California Dreaming #2

Well, I’ve already made it to my first baseball game! My friend Gillian (an American I worked harvest with in Marlborough), a couple of other interns and I drove down to Oakland to watch the Oakland A‘s play Detroit. Oakland has one of the highest crime rates in the country. In fact we drove past the highest security prison in America where the most notorious criminals are behind bars! As you can see here, while the Oakland As were winning their game, I was busy having my first American hotdog, watching the peanut sellers, the churros sellers and taking it all in. I did learn though that there are 9 innings in a game. And that the game stops for a seventh innings stretch where the entire crowd stands and sings ‘Take me out to the ball game’!

At the end of the game we all went out on the outfield to watch the fireworks…a spectacular light show to music that included ‘Land Downunder’, which made me smile. The fireworks were like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Puddles splashing, cubes exploding, fireflies, water cascading, smiley faces and more. A magic moment!

The next day we made our way to Berkley. This is a funky little college town. There was football on that day and so it was swarming with people. The town was a sea of blue and yellow, not Otago but ‘Cal’ (University of California, Berkley) colours. College football is huge here because it’s a lot more raw and real.


By the time I got back to Sebastopol, my roommates had all arrived at the farm house. Laura, is from Mendoza, Argentina and Rodrigo and Marco from Santiago, Chile. We spent a large part of that day in a monster truck which the winery lent us, getting lost in a town the size of Masterton. Marco clocked some miles running into gas stations asking for directions. Failing that we would stop random Mexicans on the street or at traffic lights, so the boys could easily converse in Spanish. Quite an entertaining team bonding exercise! We’re all getting on well and have a lot of laughs at the farm house.

Fact: Males the world over seem to lack a clear sense of direction.


This is a shot of my first authentic Mexican meal. Let’s face it, Wellington doesn’t really do Mexican food. Pictured is a pork tamal (the meat is wrapped in blended cornmeal, served in the husk), a chile relleno (a battered pepper stuffed with cheese) and a chicken enchilada (corn tortilla stuffed with meat). I washed this down with a traditional sweet rice drink, called a horchata.

And if that wasn’t enough, the next night my roommates and I were treated to a meal at the Walker’s. The Walkers own the farm house and also grow grapes that our winery buys.


La comida estubo muy buena - the meal was very good! I am determined to learn some Spanish while I’m here. I’ve fallen in love with the language and all of its variations…Laura speaks Argentine Spanish, soft and flowing with a French influence, whereas the boys speak Chilean Spanish, harsher with a singsong rhythm.

Our first week of work has left me feeling really positive and inspired. The winery is a state of the art establishment and just 3 or so years old. Quite simply it’s gorgeous and the staff are instilled with a huge amount of respect for the place, which is great. Things are done so differently here and I’m learning so much.

I snuck this shot the morning of the harvest party lunch. I think there was a tasting going on. It’s quite common for people to get driven around Napa and Sonoma County wine country in limosines. I had driven us into work that morning in the monster truck ‘Tacoma’ and found driving on the wrong side not half as bad as having to use my right hand on the gear stick!

Funky vintage tops huh? If you can’t read the small print it says: “Paul Hobbs 007 - Licence to Harvest’.


What a day! Up at 4.15am to help with our first harvest for the season! Paul Hobbs and I drove out to Hyde Vineyards in Carneros, Napa Valley. The sun glowed a stunning pink colour as it rose up over the rows of vines. I was working with a Mexican lady, called Maria. She was driving the tractor pulling the bins that I was picking leaves, second set fruit and other junk out of. The Mexicans are a lot of fun. There was story telling, joke making and singing going on as they snipped. Maria was quite friendly. The son of the vineyard owner came over and introduced himself at one stage. Maria exclaimed what a handsome fellow he was and asked for a photo of us together! Mexicans must give and get a lot of love…she comes from a family of 19 children!!


I quite enjoyed being out in the vineyards. It was making textbooks real for me. Row by row I began to appreciate how intimate a winemaker must be with his fruit. You have to know the fruit in order to know how to make it into good wine. The first row was leafy, the second row had a lot of hen and chicken, the third row gave more raisined berries and second set fruit. Such contrasts all within a few rows.

When I arrived back at the winery they were having a safety meeting. The same guy comes in every year and shows them how to work in confined spaces etc. I think there is regulation on this in the USA. You need 3 people to clean a tank here! You need a permit, two helpers outside of the tank, plus a machine to read the oxygen levels when you are in there! ”Man down” is we’ve been told to call out when someone falls over in tank. That sounds so American!

We toasted the start of harvest with some sparkling from the Iron Horse Winery that is down the road from the farm house. The marketing team dropped by to join us as the winemakers ‘blessed’ the fruit by pouring a bit of the sparkling wine into the bins of destemmed grapes, while spraying us a bit at the same time!

California Dreaming #1

You know you’re on your way to America just by looking around at the people at the airport departure lounge. At Auckland Airport I spotted a woman who looked like she had escaped the set of Last of the Mohicans. She had a furry jacket replete with furry tassles and a matching set of furry leg warmers. I managed to count at least 20 chipmunks per leg warmer.

Fact: Americans aren’t afraid of their own sense of fashion, or lack thereof. I actually admire their courage to dress in theme if they want to. If a football game is on, people proudly parade in their team’s shirts and colours. Another intern from NZ told me that he saw a motorcyclist riding a tiger-striped motorcycle, wearing a tiger helmet, tiger gloves, tiger body wear and even a tiger tail. I'd say this crosses the line for me.

Was the guy at customs in LA being friendly or were all those questions about how old I was and when was the last time I was here that would have made you just 6 years old right? just a sneaky way of trying to test me out? I dunno…the highlight of waiting for half an hour to get your passport stamped after a 12 hour flight was my first celebrity spotting! I touch down in LA and the first person I shake hands with is Sir Ian Mckellen! He wasn’t up for a photo but shook my hand and said photograph this onto your memory! Gold!

Fact: The first person to greet you once you get past LA customs is George W Bush himself. There is a framed picture of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at customs that you can’t miss after you’re passport is stamped and you’re sent to claim your baggage. Lucky I left my I hate Bush T-shirt at home.

Fiction: The people voted Bush into the White House. Get a load of these T-shirts…



The highlight of San Francisco Airport was this guy who was doing bicep curls with a rubber workout band tied to a railing at the bus stop! I went over the Golden Gate Bridge on the bus ride from SF Airport to Santa Rosa. I wasn’t sure whether it was this bridge at the time though, as it was a red sort of colour. But they tell me that’s the one! The fog rolling in down the hills around the San Francisco Bay area was quite a stunning sight. The fog is rather choosy about which slopes it will dress and you will see only certain hillsides covered by it.


I went on to stay with the winemaker’s parents for 4 nights. They live in a gated community of about 5 ranches, and have pinot noir, chardonnay, grenache, syrah, mouvrede, and aligote planted on their property. The hospitality that they showed me was overwhelming. On arrival to their gorgeous home a bottle of La Crema pinot noir was cracked open. One of their other sons is also a winemaker and he used to work at this place. It’s a funny coincidence that I was offered a job at La Crema (after being interviewed at about 3am NZ time!) but turned them down. After a toast I feasted on my first home-cooked meal in America…spare ribs! Yum! I was sent to bed with an armful of cookies and nibbles. They put me up in their barn, which has been converted to a guest house.

Fact: Northern Californians are friendly people.

The next day I chilled out by their pool and took a look around their vineyards while they had to make a trip to Napa. I’m quite unacquainted with Californian wines, as very few are brought in to NZ. Jim kindly left a whole bunch of Wine Spectator magazines around the barn for me, and from reading these I discovered that Californian pinots are big, and often get a bit of flack for this. This was confirmed the next day when Jim and I were checking the brix of his fruit. Some of the pinot was around 22 and he was talking of waiting till it was 25! I think that most of the pinot back home was picked at around 22/23 brix during my last harvest.

Fact: Californian wines are big. Some pinot noirs reach 15% alcohol or even more!


Some ‘firsts’ I’ve had here so far are: my first root beer float, and my first Costco and Safeway experiences. Costco is like Moore Wilsons (bulk food) but it also has appliances and clothing and all sorts of things. Stock changes quite regularly as it’s end of the line and clearance stuff and they sell it at really competitive prices. I found Levis and Calvin Klein jeans there for around US$30! I also found Central Otago Pinot Noir! I picked up a bottle and was quite astonished to see NZ wine under the Kirkland Signature brand! This is the brand that Costco owns. And right beside the bastardised Otago pinot, was Kim Crawford Sauv Blanc! And only US$12.99! I needn’t have bothered hauling a bottle of the stuff all the way from home!

As you leave Costco you are met by someone who checks your docket and your goodies to make sure a few extra tubs of red rope liquorice haven’t made it into your trolley. At this Costco, a rather large guy, whose nametag read ‘Tree’ met us at the exit. He looked like he should‘ve been wresting for the WWE or something!

After that, to Safeway, a supermarket. And what hard work this place is! And most other supermarkets I gather. Price tags jut out from shelves all over the show, not just the promotions. And most of them read ‘2 for $7’ or ‘Buy one get one free’ or something like that. How much just for one though? You have to read the small print. And then there is a member price and a non-member price... Most of the time though, you can just buy one, and the price is just half the price of the cost of two. But it’s still so complicated!

After a sumptuous family feast that night, my head hit the pillow to the sound of a family feast of another sort. That of the coyotes who were yelping and yapping somewhere across Bennett Valley. They throw a bit of a party when they get lucky with some of the wild turkey in the area. Speaking of wild beasts, it has been intriguing to see such different flora and fauna. Apart from falling in love with redwoods, I have been taken with hummingbirds, skunks and woodpeckers! There are a lot of wild deer about too which often jump into the way of cars at night.

Fiction: California is full of big cities, big egos, bleach bottle blondes and beachy bling. This is the view from the back of the barn where I stayed and is one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever woken up to.