Michael’s big one keeps on growing (and other stories)

April 22, 2010

Michael Hyson’s first truffle is still growing — “being pushed up from underneath”, he tells me. Compare this picture (above) taken earlier this week with the one taken when he first found it — there’s definitely some inflation going on, and we can see that bugs and slugs are beginning to enjoy a feast. If [...]

Read the full article →

The purple fingers of oblivion

April 5, 2010

The purple fingers are from the wine we bottled today: 22.5 cases of Faultline pinot noir and 11.5 cases of Côtes du Waipara syrah, oblivion a warm place under a duvet in the near future. The bottling was done by hand, which means with a syphon into the barrel of wine (racked off its lees), [...]

Read the full article →

Wine update: grapes nearly ready…

March 27, 2010

The 2010 grape harvest is getting closer: the grapes are ripening well, and we’re aiming to pick them on Easter Sunday. Time to muster friends and family and offer them a good feed… This year the wine is being made by our neighbours at Waipara West, and I’ll be helping out by doing some of [...]

Read the full article →

Marlborough’s first truffle

March 27, 2010

This is the first truffle of the 2010 New Zealand season, the first ever found in the Marlborough region, and a first for Marlborough grower Michael Hyson and his Waihopai Valley truffière. It’s nowhere near ripe yet, but as Michael exclaimed when he rang me with his news yesterday morning, “Gareth, it’s huge!”. And it [...]

Read the full article →

Well done Sophocles…

March 27, 2010

The credit expert and his unfeasibly large fruiting body. Do you like it? [Hat tip: Wilf Puckdale]

Read the full article →

Being the first part of the next book

March 10, 2010

I promised at Christmas that I would make an early draft of the intro and first chapter of my next book available here at the end of January. That deadline slipped a little (no surprises there), and I haven’t finished the first chapter, but here’s a draft of an introduction. Working title is Lemmy, final [...]

Read the full article →

Truffle dogs and Chinese truffles (but not Chinese truffle dogs)

March 3, 2010

Since we’re in catching up mode, here a couple of articles I’ve been meaning to make available for some time. The first is a paper [PDF] on Chinese truffles commissioned by Gastronomica (the prestigious US food and culture journal) in 2008, which draws heavily on my experiences in China in 2007. It discusses the impact [...]

Read the full article →

Second wine: 2009 syrah & pinot to be bottled soon

March 3, 2010

Stunning, that’s what Nicholas said. The winemaker, that is, about our first syrah. Quite made my day, I can tell you. I tasted a barrel sample today, and I have to say I thought it was pretty good — though naturally I’m biased. The pinot’s not bad either: a lot more colour and complexity than [...]

Read the full article →

Christmas, wishes

December 26, 2009

Boxing Day, and hangdog shame strikes. No updates to On The Farm since April. Plenty of effort at the other place, but naught here since the pinot harvest (which went well, thanks to help from friends). We have a barrel of pinot and a half barrel of syrah to bottle in a couple of months [...]

Read the full article →

King harvest (has surely come)

April 5, 2009

Pinot harvested today, thanks to the good offices of friends, family, an Italian student winemaker and an itinerant American drummer. Two big barrels full, so we should do better than last year, but I’ll know the numbers in a day or so when the grapes have been crushed. Meanwhile, the syrah sits in the vines, [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →