Anyway, on a more serious note Pip and I were worried that our tasting skills might be slipping, as during vintage (believe it or not) we had not managed to taste and analyse that many wines. When we first arrived in Margaret River however, we had decided to keep track of our favourite wines, and come out at the end with our favourite red and white from the region. My favourite wineries, as places to visit and have a glass of wine were undoubtably Cullen and Voyager Estate, and both produce really excellent wines. Margaret River is tuned in to its tourist trade, and although this can sometimes be overwhelming (it is definitely Perth’s playground for surfers and wine lovers), it also means that mid-week the region’s fantastic cellar doors are yours for the taking. We also ventured south, to Pemberton and Mt. Barker, which are less well-known in-land regions. Incidentally, if you do find yourself in this neck of the woods you have to get down to the State’s south coast, between Albany and Esperence, for there you will find some of the most phenomenal beaches you’ve ever seen, and as much surfing/fishing/off-roading/camping/hiking as you can possibly manage.

Back to wine; and perhaps I’ll start, in this blog, with Mt. Barker. After Pip had been interviewed by the press over breakfast (she took it in her stride like a pro), we headed to Duke’s winery. I confess I knew nothing about the region’s wineries other than that it was in-land, with a cooler climate than Margaret River. We picked Duke’s because that’s what we saw when we got thirsty, and by happy chance it has just been awarded 5 stars by James Halliday.  A lovely little place just between the Porongurups and Mt. Barker itself, it produces a lovely fresh, limey Riesling, an unusual sparkling made using Riesling rather than the traditional Champagne varieties (Chardonnay & Pinot Noir), and some beautiful reds. Their Duke’s Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz are both delicious, and not expensive for the quality, and while their slightly dearer Magpie Hill equivalents are also brilliant, I preferred the style of the Duke’s range. The owners are incredibly welcoming, and unbelievably, this venture is their retirement, having moved down from Perth at the beginning of the 90s. It looks anything like retirement, but their work has more than paid off in terms of reputation and winemaking success.

In Pemberton we visited two wineries, Salitage and Picardy. I may have written about Salitage before, so I’ll spare you most of the details, but they produce some of the best Pinot Noir I have tasted from the region; both their Salitage and the Treehouse ranges are brilliant. Picardy is an interesting one; it is owned by the Pannell family, who are all high fliers in the Australian wine industry. Bill and Sandra Pannell established the brilliant Moss Wood in Margaret River in 1969, and moved to Pemberton so they could start growing Pinot Noir. You have to arrange an appointment to visit them, and getting in touch with them can be tricky, but I promise you it is well worth it. Their vineyard is beautiful, and we spent a very happy hour-and-a-half there, in the winery and barrel hall tasting some of the stuff they have in barrel and also some of their 2011 crop in tank. You get the feeling that Sandra Pannell knows (and gets) what she wants, and she was great fun to have a glass or two of wine with. The estate has a similarly uncompromising air to it – they know that Pinot Noir is hard work, and they are clearly committed to producing it properly; Bill gets up every 4 hours while their Pinot is fermenting to go down to the winery and gently plunge the cap. Their Chardonnay is also very good – none of the heavy oak influence that Australia can sometimes be too fond of – with a lovely mineral structure and outstanding freshness. They also make Shiraz and a Merlot/Cabernet blend, but I must just forget about those and rave about their Pinot Noir. It is the best Pinot I have tasted in Western Australia by a country mile, and on a par with Domaine A from Tasmania, which has been a longtime favourite of mine.  It’s not a showy cellar door, in fact it’s not really a cellar door, more an office/lab, but their wines do all the showing off, and I admire that. As we were about to leave, one of their sons, their Kiwi winemaker and an Italian intern sloped in from the vineyard in search of lunch, at which point Sandra sighed, put down her glass of Pinot and declared she had better go and find something for them to eat. The best sort of cellar door experience.

Sunrise from the top of Tank Farm 2

Looking across Tank Farm 2

Tank Farm 1

The small RDV (Rotary Drum Vacuum) filter

Arriving at 5.45am to take over from the night shift

The Red Barrel Hall

It’s a winemaking facility, essentially, making wine for two large labels (Evans & Tate and McWilliams) and three or four smaller contracts. It runs 24 hours a day, crushing over 200 tonnes a day, which is more than we crushed during the whole vintage last year. I hope all these figures aren’t boring, because for me they are staggering. And it’s not even that big in the grand scheme of things apparently; at Yellowtail they have tanks with a 1.8 million litre capacity, while at BA the biggest ones are a measly 180,000. Lowey’s biggest tank is 15,000 as I remember…

So our shifts run from either 6am to 6 pm, or 6pm to 6am, 6 days on, one day off. For the next four weeks we are on the day shift, and then we go over to the dark side. The place is so well lit at night that it feels like some sort of industrial megalopolis. Some photos will go up soon, hopefully. After 5 days work, Pip and I are so bodytired we can’t sleep, with is both annoying and unamusingly ironic. If you’re getting a negative vibe from this post, please don’t. The people we are working with are, almost without exception, brilliant, and a day’s work is hugely social. The lessons I think I will learn from working here will be diverse and significant, and the very tangible feeling of achievement, at least in a physical sense, is what I live for. Bring it.

The other day we were very lucky to be taken on a family friend’s little plane on a flight from the Edward’s vineyard airstrip over the region’s wineries and coastline. Anyone who has visited Margaret River will know how dramatic the countryside is, not to mention the colour of the ocean, and the bird’s eye view was, predictably, sensational. We cruised (bumped) over Voyager, Leeuwin, Cape Mentelle, Edwards, and also over our own house; definitely the highlight of the week!

Favourite wines so far? We are agreed on our favourite; the Voyager Tom Price Sauvignon/Semillon Bordeaux blend. Close seconds include everything from Edwards (particularly their Chardonnay and the BCE), Cape Mentelle Chardonnay, and Stella Bella’s Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Pip wishes to add a few Bridget Jones style figures:

No. of snakes: at least 3

No. of Kangaroos spotted: 40

Combined number of sit ups done: 500

No. of runs: 4

Bottles of wine consumed: 6 (quite conservative, but doesn’t include beer or the fact that the bottles have mostly been 1.5 litre bottles from Cape Mentelle’s entry-level range)

Now the job hunt begins!

I have forgotten one important feature of my new partner’s life – the Postmaster. This is because I hope with all my heart that any future boyfriend does not have, in his life, a parallel. I can’t even think of anyone in this admittedly odd analogy that I could equate this vile thing to. The postmaster is essentially a mower that I tow along the rows with the quad bike, while it slashes around the posts by way of a spring that stretches and bounces back every time it hits a vine or post. I do realise that my technical explanations leave much to be desired, but the point of the story is that I have a catastrophic relationship with this creature, and I believe that any reconciliation before I leave next week is utterly out of the question. It breaks, doesn’t restart unless I have sweated buckets and sworn at it in order for it to deem any action to be validated, and invariably once I manage to coax some unenthusiastic life out of it runs out of fuel.

I love the vineyard, but his family are tricky sometimes.

I do apologise – I see it’s been a while! I promise you will have something within the week.

A small spoiler though – this week has seen me make a return to the vineyard, and I have been doggedly suckering and tying up vines in preparation for crop thinning and slashing next week. Yes, I am back in the field, and it feels good.

We tasted some lovely Riesling from Cono Sur, and some brilliant single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Shiraz by Errazuriz. The only low point for me was a Viognier from Cono Sur (from their Vision range) that was unbalanced in it’s unelegant display of ripe bananas and not much more.  I had to leave before getting too much further, so perhaps Cat (@AGlassHalfFull) can elaborate on the day’s proceedings.

I headed from London down to Devon to spend a few days at the award-winning Otter Brewery near Honiton. Having never been to this part of the world I was interested to see what it was like. My sister-in-law (being a Cornish fairy herself)  has long-extolled the virtues of this part of England, and it didn’t disappoint. Beautiful. Otter Brewery produces its range of real ales in the picturesque Luppitt Valley, and its central philosophy is one of environmental responsibility and sustainability, which they approach with intelligence and originality. A family-run business, David and Mary Ann run the joint in a relaxed and friendly manner, and the sense of committment to excellence is inspiring. A brilliant business model, I admired their outlook on life, and I think it could serve as an incredibly constructive example to other businesses that hold similar values. www.otterbrewery.com

We had producers from all over the world; David Lowe (the winemaker I worked for in Australia earlier this year), Fleur McCree from Little Beauty in New Zealand, and numerous producers from France, Spain and Italy. Stars of the show? Well.  The antipodeans set the pace, with  Lowe Wines and Little Beauty boasting impressive crowds throughout the day. The Old World bided its time quietly, however, and I have to say that Vincent Gaudry’s Sancerres were extremely popular, with his ‘a mi-chemin’ sample bottle arguably stealing the show. Ervigio’s Riojas seemed to be in demand also, although I’m sure this was helped by the fact that he was luring people in with a whole leg of pata negra which he selflessly sliced throughout the day. Eric Bordelet’s Cider gave the wines a run for their money, and really, who could blame anyone for being drawn to quite such an awesome moustache. Moustache aside, his sydres were exceptional, and although I prefered the drier sydre brut, his poire granit was a people pleaser.

For those with a penchant for Pouilly Fume, Jonathan Pabiot provided both great personality and stunning wines for those who ventured to his table. His story is an interesting one. All of his wines are all made from Sauvignon Blanc obviously, and they are all from chalky soils, but their particularities stem from a variable as subtle as the different ages of the chalk in which the grapes are grown. The vines and grapes are all treated exactly the same in the the vineyard and in the winery, so the different characteristics found in his wines are explained by that one variable. He also makes a delicious Pouilly-sur-Loire from the variety Chasselas, which is normally a fairly unusual, unpopular choice. Although I’m told it’s all the rage in Paris, darling.

The charming Vivien de Nazelle from Domaine Cabidos had brought his two sweet wines, Cuvee St. Clement and Cuvee Comte Philippe, to the tasting, and these for me were absolute stand-outs. These are wonderful, textbook examples of sweet perfection.

I have not mentioned all of the wines, as there were in excess of 70, but I am very grateful to all of their producers for making the effort to come and, in closing, I’d like to say that the evening’s success was down to far more than lunar rythm; it was down to the fact that we have some sensational wines and very charismatic winemakers on our books.

P.S. Just so you know, the best days for drinking wine this month are: 9th-11th, 19th, and 27-28th. The calendar advocates avoiding wine from the 20th until the 24th, but I’m not so sure I am going to take any notice of that particular bit of advice…