Grad school, genetics, and tasting

I know. I know. its been a while. But while I could be writing blogs about all the fun things i'm out doing, I'm actually out doing them. Sorry. So first things first. I took a tour of the Masters in Oenology (winemkaing) program at University of Adelaide on monday. To explain why I took the visit and will be applying to the University of Adelaide masters in Oenology program I will rehash a conversation i've had with multiple winemkers.
me: "mr/mrs winemaker, do I need to get a winemaking degree"
winemaker: "you mean you dont have a winemaking degree, what is your base degree in"
me: "molecular, cell, and developmental biology."
w: " that should be more than good enough"
me: " well given my application and three applications with winemaking degrees and exactly the same experience, would you even consider me as a candidate."
w: "probably not"
me: "that is my answer, thank you very much"
hence why I am going to apply. Other reasons for applying other than the end all be all american dream "so I can get a good job" is that I think that to be the winemaker I want to be I need to go get some formal education in wine. Do I have some sensory skills, yes. are they getting better by the day, yes. but until I put all the peices together with a formal education, there will always be simple gaps in my education. Why might you ask am I not as interested in the two programs in California, I will explain. Uc Davis masters in enology is a very theory and research based program, and other than the fact that I cant get in there without taking lots of undergraduate classes in winemaking, I'm not sure that it would be the right program for me to be the best winemaker I can. The CSU fresno program, while getting much better, is very production based. yes the theory classes would help, but much as with most of the CSU system, it is very hands on learning. At this point I might as well make money while working in a winery than pay to work in a winery.  The program at Adelaide is a nice inbetween of the other two, being both production/lab based in the winery and theory reserch based in the lecture. Another perk is that one the same campus is the AWRI, or the Australian Wine Research Institute, arguable the best Wine research institute in the world, lots and lots of winemaking information at your fingertips. Oh.... and this is the fall sunset view from the campus looking over the City of Adelaide.  And what a pretty sunset  it was. 

sunset from the AWRI

In other news, Kangaroo Tacos are not as good as they are novel, with the best taco meat still remaining black bear (thats going to be a tough one to beat) It was decided by the other amuricans and I that we would make Roo tacos and tequila for cinco de mayo. Some of the buzz words for cinco de mayo include: roo tacos, tequila, singing on the roof, party crashing, dance battle winning, new friends, tearing through the vineyards in a Gator (not driving). There are a few more buzzwords to describe cinco de mayo that are not internet worthy. dont worry parents, everything was in good taste and in a psudo responsible manner. It was up there as far as cinco de mayo's go. 
             Work has been fine, it consists of moving wine from tank to tank of different sizes. blending, breaking down, putting wine into oak, taking wine out of oak, cleaning tanks, cleaning more tanks, cleaning more tanks. "45% moving shit, 45% cleaning shit, and 10% drinking beer". I've been doing 90% of the work described. One of the cool things we have been doing are benchmark tastings. We (some of the employees) will taste 10-14 different wines from different wineries but in the same style and at roughly the same pricepoint. The goal of this is to see how our wine stacks up versus other wines in the same price bracket. This is one of the best things for me to do, because it gives me a chance to A. taste the wines, B.write down my thoughts on the wine (nose, taste, color, lenght, acid, finish) Anc C. get to explain my thoughts along with some of the other cellar staff and winemakers. I am pleased to say that I am for the most part inline with the winemakers on the tastes, aside from a few outliers of course. Again, something else that a little schooling will help me with. Something else that is cool about the masters program is that there is a chance to sit on the panel for wine judging competitions. that would be cool.   Last Friday I went to a Burgundy wine tasting at Whister Wines put on by a friend. Bring a Burgudny, get to taste the rest. I know very little about specific french wine regions, so a tasting like this is good experience to taste the differences between some of the burgundian regions.

burgundy tasting at Whistler Wines.

I do only have 8 days left of work here in australia, and only 12 days left in the barossa valley, Until next year most likely. Assuming that I get into the masters program I will most likely be coming back to work at St. Hallett for vintage (they already said yes)  If my tennative plan works out to be my actual plan I will be In australia from January 2013 till september/october 2015. That is crazy to think about. But again, all specualtive however I am motivated to make it my actual plan, and if you know me, it'll probably happen.
I have to give some acknowlegement and thanks to my parents in regards to my genetics. Due to recent diet experiments I have determied that I am somewhat Gluten intolerent. Not that I cant eat it, its just much more comfortable not to. Bummer because I like beer, and bread, and pasta, and gluten filled foods. looks like my homebrew career may be very limited, and potentially up for sale. Speaking quickly of beer, Heaps Good Beer is great, at least so I've herd scince trying to avoid drinking beer, but I do have access to some fun lab equipemnt, like this piece of lab equipemnt called an Alcolyzer, which determins the alcohol percentage of beverages. If you look in the small sample jar, you can see the color of the beer, if you look at the screen of the sweet peice of lab machinery, it says 8.17. That is the Alcohol of our beer, A little higher than we targeted, and not really any cooler accpet that it is fun to use lab equiment. I do owe a lab tech some food for use of the apparati though, I bet she will take beer.  Last things last. my travel plans.
June 4th: leave the Barossa Valley and fly to Hobart Tasmania.
June 5th: pick up our wicked camper van (the company is called wicked camper, check it out online)
June 5th-June 13th: travel tasmania, wine taste when the weather is bad, hike and sitesee when the weather is good.
June 13-16th: Brisbane to visit brisbane staying with Dads Friend Andy
June 16th-23rd: Byron Bay, for surfing and sunshine. any contacts there would be helpful
June 24th-30th: after taking the overnight train from byron bay to sydney, I will be hanging out in Sydney with the awsome Alanna Pentz in sydney, probably play tourist and do more beach going.
June 30th: Back Stateside for mexican food, bicycle riding to the beach, and family and friends.
If any of you have any recomendations of things to do in those places they will be appreciated. although i'm sure i'll find many things to do. That is all for now.
              

"Beer, Barrels, Bottles"



Matt... acting as bottling line supervisor

Alright. new blog post time. sit back, relax, grab a drink and prepare to be entertained and informed all at the same time. First things first. Matt and I bottled "heaps good beer". I created a pretty sweet label with a kangaroo on it and a few interesting words, but my lazyness to find a place to print it is going to hinder that label ever being put onto a bottle. save's paper anyway. As stated before, we set out to create what we called a cascadian dark ale. Something with some nice darker/toastier malt caractaristics underneath a very lifted hop aroma us west coast beer drinkers like so much. But as with anything Matt and I seem to do, very brief discussion and planning followed by near perfect execution has long lead us wrong. (not to toot our own horns or anything) With all the makings of a nice dark beer we set out a soak/sparge/and fermentation plan designed more for a stout/porter than for a lighter ale. When you make beer, so much of the dictation in the final product is determined by the soaking of your grains. When you brew beer, there is an ideal temperature range for soaking your grains to extract the proper amount of sugar and what types of sugars you extract. The Range is from 145 degrees f till 158 degrees f. By soaking at the lower end of that range (for lets say an hour) you dont break down some of the larger more complex sugar starch compounds that are broken down at the upper end of that scale, thus netting a thicker Wort which in turn makes a thicker beer. So a thinner lighter ale is soaked twords the higher end of that range while a thick stout or porter is soaked at the lower end. Matt pretty much nailed it on the soak, keeping it at at 146 for a good hour. That lends itself to a thicker beer. we also had a long cool ferment with the fermenter almost submerged in cool water. This also aids in making a thicker beer. Matched with the slight amount of Wheat (also for body), the chocolate roasted dark grains, and a bit of extract to get our gravity up, this beer is thick, really thick. And to match it, we have added somewhere around 80ibu's worth of Simcoe and Cascade hops to create what truly is a big big beer drinkers beer. Matt and I both having experience in homebrewing ran through the bottling no problem netting 45 bottles of our hoppy porter we call "Heaps Good". What are we going to do with this beer you might ask. Well with my half of the bottles I plan on sharing them around my winery, and the small community which I am part of. Introduce some aussies to BEER and encouraging the local homebrewers to get away from the coopers kits. Its currently carbonating and maturning, probably the first taste will be on sunday, and oh what a taste it will be. 
I finished putting together my case of wine. It consists of 9 big ass barossa shiraz's, a cab, grenache, and zin. I could put together two more cases of great wine from varietals other than Shiraz, but damnit, I'm in the Barossa Valley. Not bringing home a plethora of big Shiraz would be like going to Oregon and not brining home Pinot and Ninkasi, or Texas and not bringing home a gun rack and Shiner, Or Rombaur and not bringing back a bottle of popcore butter, or chicago and not bringing home Ian Fowler. You see, Shiraz is just a must(thats a wine pun people). 


Thats a lot of Barrels.

Work has been going well since vintage ended and some of the other casuels have gone their seperate ways, not saying I dont miss them, but work has calmed down even a notch more. If I have learned anything in the last week, its that "wine is not made only durring vintage". yes we turn grapes into an alcoholic drink we call wine durring vintage, but there are so many other things that go into making a finished wine a finished wine. Working outside of harvest like I am now, you see those things in practice. I'm not going to elaborate on what I have learned, but trust that it has to do with wine. The one part about being out of vintage (more out of the busy workload of vintage) is the ability to taste so many of our wines. Many of them are finishing malolactic fermentation (if they are destined to do so) and are getting tasted and graded for final blends. I get to taste a lot of what the winemakers are tasting, which is very important for me to learn/practice as a wannabe winemaker. I got to participate in a comparative tasting of 12 or so wines all in the same style and same pricepoint but from different producers (including our own) to see how ours stacks up. these are done blind then at the end we compare notes on each wine and reveal which was which. Only through lots of practice will you develope a palate to be able to pick up on certain aspects of the wine. I'm trying to get lots and lots of practice. Over the next month i'll be able to taste many of the blends that the winemakers come up with and the why's and why nots of the blending peices. Thats pretty much all for now. The two things on my agenda are starting up graduate school research and applications to various winemaking schools and post Barossa travel plans. Matt and I are going to sit down tomorrow and book a few things. I know it will consist of Tasmania, Brisbane, Byron Bay, and Sydney. Again, we plan little but execute perfectly.

Souvenir's

In recent barossa happenings, I'm starting to put together my Souvenir's from Australia. Now I know i'll be here for another 2 months plus, but its never to early to start to get organised. I'm going to be bringing exactly 14 souvenirs home from Australia. I know what your saying, "14, what, thats so many you damn american consumer". 12 of them are bottles of wine. I'm focusing on wine from my winery and from smaller but still of great if not better quality than the bigger production facilities. A lot of the wines I can find in the US if i look hard enough and contact their disrtibuters. So it makes sense to ship home a case of wine that I could not for any reason get in the states. besides, it will be great having that wine for years to come as a reminder of this time in australia. souvenir #13, and rightfully numbered 13 is going to be a coopers t-shirt. I'f you have ever had coopers, you would understand. #14 is one that needed a bit more justification and the right timing. I'll set the stage for you. Matt and I are having a lovely day driving down to Adelaide. 25 (75 f), a few sporatic clouds. All of the vineyards sense the impending fall and have begun their sunset like color transformation into dormancy. We stop in at our favorite brewery for a pint of pale.  Adelaide is no different, people happily bustling about, jogging, biking, consuming, drinking, strolling, purchasing, chatting, and living: the best are doing up to 4. Matt's intentions in adelaide was to get a big ass cuban cigar for his harvest party, mine intention was of similar financial value yet not nearly as enjoyable as crossing another task off my bucket list. (already crossed the cuban cigar off, I mean, why not) I was finally going to make it to a store which might help me with my computer problem, and by problem I mean that is probably dead. 3rd store later i find the one that can help me with a mac, the only thing they tell me is that for 75 dollars they can send if off and have it diagnosed. I'm not going to pay them 75 dollars to tell me what I think I already know, that being that the hardrive is shot. So I have resigned to having it looked at once im back in the states. Thank you apple for providing me with a trendy, (typically) userfriendly, slightly overpriced and currently oversized paperweight to lug around australia for the next 70 days. The irony is that i'll take it in to the apple store and some genious will wave his hand over the top fixing it instantly. However, aside from maybe not being able to recover all my data, not having a computer as a constant pull is kinda a nice thing. I'm not neccisarily being more productive, but i'm not sucked in to its vortex pull all the time. An hour on the computer is an hour on the computer, whether your in australia, austria, or austin matters not. back to the main topic at hand, consumer spending for nostalgias sake. Upon deciding not to spend the 75 on what I think is a failed endevour, I walked down the road to Adelaide Hatters and purchased souvenir #14, An awsome Akubra Hat.  This is my awsome Akubra
Now for those of you who dont know Akubra, It is the Stetson of Australia. here you will find a link the Akubras Wikipedia page, and Akubras home page. take a minute of your time rediscover envy.

The Coorong, by Akubra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akubra

http://www.akubra.com.au/


For those of you not wanting to click further, Akubra hats are made from rabbit felt (if my hat gets red paint thrown on it I swear I will eat nothing but meat for a week). Being made from rabbit felt they are water proof, and offer great sun protection, which if you know me, I need all the protection I can get. Another easy justification for purchasing this hat is that I will be spending an increasing amount of time out in vineyards. So why not get a great souviner that serves me a functional purpose back home. I anticipate that I will get a lot of good use out of this hat. 2 cool facts about this Akubra. As I wear it the band inside the will shrink and fit to my head. Cool fact #2 is that this style is made specifically for the Adelaide Hatters where I purchased this hat. Any store that has a large enough stock gets to stock their own style. this the Coorong, is named after a large lake/estuary at the end of the Murry river seperated from the ocean by a very long sandspit. I have seen the Coorong. So its an Australian hat, purchased in south australia at a store only selling that syle named after a famous south australian natural landmark that will go to great use as my vineyard time increases. Great Souvenir.
As for other happenings, work is fine, still doing a lot of cleaning and post vintage rackings and wine transfers. It will be nice to see a winery relax after vintage and what the "normal"workload consists of. The beer that Matt and I are making is progressing along nicely. we set out to make a cascadian dark ale and ended up with more of a hoppy porter. to quote my mother, "oh darn right". We are calling it Heaps Good Beer because South Australians say the word heaps heaps. Its somewhat of a running joke. Couple more weeks and we will be sharing it around, so more on that later.  Also i'm formulating travel plans, like for real this time. The only epiphany is that I'm looking to take the train from destination to destination, might take a little longer, but i could potentially bring my bike, its a more oldschool way to travel, and I would get to see a lot more of the countryside. I'll make my next blog topic about what the travel plans are in more detail.
I'm off to bed, raving for breakfast again tomorrow near from 166 year old shiraz vines. should be fun. I'll leave you with a sweet video that Cam sent me not so long ago. Its all people from burning man reciting different lines from the good Dr's "Oh the Places You'll Go". enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahv_1IS7SiE

SURFING

Last weekend was easter weekend.  As we were close to finishing harvest all the casuals had 4 days off.

strange beauty in clear cuts

Friday went for a hike with housemate Alyssa, some some sweet wildlife (kangaroos) and of course lots of gum trees. Also saw a clear cut on the hike. Apparently Australia needs wood products as well. It was interesting how high up the clear cut was and how much it is hidden from either side of the valley. I don't know if they have replanting policies like they do in washington (can't imagine they do) but it would be nice to see. We were walking along the trail and got pretty up close and personal with a wild Roo. kinda startled us both but we were maybe 10 yards from him. Roo's are real cute, tasty, but can also hurt and even kill you, especially the big males. They will balance up on their tails and literally kick the shit out of you with those rather powerful legs. At this point I had yet to eat roo, so he really had no vendetta against me, and after a brief staring contest (I won) and some pictures, we kept along our trail and he bounded off behind us. Most likely to tell his other roo buddies that we were cool.
Saturday consisted of two things. thing one, dealing with a flat battery in Jackies car, 2nd. wine tasting throughout the Barossa with Jacki. Im starting to put together a case of wine to ship home (not cheap). I'm putting together a case of some of my favorite wines. Focusing on Barossa Shiraz, and a few other blends. more on that soon. its an ongoing thing.

For sunday and monday Alyssa Matt and I went down to the wine regions south of adelaide. Those being Mclarenvale and Langhorn Creek.  Drove down, tasted the wines. Its nice to taste wine from a different region in that region. As a whole we liked the wines. More tannic than those in the Barossa and with an ocean view.  The Mataro's were by far their best wines in our opinion with Oliver Taranga being our favorite.  Post wine tasting we hit up a local brewery called Goodesons. It seems that all the brewers we meet were at one time brewers for a large facility, and most likely after tasting "real" beer many of them have been starting up their own small operations. And thankfully they did, because matt and I get to taste the reward of their labor. We also find that most of the brewers we meet we end up talking to them about various things like their pumps/pipping/brewery setup/next product as apposed to the beer at hand. The day gets even better, post this we make our way our to the beach, Maslin beach (the first unclad beach in Australia). Not sure why we that beach was chosen, the nuddi part is up beach from the parking lot, but hey, it was a nice day and we wanted to swim. To my sweet sweet surprise there was a little local windswell rolling through, and lucky for me I had borrowed a surfboard from one of my winemakers. Surfing ensued. The waves were small, windy, had terrible shape, but I have surfed in Australia now. God I love surfing. (side note: the places you travel are made by the people you travel with. If I don't really have any travel plans with certain people i've decided that sitting on the beach and surfing in Byron Bay sounds like a damn good use of two weeks in june) Carrying one, that night we stayed at a YHA hostel (nicest hostels) in the small beach town of port elliot. Port Elliot is famous for its bakery. I don't think i've elaborated on an Australian bakery yet. Very different than what we think of in the States. Bakery's here consist mainly on Meat/gravy/veggies/salt/and such all contained within pastry. Its their version of fast food, and bakery's are serious business here. Matt spent close to 20 dollars on I think 5 different pastry variations. Matt likes to eat. I had what I akin to a meatball sandwich for breakfast. Thats another thing about Aussies, they seem to take everything that is acceptable and expected in the afternoon/evening, all food, drink, and social manner, and make it available in the morning in a socially acceptable way. thanks Australians for being awesome.
Monday followed with a trip up to Langhorn Creek, another wine growing region south of Adelaide. Interesting enough, Matt work at a winery down here in '10, so the intent of the trip was to visit that winery and hopefully get to taste some of the wine he helped make at a place called Bremerton. We did, and the wines were great.  Infact all the wines in the are were good, with Cabernet far and away being the best wines.
A few thoughts. One its nice to see the different areas really excelling in different wines. The Barossa reigns supreme with Shiraz, but Mclarenvale does Mataro (Movedre), Langhorn creek grows great Cabernet, Eden Valley Riesling, and the Adelaide hills grow pinot, I think.
Either way, a very pleasant weekend.
Tuesday, Matt and I got out beer stuff. yes, we are brewing beer all the way down here in Australia. our intent was to brew a Cascadian Dark Ale, nice dark beer full of flavor and full of hops, a concept that is just starting to be grasped down here. We got some chocolate malt to put into the beer, maybe a little more than we intended as it seems that the beer is taking on a slightly more mocha characteristic than was intended. Not at all a bad thing as the beer seems to developing lots of flavor and hops. Yay beer.
All and All it was a very successful weekend. look out for another blog in the next few days.

Kangaroo's

Australians love their kangaroos, especially cooked rare with a berry sauce. It's like their deer/beef/eagle all warped into one. It's their deer because they enjoy jumping out in front of moving vehicles. They are their beef because they enjoy eating them. And akin to an eagle as the Australian national animal.
Over the long weekend I had lots and lots of Kangaroo encounters as such. Went for a hike, saw some kangaroos, went on a weekend trip and visited an animal park where we were able to feed Kangaroos. Then on tuesday when Matt and I were brewing beer we bbq'd a Roo roast. Lots and lots of Roo.  In all the roo discussions I was referred by Alison to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. A australian children's show from the 70's where skippy the roo helped solve crime. most definitely youtube Skippy the Kangaroo, its well worth the entertainment.
Kangaroo's are really pretty cool animals, they have some of the most efficient locomotion ever, have incredible pregnancy traits, use their tail to stand on, and i mean come on, its so cool when they just hop away. I figured the last blog was increasingly long, so this blog is going to be a little bit about kangaroo's, and more about the sweet pictures of the increasing interactions with kangaroo's that i've encountered

roo feeding

Back home for good beer, or stay in australia with this little guy

too cute

the only country that eats they national animal

just wave it over the flame

"march in a nutshell" the written version

Alright, I'm finally writing a new blog. so for all my loyal fans out there. your welcome. I suggest reading parts of the blog, I anticipate length. Reasons for not writing a blog for over a month include Harvest (no need really to explain the hard work), awsome weekends and downtime (some of which i'll elaborate on), and really the most important, a broken computer. I also Apologise for not posting any pictures to go along with this blog. Go look at my facebook if you want to find the picutres. I've posted some new ones there.
Let me start with the broken computer. About a month ago now, it started acting up and freezing. This freezing was due to the Hardrive, it would start making an uncomfortable clicking noise, followed by no activity.  Ironically it started while I was trying to do a softwear update on my security, well played Apple. To further the ironic twist it completely died on my attempt to back up my pictures to my hardrive. Now when I "turn it on" the main white loading screen with the apple comes up then after about  seconds the hardrive begins its rythmatic clicks. Did I also mention that the nearest Apple store I beleive is in Melbourne. Thats about a 10 hour drive or two weeks bike ride for those of you not up to date on Australian Highways.  After ignoring my computer quite succesfully now for  weeks I have started looking and found a computer shop in adelaide that services Mac's. At this point im pretty sure the computer is done, and I really just want to recover my data. I did however give all my pictures to a fellow intern before he left, So I at least wont loose any of my australia pictures, everything else is backed up on my computer.  Other than breaking my 6 or 7 year old RayBans thats really the only bad news.
In Great news, St. Hallett (the winery I work for for those of you who forgot) has asked me to stay on after harvest till june 1st-ish. Of course I accepted. More time, more money, more experience. I like the crew I work for, I like the facility, there is still more I can learn and I can probably sit in on some blending actions. I booked my origional plane flight home for june 30th, so working till the 1st gives me a solid month of travel. There is a chance I might extend that 2 more weeks (making it 6 months in aus)due to tax purposes (that two weeks could be worth upwards for 4k depending on how the tax laws read. more on that later.  The Other very good news is that I have secured a harvest position for 2012 North American harvest at Ridge Vineyards. I will be working both in Sonoma and in the Santa Cruz mountains. I'll be helping out with vineyard sampling in sonoma and the santa cruz mountains then getting to make the wines up at Ridge's Monte Bello Facility.  Its going to be a smaller harvest in regards to tonnage but the winemaking practices, quality, and learning experience appear like they will be the best yet. Words can not describe how excited I am to get to be part of making the Monte Bello wine and living near enough to santa cruz again. More on all that later as it develops. Oh, and you could probably all visit, its a lot closer than oregon. Do yourself a favor and check out the Website for Ridge Vineyards, they have some very cool vineyard maps and a nice display of the wines.
On to what i've been up too.  Since the last post, which was like middle of Febuary A lot has happened as you would expect. Harvest was in full swing, we now have only  fermenting tanks left, all the other wine is in tanks in various stages of going into or out of barrels spread across the tanks of the winery.
 My main job for the last month has focused on pressing the reds since we finished getting in all of our whites a month ago or so.
Red Wine Pressing in a nutshell:
1. things to remember, red wine is fermented on the skins, so we do not press it off right away like we do white grapes.
2. First we must drain the wine not soaked up in the skins (the skins float creating what we call a cap.
3. Then we must get all the skins into one of the various presses we have through any number of processes. This is usually the most physical part involving scrapping, digging, pulling, cursing, poking, crying, shoveling, kicking, crumpling, throwing, followed by more cursing. Some tanks are harder than others, and some grape varieties create a more or less dense cap. it also depends on how long its been in the fermenter.
4. Press the shit out of it. because we are making a giant, bold, flavorful, tannic wine. (Dads favorite style) we literally press the shit out of it. Making Shiraz is not the finnesse winemaking that Pinot Noir can be. We beat the crap out of our grapes to make the style of wine the Barossa is known for.
5. empty press of the dry skins, which get taken off by another company who distille it make an number of alcohol based products including spirits which we then use to fortify some of our wines.
6. clean. The press, lines, tanks, flood, clothes, all need to be cleaned after this is done.
I like pressing, Its a pretty fun job with a lot of parts to it and you get to taste the wine right as it becomes dry wine.
Now to go weekend by weekend highlighting all i've done. Now I say weekend loosly because I really only have had sundays off until the last week. But Matt (intern who i worked with at elk cove) also has sundays off, and his winery gave him a car. we have not yet had a bad weekend.
The weekend of March 2nd started with a mexican feast due to the number of Americans Present. I think out of 12 there were 5. Thank you to Syd (reasercher for Gallo) for providing the excuse to make homemade Mole Sauce and slow cooked chicken and pork. If you know me you know that Mole is my favorite flavor, combine that with slow cooked pork and some great Reisling I was in food heaven. As were most people around the table. I proudly ate the leftovers for breakfast/lunch/dinner. That next day being sunday we wine tasting, including a trip to Jacobs Creek (pretty much some of the worst wine possible, but they are synonomous with the Barossa valley. It was worse than we all imagined, and we expected bad. Then we Follwed all the asian tourists to their next mandatory stop at Penfolds. Penfolds is another large famous winery in the Barossa known for "Grange", a 700 dollar tannin bomb meant to age 30 years. we refered to that day as our corporate tasting.
The weekend of march 9th consisted of Matt and I going down to Adelaide in search of the Coopers Brewery. We found it, but apparently on sundays they arn't open for a tour, tasting, or t-shirt buying. Bummer. My only two souvinears from Australia are going to be a steriotypical aussie hat to wear out in the vineyards and A coopers T shirt. Upon Failing to make it to the brewer we just went and walked around Adelaide, I found some boardies, made our way out to The beach at Glenelg, swam in the ocean for the first time, and found a beachfront pub to enjoy some hoppy beer and a burger. Not a bad sunday.
Weekend of March 16th, St patty's weekend, we out with the Two Hands Crew, thanks guys for making me really feel that ten pounds of fat i've lost. drank green beer, went wine tasting on sunday to some cool spots, including giving a tour at St. Halletts to Matt and another intern friend Ashley. Went to Matts place for an impromtu bbq only to be joined by his Swiss houemates and some backpackers picking nearby vineyards. Not every day you show up to an impromtu bqq only to find a Case of 1998 Cab Shiraz, 6 europeans, the 3 of us americans, great food and some good laughs. Just thankful to be where I am with the experiences gained. Oh, and we used a 1000 ml erlenmeyer flask as a decanter.
March 24th. Mission, finding good beer. Not hard for Matt and I to do. We Found it, at the BierHaus in a town in the hills behind Adelaide. The Brewer was a great guy, we tasted through his lineup, which included a double IPA. Now the Aussie beer (coors/bud equivelent) is equally as bad as it is in the states, only they drink more to their local shitty beer.  The Microbrew scene is just developing, this places being on of the more respecet and In my opinion better locations around. Matt and I are so used to drinking insanly hoppy beers that that is our standard. they are coming around to that here, just not quite as intense as what we are used to. In some ways though they are making a more accessable well rounded beer, not the alcoholic hop water we sometimes used to. In other beer related news, Matt and I are going to brew a black IPA hopefully on tuesday. We cheating slightly by using half extract due to limitations in our soak, but hey, we still going for it. Unfortunally as I write this our ingredients are sitting in the post office which is closed for 4 days due to easter weekend. I know my stuff is there, I just cant get it till tuesday afternoon, bummer.
March 28th: The Harvest Party. Oh Barossa winery parties. The first one I went to killed my phone, so I was mentally prepared and took extra percautions for this one.  For our end of harvest party we all went to the local country club for a friendly round of Golf. Now I like golf, I was pretty pumped on getting to go for a round. I have not yet surfed in Aus, but i sure have played a round of golf. The costume theme for the party was "formal to the waist, the rest in bad taste", it did not matter which "to your waist" was formal and which was in bad taste. I went with more of a tacky golfer look. Each team played the best shot out of their teams hits. so driving, approach, and putting were all played off the best shot for each. that made team oriented and a lot of fun. That and the Winemaker driven beer cart that would come around almost every hole. My team ended up with a bogy on every hole except the last which we got par. Not bad. the winning team was 3 over Par, but also consisted of a lab tech who is from St. Andrews.  Were were bussed back to the winery, where there was pig roasting on a spit, more beer, a bottle of mezcal with a scorpian in the bottom, and a 6 liter bottle of 1998 Old block (so so so good) Dinner of course was great, speeches were given, thanks were given, I recieved the Hose Rose trophy for what my bosses said was for my hard work and positive attitude. My name will forever be engraved onto a homemade trophy sitting at St. Hallett's winery in South Australia. needless to say I Broke a peice of the Trophy off later on... oops. but hey, for that night it was mine to break. And easily fixable peice.  Kareokee, deserts, dancing on the cellar door bar, more wine and Mezcal were consumed until our ride home became our ride home.  Normally I would not post drunken stories onto this Blog for various reasons, and except for one very unfortunate 4th of july incident involving Brennan Davis and a beer pong table, are usually pretty tame in in control. To me this was just to funny not to tell. first off it doesn't involve me persay as the drunk culprit, but another intern. We are being drivin home by one of the winemakers, making a stop at a town opposite mine first. This other intern starts to throw up in the car, I tell the driver to pull over and pick us up on the way back pushing the overly inebriated eployee out the door. it took me all of about 5 seconds to realize that if the winemaker does not come to pick me up, this is going to be a decent walk home. Anyway, the drunken intern is busy stumbling around and "fertilizing"some Orlando vineyards (think of this next time you drink Jacobs Creek people). we get picked up, thankfully, drunken intern has nowhere to stay and he isn't staying with the winemaker, so he gets to stay at my house, yay. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people go out drinking as such without arrangments for a place to say. In hindsight he should have slept in his car. back to my front door im not convinced he is done throwing up, and im not letting him sleep on the nice couches in such a state. so i get a glass of water and we go for a walk. Impatient drunk me decides that drunk intern should do jumping jack's and pushups to relieve any discomfort that his stomach may still have. It worked. And then he slept on the couch. We will head this as a warning that if your drunk ass ever gets put into the very capable yet impatient hands of my drunk ass you probably will end up doing some sort of calesthetic excersise to prevent the potential for throwing up anywhere inside my house.  I think the winemaker just took the pressure washer to the inside of his car. Oh end of Vintage Parties.
March 29th: Hung Over
April 1st. Alyssa (my housemate) turns 23. We made a big brunch consisting of some damn fine bacon/eggs/muffins/fruit most of which was made on the bbq, went tasting at a Small Zin Producer then swam/lounged around at the Lengmeil pool for most of the afternoon. It was also in that Cellar door which we were asked to join the 15 person pyramid. (refer to my facebook album Australia) Also ot sunset we went up to a local lookout for some cheese and bubbles to celebrate another one of us interns leaving to go back to New zealand for harvest. Really just a lovely day.
April 3rd. Matt and I found our way to Adelaide to take a friend to the airport and found a pub run by a couple of beer loving lesbians called the Wheatcheif. This is so far the only place in South Australia we know of where you can get a plethora of american microbrews. we had a pint of some western australian beer called Hop Hog.
April 6th: being today, good friday, nothing is open, Alyssa and I drove up to this local protected area and went on a hike. We saw 4 kangaroos and some nice views. The more and more i look at the local trees and plants the more it looks different from those back home. Maybe i'm noticing the differences more, but they remind me less and less of back home. that brings us to right now. the rest of this weekend for me is going to consist of wine tasting up in the Claire Valley and Down in Mclarenvale. the other two significant wine growing regions in South Australia.
Some other happenings:  Since starting work NOT at 5am like the first 5 weeks for so, but at 7, im comfortably able to ride my bike to work, which I have been doing for the last 3 weeks. thats helping to stay in shape as well as getting that little adrenaline rush in the morning. It makes biking up to the markets that much easier. also seeing as how its my only real form of trasnportation thats kinda of it.  I'm also putting a little bit more muscle back on due to the bike, and as I've said before with the decrease in good beer and fried food, i've lost 10 lbs or so being in this country.  Another thing i've done periodically over the last month or so is drive. Let me remind you that here in australia they drive on the opposite side of the road from what we do back home. so that means just about everything is opposite. It started with me volunteering to be a DD so i could drive and has extended beyond that on a number of occasions. Driving on the opposite side of the road looses its novelty after about 30 seconds, then it just becomes driving. Having now logged somewhere between 3 and 4 hours of driving time, i dont even think twice about pulling onto the correct side of the road. Parents you would be very proud of me that almost all of that driving has been done in manuel cars. Just about the only thing thats not different is the manuel gear box. First is still far left moving twords you, same as it is stateside.  Thats it about now. the only other news is that I borrowed a surfboard and may getting a session in on monday morning or sunday evening, or ideally both. i'll do what i can to stay more on top of my blogs and maybe put some pictures up, but really check out the pictures via my facebook.

Environmentalism sells

I have not yet used this media platform yet to complain or bitch until now. But this one is really bugging me.  So enjoy the short rant. Hopefully it will change your mind. 

What you may ask is bothering me much to dedicate a precious blog post to the topic. The answer lies in the children’s classic by the good Dr. Suess known as the lorax.  Let it first be known that I would like to send my condolences not to the family of Dr. Suess but to Theodore himself for his conscious classic being exploited to the point it currently is. Environmentalism sells, and sells very well. What we are observing with the incredible amount of product attachment to “The Lorax” is the environmental bubble meeting its inevitable needle. Brace yourself for the burst people.

            Need an example. Go count how many nalgeens, keens, or any other variation of stainless steel, BPA free environmental water bottles you have. How many do you think you need? What the plastic water bottle was, the environmental friendly one has taken its place.  Now Before you come riding in on your ass trying to pull me off my high elephant, let it be known that I have very much for anti thneeds and trying to be sustainable local. I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m not perfect, but I make a solid effort. 

            What does the Lorax stand for? For a logger, the lorax is (well was) a damn hippie trying to ruining his job, I think the housing crash is really to blame for their job loss. So for a logger, the Lorax’s last name should be Lehman. For Random House, its always meant a nice profit, one im sure drastically increased upon slipping into bed with Universal.  For 60%, or 3 out of the 5 people who read this blog, it may represent a thneedless week in Yosemite, the Mojave, The big Sur coast, The Olympics, Zion, or any number of trips that one time happened.  For me it’s the one thing I hold any real nostalgia for. If my house was burning down and I could take with me 4 items my copy of “The Lorax” and my truffela seeds would be the first 2. And then probably the original printing of one of the lorax pages hanging in our dinning room for number 3.  Many of my most memorable experiences were spent in a lorax-esque environment, if you were their for any of them you know what I mean. I know all the words by heart.  My copy goes with me everywhere in the world as a reminder of home, all the amazing trip experiences, and to strive to be a better person in the way the lorax portrayed. 

            Im not sad about the lorax being made into its second movie, there is an animated version of the original story. What does trouble me is the selling out of something I hold close to my heart and head.  What bothers me if the exploitation of this specific book, which preaches in a very simple way against most of this things the movie is trying to sell. It would be no different than if “On the Road” or “The Monkey Wrench Gang” were made into feature lengths utilizing their appealing anti messages to sell very mainstream products.  Hang on, I take that back, if the monkey wrench gang ever were to be made into a feature length its add campaign would suffer greatly at the hands of the George Washington Hayduke society.  Do not think for a minute the people putting out the movie are doing it for environmental reasons, it’s not only a classic cute entertaining story, but a convenient message for a larger product marketing campaign.  Pessimism be damned I would rather have that be the message than anything else. I for one will not being seeing this movie in any way, shape, or form more as my protest to all the products attached to it.  HP, Target, and Mazda are three of the big contract sign ins. Mazda really, I understand that it’s a hybrid, but it would make so more environmental sense to be selling bikes, local eating and staycations. But no, they sell a Japanese car by the company that has huge majority of its manufacturing in Hiroshima of all places.  I wonder if the Lorax would support shipping that car across the pacific ocean.  This hypocritical statement comes to you from a guy who drives a Nissan and a Honda.  Again, not perfect

            The point that I’m most likely failing for portray is that environmentalism sells, and a thneed is a thneed even if it has the words “sustainable” and “environmentally friendly” printed on it. Please think twice before you make your next purchase, meal decision, or weather or not you really want to see “The Lorax”. If you do decide to see the lorax, please do it for the entertainment factor, not for its “message”or what its ‘message’ might mean to you.  I apologise again for terrible writing and for bitching on a blog, I have now leveled up or down (whichever is worse) in the internet blogosphere.

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