I am crazy for vineyard pictures….

September 14, 2008

I love to look at vineyard pictures and do not grow tired of looking at them. I do not know where this comes from. It has certainly also to do with our own vineyard, for sure. When I am in Glenburn I walk my vineyard every day, from left to right, from right to left, from top to bottom and the other way, in the evenings and mornings, even late at night (actually I have to admit that after a rather joyful night, I drove around the vineyard in my old Mazda car, listening to loud music, windows wide open).

Two Hills Vineyard in Glenburn, Victoria, picture taken from the east by Nelly A. Kemur-Witt, December 2007

In the picture above you can see my treasure: Two Hills Vineyard in Glenburn, Victoria. First comes Merlot, then Pinot Noir, then Sauvignon Blanc, and to the left you can see the posts for the Chardonnay block, all in all 4 ha under vines.

Two Pinot Noir rows (photo by Nelly A. Kemur-Witt)

Pinot Noir fruit (photo by Nelly A. Kemur-Witt)

On some of the wine and vintner blogs and web pages which I regularly visit, there are stunning pictures of vines, vineyards, grapes, and nature in general. I would like to introduce to you a small selection of only three blogs you should visit and browse through their photo collections (and of course also their stories).

I start with the blog of Iris and her Weingut Lisson in southern France. The Winery (Weingut) has also a web page (www.olargus.info) in three languages including English, but I usually visit Iris’s personal blog where she tells interesting stories (in words and pictures). The language is German. She also bloggs in French. I love the slide shows and the photo albums.

The second blog is from Germany posted by the owners of the Weingut Steffens-Kess in Reil, Mosel. Also in this case there is a proper website for the winery (www.steffens-kess.de), and a blog called “Bildergeschichten aus dem Weingut Steffens-Kess” (in English: Stories in pictures from the Steffens-Kess Estate). Again, great pictures around vineyards and vines are to be found.

The third blog with great photos comes from California, USA. It is the Tablas Creek Vineyard blog. The blog won the American Wine Blog Awards in the winery category in 2008. Since Tablas Creek specialises in Rhone varieties you can find wonderful photos of Mourvedre, Roussanne and Grenache among others.

All three blogs have more than nice vineyard photos. They are delightful to read and contain heaps of useful information about the wine industry, the ecology and the every-day-life of people who’s hearts are buried deep in their respective vineyards and wineries.

If you got nothing to do right now, click a bit around and discover exciting new worlds.

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Its pruning time in the vineyard

July 1, 2008

Winter in Victoria is usually a very nice time, not too cold but has many days with beautiful blue sky and sunshine. It always reminds me of an Irish summer.

In the vineyard we are busy pruning , of course. The vines below are awaiting the pruners.

Our professional association, the Upper Goulburn Winegrowers Association advertised recently a pruning course (www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au).

This reminded me of the virtual-pruning tool of the German University of Hohenheim near Stuttgart. From time to time I play with it to somehow make up for not being in the vineyard this time of the year. Its in German, but I am sure you will master it. Its strait forward.

Wachsen = grow
Schere = secateurs
Biegen = bend
Neu = new
Zeit = season
Fruehling = spring
Sommer = summer
Herbst = autumn
Winter = winter

Check out the link below and prune your heart out. Have fun.

https://www.uni-hohenheim.de/lehre370/weinbau/java/index.htm

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Eating out in Yea, Victoria

June 24, 2008

When we are on our vineyard in Glenburn, Victoria, we love to visit wineries and vineyards in the vicinity but we also love to tour the small country towns, villages and hamlets in rural Victoria. One of our favourite destinations, and just about 32 km northwards of Two Hills Vineyard is the small town of Yea.

Yea is about 100 km north of Melbourne and has a population of about 1000 souls. In 1837 the first settlers arrived in the district – the Shire of Murrindindi – from New South Wales (under the leadership of the explorers William Hovell and Hamilton Hume) and ever since the area along the Goulburn River was settled as farmland. It was originally known as Muddy Creek settlement and later named after Colonel Lacy Yea, who was killed in the Crimean War. Before white settlement, the Woiwurung people of the Kulin nation occupied the area. Unfortunately, they had to bear the brunt of the effects of British settlement policy and were frequently and forcibly resettled and never obtained titles of their native lands.

Today Yea is a pleasant country town and centre for agriculture, forestry and tourism. Needless to say, quite a few wineries are located in the area, most of them members of the Upper Goulburn Winegrowers Association.

There are quite a few eating places to choose from. Depending on your time and your budget, the whole range of country food is available at your finger tips. We usually frequent three places which I would like to introduce to you today briefly.

1. Marmalades

Marmalades is a cafe, tea house, local produce and wine store cum gallery and offers all kinds of local and international food. It has a very pleasant atmosphere. There is a library and a reading groom.

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You can park right in front of the place.

The counter

Below you can see some of our most preferred dishes.

Margit, Charlotte and Lucy around the table

2. Elmers

A little bit further down the main road, near the Foodworks supermarket, you will find Elmers, another cafe cum restaurant. At times you need to book because it is so crowded. As the occasional tourist just try you luck.

Behind the counter at Elmers, people are very busy.

3. The Country Club Hotel

Located about between the two, is the Country Club Hotel. It has, as most Australian pubs or hotels, a public bar and a restaurant. There is usually some kind of life music in the restaurant on the weekends. This is a good place for the evenings to go out and/or meet with friends and family.

I somehow do not have pictures of the inside of the Hotel and of the food served. However, let me assure you that I ate there the best Kangaroo steak I had ever consumed in Australia.

Mind you my first Kangaroo meat I tasted during my university years in Bonn. The ‘mensa’, as it is called in German, the university eating place, a ‘cantina’ so to say, had offered it as a novum to its hungry young men and women some 30 years ago.

Also the other dishes on the menu are worth trying. The Country Club Hotel also offers local wines with their meals. So if you are in the vicinity and you want to try solid, modern and traditional country style food please drop in and give a couple of hours of your time to Yea and its eateries. You will be pleasantly surprised. You will also have the opportunity to sample some of the finest locally produced wines from the Upper Goulburn Wine Region since all three restaurants have a variety of locally produced wines on offer.

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Yering Farm Wines

June 13, 2008

Enough of Europe and Indonesia, today I will take you to my future home country, Australia. This might be a sign of homesickness. Usually during the months of June-July-August we go back to our farm and spend splendid winter days in Glenburn, work a bit in the vineyard, plant trees, watch the kangaroos, have friends and family over for lunches on the grass (it’s not a lawn) and visit neighboring wineries and pubs.

As you probably know from earlier blog entries, the owner-winemaker of Yering Farm Wines (www.yeringfarm.com.au), Alan Johns, is also the person making our Merlot wines. In his huge shed thousands of bottles of Two Hills Wines wait to be consumed and in a dozen or so barrels our 2008 Merlot is doing what young wines do.

Yering Farm is beautifully located. When you turn off the Maroondah highway (also known as Whitehorse Road taking the name from White Horse Hotel in Box Hill) in Coldstream on the way to Yarra Glen, you will find it on the right hand side long before you see the town. The cellar door is an old hay shed with a very rustique character and great views of the Yarra Valley. Since I have posted pictures with these beautiful views before, I present today photos from the inside of the cellar door.

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The cellar door and tasting room

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Many medals on the wall

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Alan introducing his wines to a group of wine tourists

My hot tip of the day: when you are in the neighborhood visiting Yering Farm should be on your to do list. Have a good time there and say hello to Alan.

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Wining and dining at Two Hills Vineyard

May 13, 2008

Since a long time I wanted to show you again some more pictures from our vineyard. Two Hills Vineyard in Glenburn, Victoria, is such a marvelous place. Maybe I am getting homesick. Normally we visit in July/August but this year we are planning to go to Germany, Spain and Portugal.

Our vineyard from the East (first Merlot, than Pinot Noir)

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The table set on the grass

With visiting friends….

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….and more visiting friends.

Delicacies from our dams: yabbies, an Australian kind of crayfish

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Miranda – Sam Miranda

April 20, 2008

After posting my recent blog entry on “Cool Climate Wines” I had second thoughts as regards the accuracy of my assessment. I thought about the label issues, than visited the Sam Miranda website again (www.sammiranda.com.au).

There I learned that Sam Miranda had sold the family business (Miranda Wines) to McGuigan Simeon in October 2003. And then things fell into place. Of course the bottle I had bought must have come from McGuigan Simeon (www.mswl.com.au). When I visited their website today I found the Miranda brand and learned that they also source fruit from the King Valley.

So the bottle of Miranda I had the other day came from McGuigan Simeon and not from Sam Miranda of King Valley.

However, I can maintain my general assessment.

1. Wines from the cool climate King Valley Wine Region are excellent and worth trying.

2. The “High Country” Cabernet Sauvignon from Miranda (McGuigan Simeon) was a good buy.

and

3. I will visit the Sam Miranda cellar door next time we are in Glenburn. That’s for sure.

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9. Wine Rally – Wines for every day

March 8, 2008

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Sorry folks, but this time it does not work. I cannot avoid to write pro domo. The wine I drink every day, is our own. I have to add that this only applies if we are in Glenburn, Victoria. In the past we had once the opportunity to import our own wine for private consumption in Jakarta. But ever since, due to the vagaries of importing into Indonesia, we were not in the position to establish Two Hills as a ‘house wine’ for everyday consumption.

At Two Hills Vineyard we have so far made two varietal (single vineyard) wines from our grapes:

– a single vineyard Sauvignon Blanc (2000, 2001 and 2002 vintage) and
– a single vineyard Merlot (2001, 2004 and 2006 vintage)

Thomas Weber (www.wein-als-geschenk.de) wrote the following tasting notes for the ‘2002 Sauvignon Blanc’:

“Dezent hellgruener Farbton, Holunder- und vor allem Stachelbeerenaromen vor einm rauchig minieralischen Hintergrund. Kraftvolle lebendige Saeure und ein langer fruchtiger Abgang.”

In English this might read as follows:

“Subtly light green hue, elderberry and especially gooseberry aromas before a smoky mineral background. Powerful lively acids and a long fruity finish.”

And the ‘2004 Merlot’ was described by Thomas as follows:

“Der blutrote Wein duftet aus einem eleganten ausdrucksvollen Koerper vielschichtig nach reifen Waldbeeren. Eine angenehme Saeure vor fein ausbalancierten kraeftigen Tanninen fuehrt zu einem langanhaltenden Finish.”

which translates into:

“From an elegant complex expressive body the dark red wine shows aromas of mature berries. Pleasant acidity before finely balanced tannins, leads to a long-lasting finish.”

Well, thats what Thomas wrote for a blind wine tasting in Trier last year. Since I drink it every day (unfortunately, when I’m in Australia only), usually with a meal (lunch or dinner), I lost the ability to describe the wine anyway.

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This is were we drink most of our wine. On the space at the entrance, I hesitate to call it terrace, of our little house cum vineyard shed. Apart from drinking Two Hills wines, we drink our friends wines. Usually, we swap cases of 12 bottles. We swap with Gayle Jewson and Steve Sadlier.

Gayle has a small vineyard in front of her house in the Yarra Valley, in fact just a couple of acres of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The Pinot is a “cleanskin” (Gayle has no label as yet) and it is called ‘Pip’s Paddock Pinot Noir’, a wine which can only be bought directly from Gayle.

The other house wine, we consume, is from Steve. His vineyard is called Nenagh Park. He is mainly a contract grower (about 9 ha under vines) for Yering Station and other well known wineries in the Yarra Valley. Steve’s Chardonnay is to die for, so is his Pinot Noir. He sells his wines (cleanskins) without label to friends and through a private network. Watch out for Nenagh Park in the future.

Visit us, and I will serve you all these wines. Promise.

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News from Glenburn, Victoria

February 4, 2008

I usually do not hide my liking of globalization. While strolling through my hometown Trier in fall last year, I discovered on one of my long walks around town an Australian restaurant. Greetings from ‘down under’ in this 2000-year-old town of Trier. Isn’t it wonderful? Emperor Constantine would have been very pleased.

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The Emu restaurant in Trier

I also found a cafe just next to the Karl Marx house (the birthplace of the great philosopher) opposite one of my favourite wine bars, the ‘Das Weinhaus’, where you could enjoy the smoke of a shisha (or water pipe). If Karl would have known, he would have been delighted, I hope.

Michael my brother-in-law, who lives in Healesville, a beautiful little country town in Victoria about 3/4 of an hour northeast of Melbourne, used to buy Bitburger Beer for me. He knows that I love this brew from my home region. During his recent wedding I could enjoy some more of it. Great feeling to be so far from my birthplace, and to be able to drink the same beer thousands of kilometers away, far south on the other side of the earth. Goodness me.

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Country folks need a drink from time to time, and vintners do not always drink wine!

Another product from my home region has found its way to Australia, Gerolsteiner mineral water. The name ‘Gerolsteiner’ was made famous in sport enthusiastic Australia through the sponsorship of the cycling team with the same name. But now you can buy this wonderful drink (good after a hangover or in case of gastroenteritis).

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The sparkling water from Germany

Let me follow this up with some ‘news’ or observations of what has changed since we last visited Glenburn and its surroundings.

● The Yarra Glen Grand Hotel had been finally sold by John Lithgow and we found the pub full of people enjoying the new atmosphere created by the new owners.

● The old Henkel Vineyards (descendents of the German sparkling producers) cellar door was sold and is now called Mandala Wines which is owned by the Smedly family (www.mandalawines.com.au). Henkel is erecting its signpost a couple of kilometers further north of the old place near Dixon’s Creek.

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Mandala Wines, the new cellar door in the making

● The Wine Hub at the Yarra Valley Dairy (www.yvd.com.au) has gone out of business and with it we lost one of our retail outlets.

● Cheese Freaks in Yarra Glen is gone and has become a nice little restaurant.

● David left the local Healesville band the “Heartstarters”.

● Giant Steps Winery (www.giants-steps.com.au) in Healesville, owned by Phil Sexton and his family, is in full operation (bar, coffee house, restaurant, bakery, winery, etc.) and has been also adopted by the locals who patronize it in great numbers.

● Steve Webber of ‘De Bortoli Wines’ in Dixon’s Creek (www.debortoli.com.au) was awarded the very prestigious “Winemaker of the Year” by the wine magazine ‘Gourmet Traveller’ (www.gourmettravellerwine.com.au). Congratulations!

● Michael and Helen got married of course. Congratulations again. Cheers.

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There are of course more news to report, but the above is what jumped into my eye while touring the beautiful Victorian countryside. Needless to say, we sampled quite a few local wines from the Upper Goulburn and the Yarra Valley.

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News from Two Hills Vineyard

January 23, 2008

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In the back, you can see the two hills which gave the vineyard it’s name.

2008 promises to become our best year ever in the almost 13 years history of Two Hills Vineyard. A new block of Chardonnay has been successfully planted in early December 2007 and with this we will be able to produce on site one more ‘single vineyard wine’ in a couple of years from now, to be precise in about 2013. I will hopefully have retired by then from my work overseas.

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Young Chardonnay plant

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Morning in the Chardonnay

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Chardonnay block

The fruit on the vines of the other three varieties looks really good (as the pictures below show). Despite the already mentioned freak hail storm on December 22nd, the fruit is healthy and in abundance. We expect to harvest about 25 tonnes of fruit from 3.5 ha under vines this year.

Because of the extreme heat we had in early January, vintage time might be earlier than in previous years, maybe in late February; usually it is in the middle or end of March. We in the Upper Goulburn Wine Region (www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au) are usually starting to harvest our grapes later than the colleagues in the Yarra Valley further south.

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Young Merlot grapes

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Young Pinot Noir grapes

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Young Sauvignon Blanc grapes

Our old Fiat tractor will be retired in 2008. Because of a generous donation from my mother it can be replaced with a newer model with some more horse power. We will also retire our old Mazda 626 car which is not exactly a useful farm vehicle but which served us well as a means of transport during the short months we spend on the vineyard during the last 12 years.

We will hopefully also get around in sowing one of the front paddocks with a horse loving grass mixture. Then we will have the plot fenced in by Peter Thwaites and turned into a horse paradise where our horse enthusiastic daughters, Lucy and Charlotte, can keep their ponies and other horses when we visit Glenburn.

We have started to irrigate our vines. I hope their will be no large bushfires as in 2007 when extensive smoke tainted many grapes. If the high temperatures persist, the likelihood of fires will rise too.

Finally, we have decided to extend our dwelling on the vineyard. We plan to link the old shed with a new wing to become our house, a proper residence so to speak.

Let us see what 2008 has up its sleeves.

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Christmas in the vineyard

January 11, 2008

We had a wonderful Christmas eve dinner in the vineyard. Michael, my brother in law and his wife Helen stayed over night and as customary in Australia we opened our presents in the morning of the 25th.

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It’s present time

Later that day Florian and Nelly, our friends from Jakarta holidaying in Victoria, joined us and we had ‘lunch in the vineyard’ or rather on the lawn in front of our dwelling with magnificient views of the Glenburn hills. We ate turkey of course and drank lashings of Two Hills wines. It was a sunny but rather chilly day and our guests from Asia needed jackets.

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Nelly, Flo and Margit

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Christmas lunch on the lawn

It felt so good to be back home among family and friends. We did not mind the low temperatures but enjoyed the clean air, the quiet, nature and the splendid surroundings. What a lovely Christmas this was.

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