Austen's Vintner Adventure '25

Given that we do not have much fruit coming in yet, our work schedule is typically 8 hours a day for 4-5 days per week. Once we start harvesting the Sauv Blanc grapes in 1-2 weeks, things will get CRAZY. At our peak, we're looking at 12 hour days for 6 days a week (which should last 3 weeks or so before calming back down). Knowing that 2 consecutive days off is a privilege right now, I decided to explore Saturday & Sunday while I had the time. I planned a quick trip to Abel Tasman National Park, with a stop in Nelson in each direction. Nelson is a slightly bigger and more lively Blenheim (where I'm staying) with beautiful Chinese gardens, golden sand coastline, and the "Center of New Zealand" monument. Here are some pics before I continue onto the rest of my post below: Now for Abel Tasman - this NP is essentially one long walking path along the coast that takes 3-5 days to complete. However, you can take a water taxi up the coast, walk a portion of the track, and...

I wish I could report a more exciting Week 1 - but it was mostly filled with corporate culture, health & safety, and general best practice trainings - all riveting stuff. Most topics are fairly intuitive and not entirely new from my time in California a few years ago. The scale here is quite large though, comparatively. This harvest, we are aiming to process around 17 tons of grapes at our site alone, but there will be another 60+ tons across the various Indevin-owned wineries across NZ. Stonestreet (CA winery) was fewer than 5 tons, so laying eyes on a massive 225,000 liter tank for the first time here was quite a shock. We'll be producing ~85% sauvignon blanc, which was what Marlborough is known for, with the remainder made up of Chardonnay (sparking included) Pinot Gris, Riesling, Pinot Noir, and Rose. There's about 40 of us seasonal workers and ~15 permanent staff in the cellar. One of the coolest parts of this experience so far is meeting folks from all corners of the ...