invest some dynamic thought in their curriculum. Perhaps I've been spoiled by a lifetime of dedicated educators. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your investment in my schooling. Logic doesn't have to strain itself far to see the value of a high-quality education versus simply "going to school."

What else? I'm afraid I'm maybe rambling. School, work, life, the weather. Covered the basic bases. Events? Spent last weekend at a beach house with my group of mates. Revelry was had. Sport? It's been a rather focused couple of months. Things to come? Major assignments due in the coming weeks. Should call home more often.

Really the update is the usual, but in a blissful way. I have some fantastic individuals to credit for all the happiness with the "mundane" things. It's a good time in Adelaide. Thank God for friends.

Worth a Thousand Words

I've recently been batting around sad ideas concerning modernity and culture, specifically how technology interfaces with wine.   I'm seeing wine--which I'm so heavily invested in studying right now--as a microcosm of the world at large.  Perhaps something as simple, widespread, and as perennial as wine could be a useful touchstone in discussions of future.  What makes a wine good or worth money?  What do we consider to be an improvement in wine technology?  Is it machine harvesting as many perfectly ripened and lab tested grapes as possible and producing as much wine as we can make bottles?  Whatever happened to the honed generational skills of the farmer?  What about terrior?  Where does mechanization take the romantic--and indeed appealing--element away from wine?  How much does the romanticism matter, so long as we have the convenience of inexpensive and well-made wine on our grocery store shelves?
From the slow food movement to vintage clothing to handcrafted, biodynamic wine I'm seeing these reactionary trends within my generation that has seen so much technology advance so quickly.  NASA is trying to start a "space tourism" industry, and we still can't grasp the genetic mutations that sometimes occur in grapevines.  We're churning eggs out of chicken-powered factories, and can't wrap our heads around the fact of skyrocketing obesity and cancer rates in the developed world.  It all seems too much too fast, at the expense of complex systems that have developed over millenia...  and cultures that have been in place for thousands of years.

These thoughts swirling after a particularly aggravating viticulture class, I stumbled across this photographic essay on spiritual life in Bali, with commentary from the artist John Stanmeyer: 

"The Balinese culture is under severe stress from development and modernity. How much longer will the Balinese even be speaking their own language? How much longer will people be able to read the ancient Sanskrit texts?
I’m intense and passionate about it because I do feel in some regards, around the world, we’re having cultural genocide. Cultures are vanishing. We’re homogenizing ourselves across the planet. We have language loss on an epic level and we have cultural loss on an equally epic level. And that I find to be tragic, especially when you have rich, ancient cultures that haven’t changed for so long but now are on the verge of a breaking point."

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/high-balinese-ritual-low-holga-technology/

And so, what to do?  When is globalization a good thing?  To what extent....

Spring Pushing Through the Clouds

Once again it's pouring outside.  It was so lovely and sunny 30 minutes ago that I suited up for an afternoon jog.  Now here I sit in front of the computer screen, all dressed up and nowhere to go.

It's been a wonderful week in Adelaide.  At the sunny outset of the week, I was accompanied by great friends to McLaren Vale, the beach, and Barossa.  There's nothing like beautiful days to relieve all sorts of anxiety.  I finally feel like I'm getting a grip on the road that is unfolding for my life.  I'm very privileged to have all sorts of options available, though there's a certain terrible stress in the background: "Don't screw up the opportunity!"
I vacillate between extreme contentment with the blank book I get to fill and acute envy of friends whose path is set for them.  Two gentlemen I know, for example, are next in line to run their families' wineries in South Africa.  How empowering to live life with a sense of duty, directly tied to filial obligations.  "Golden handcuffs," they say.  I too feel responsible to honor my family, my college, my country.... but the "how" is so undefined.  My commission is to go do my "best," whatever that means.  It's not a quick and easy task when the whole wide world holds opportunities and places at which to excel.

We do the best with what we have where we are.

Yesterday was a memorable one.  We headed up to the Clare Valley for some wine tasting, completely ignoring the crazy storm raging up the land from Adelaide.  This has apparently been the coldest, wettest winter in two decades here, and the season clearly means to go out with a bang.  A thunderstorm lingered through Friday night, and by Saturday morning rivers were running high and roadside ditches were threatening to overload onto the bitumen.  But northwards through the fray we drove.  By 2pm, the spitting rain was streaking sideways in blustery wind, branches were flying everywhere, and water was gushing from all corners of the earth to the lowest points it could find.  We were sadly forced to leave the valley early because we simply couldn't turn off the main road or get to cellar doors.  Rivers had washed over the side roads, over bridges, and into the fields, making islands of vineyards.  I do wonder what effect all this water so late in the winter will have on vinous budburst and the coming vintage.

Family, I love you

A friend and I were bantering this evening about our relatives. Or rather, we were one-upping each other with stories about how wonderful our respective families are. At some point talk turned to the subject of gratitude... The difficulty of expressing "thank you for raising me" and "thank you for loving me" puts such a barrier between us and the words we need to say to the people who need to hear it.

Over lunch today (laksa in the central market!) a different friend sighed as she mused, "So few people are in touch with themselves, who they really are and what they want." And that deficit of self-introspective thought launches so much terrible turmoil between the non-mind-reading classes.

And with these thoughts swirling in my mind, a quick, heartfelt shout-out is in order. Thanks, family (and friends, who count among family), for the emails and calls and facebook notes and well wishes. I've broadcasted some distress in recent weeks, and you have done much to remind me of the ties that bind me beyond the present, fleeting moment. In all honesty, I'm doing just fine, though I am ready for winter to end and resume a happy pattern of productive, inquisitive days. Australia has still got me scrambling through the liminal lifestyle of a non-committal ex-pat. I don't know how to do my taxes here, and I'm rather bored by the prospect of figuring it out when I'm just going to have to go back to America and figure them out there too. This is the same philosophy behind my refusal to learn how to work television remote controls. The day I figure out all the buttons and menus, they'll just update the damn things to new technology. There's always so much to be done, and it's irritating when life gets in the way of more important things (like... say... life? it's a vicious cycle).

Much too philosophical. I should go back to storytelling...

In light news....
This past weekend we all piled on a bus and went up to the Gourmet festival in the Barossa Valley. Silliness ensued. Much wine was bought and enjoyed. New friends were made, and deep conversations were had. Details are fuzzy. Highlights included the glorious sunshine, aforementioned new friends, and a piece of chocolate-shiraz-ganache cake. I've come away with an important message to my fellow Americans: drink more Shiraz! (look beyond $10.... there's some glorious stuff bouncing around in the $15-30 range)

Winos hit McLaren Vale

Sunday was spent with the University of Adelaide Wine Club on a mini-trip to McLaren Vale. It was a gorgeous, crisp fall day, the vineyards are turning golden yellow and the sky was that aqueous light blue that makes you want to be a bird so you can go swim in it.

Our first stop was the cellar door (tasting room) of Samuel's Gorge, a rustic old stone home set on a hill overlooking vines. We tasted through their current offerings, including a stellar 2008 Grenache and one of the most restrained, structured, and elegant Shiraz's (2008) I've had from this region. Really atmospheric all around, and a great way to kick off the morning. Plus, they had a dog! I'm a huge proponent of animals at cellar doors. They give such life to the place, and I for one remember the pet long after I forget the taste of the wine. The Samuel's Gorge dog will forever stick in my mind because he perfectly resembled my childhood family dog, incidentally named Sam....


Those of you who knew and loved Sam appreciated his innate ability to turn a tennis ball into a slobbery sponge, smiled when you heard about his adventures at the local construction sites, wondered why he so liked banana bread... you would have been smitten with the winery's big hairy Retroodle. What a dog.

Next stop was Alpha Box & Dice, whose winemaker Justin Lane is famous for being edgy and innovative. The decor of the cellar door certainly fit the unique character of the wines. There are a couple working pinball machines, kitsch from all sorts of antique sales, modern art clearly created during a drunken all-nighter, black and white with accent colors, '60s furniture, a ladder in the rafters, and so on.

Justin challenged us to a blend-off. We split into groups and used 15 or so red wines to make our own blend. Choosing from different styles of Shiraz, Cab Sav, Barbera, Sangiovese, Durif, etc. we put together a wine meant to be a result greater than the sum of its parts. I must say, the final wines were pretty impressive and cool. Hard to go wrong starting from such strong bases, but it was a cool experiment. Our mouths were uniformly purple, and the competition got a little rowdy. I perhaps wasn't my best behaved. I'm a vicious smack-talker when I get excited.

After a bbq lunch, we tasted through the Alpha Box & Dice portfolio... totally impressive through and through... I broke down and bought a couple bottles. Sadly, that was the end of the day, due primarily to the 4pm closing time of most cellar doors. I feel highly motivated to get back out to the wineries ASAP. That is, after all, why I'm here!

Question 25

Bruce markets a wine called Bruce's Middle of the Road Medley Red. All the wine is 2006 vintage. It is a blend of the following:
45% Shiraz from Lenswood
30% Grenache from Lenswood
20% Mourvedre from Piccadilly Valley
5% Mourvedre from the Adelaide Plains

(a) Bruce is thinking about renaming the wine, calling it Bruce's GSM, and increasing its price by 25%. The label blurb says in part: “This is a classic Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre blend...” Is this acceptable?