It's the I Ching Thing.

 

"Facing the morning, wearing her shadow

She throws her dice and I-Ching

Success in Japan, a rescuing man

Knows she won't change anything..."

Ah, the changes. The I Ching.  No Secrets. "She keeps no secrets from you...."

I've been transparent about my ups and downs of my time in the wine industry. Some people admire that, others cringe. It doesn't matter. It is what it is. It IS my story. Trust me, there is a whole lot more I could say but for now still, it isn't going to happen. 

What I will say again, is that I want to be out of this industry and free to pursue other wonderful adventures like I have in the past thirteen months of the best job I have ever had, with some of the best people I have had the good fortune to meet. I have now finished that job but the bush bug has bitten me and I have every intention of being out working in excessive heat, in dust storms, in the red sand, sooner than later. I love it. I love the challenge. I love the camaraderie that grows from being in the middle of nowhere with people that you work with, live with, eat with, laugh with, drink with, depend on in so many ways. 

It's a whole new world. It's a dangerous world but that makes it exciting, and I find that I can handle fear better than ever before in my life. What progress! In my first weeks at my new job, I often walked around wondering how I was going to manage to learn all the things I needed to learn, and to be safe while doing so but somehow I managed. I faced the fears, trusted those who were teaching me, and took it one day at a time. Frankly, overcoming so many of my fears, and the incredible life changes which I went through in order to have this job, was most empowering. I am forever grateful for the way fate landed me in a desert for over a year, despite it being the hottest summer in Australia's history. And yes folks, that was tough. But I made it. We all made it. What can I say? My former co-workers rock. 

You can probably tell that I am rather inspired by much. What I am really no longer inspired by is making and selling wine. I still like to drink wine now that I am back in temperatures below forty degrees celcius. I'm sure the Coopers Vintage Ale profits were much higher over summer than usual, however!  Yes, my name is Marie and I am STILL a grenache addict. Phew! Just as well with the lovely array of bottles I have stashed throughout my house! 

But one can love something without being involved with it too much. I have spent the past two years (at least) winding down wine businesses and still I have stock to sell. Admittedly, I haven't pushed it that much in the past six months because summer in the desert is about survival, not wine sales. Now that I am home (well, one of my homes... I have turned into quite the gypsy!), it is time to get back on the wine wagon and clear the stock for once and for all. This chapter is almost finished. It's a good feeling. Life is far too short to not be happy in what you are doing.

So, yes, over coming months you will see that I am selling our wines at crazy low prices. This is not an indication of the quality, it is merely time to let go and move on. Our wines have been stored in a proper storage facility in the Barossa Valley and most of them will be dispatched from there to save me lugging cases from Stockwell to the Post Office in Tanunda. The wines have aged wonderfully and I am confident that buyers will thoroughly enjoy them - and not only for the value aspect!

It is really lovely to continue to get amazing emails and messages from past customers who are saddened to see Karra Yerta take the path that we are, and yet, these same messages wish me all the best and understand why this dream has to end, and another one continue. It's fabulous. Our customers have always been fantastic, and I thank you all sincerely for being so understanding and supportive. 

On a final note, I think it is highly unlikely that I will get our website back up to scratch. It is simply too much work for too much risk of it being hacked again. We are still being spammed in the same manner that we were at the time of the hacking so confidence is low.  For now, please email me with any enquiries/orders to karrayertawines@gmail.com and I can let you know what stock is left and for what price. Again, thanks for past support and though I will not shut this blog down, the posts will continue to be sporadic. For more regular contact, I suggest joining our Facebook page or you can follow us on Twitter.

Cheers for now,

Marie

Changes - Time may change me, but I can't trace time.

"I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test...."

Today marks ten months since I started a new job, in a new industry, in a new area of this amazing country of Australia. Frankly, it was the best thing that could have happened to me, for many reasons. As David Bowie sang, Changes............

I've said it a thousand times in recent months, but I do see life with completely different eyes. It is a beautiful thing. Yes, we still have our Liquor Licence, and yes, we still have wine to sell and this year again, grapes to sell, but slowly we are winding up things and gaining time to live again. We gave it our all, and I certainly thought I was moving in the right direction by opening a shop to sell the wines of three small family wineries, but I was wrong. It was a hard but good lesson. The same mistakes will never be made again. I still find it bizarre how the plans I made changed so dramatically, so fast. One thing really does lead to another and change cannot be stopped. I have learnt to embrace change. I used to hate change - I liked to make plans, and stick to them. Maybe that was my problem.

I have spent little time in the Barossa since April 4th 2012 and it is funny how quickly we adapt to new lifestyles. I must admit, the recent temperatures in the desert have taken their toll but with the roster that I am on, the months literally fly by, so the intense summer is fast coming to an end and soon it will be much easier to get through the working days, maybe even without wearing a fly net over my hardhat. If someone had placed a bet with me that I would be driving 450km to work before doing a six to eight hour day, and then working for eleven to twelve hours a day for almost two weeks in the desert, in an industry I had never really considered, I would have lost money. It just goes to show that one never knows..... anything. People are often not what they seem, we are often not what we seem, life is often not what it seems. More often than not, one has to delve deeper and really experience good and bad to have a more accurate understanding of much.

So that is where I am at, and I do appreciate that our customers and other business contacts have understood that I can now only do things in my time, and most importantly, when I feel like it. Coming home is primarily for rest, not to keep working flat out on the wine business. I am not Superwoman anymore and do not wish to be. I work to live, not live to work, these days. But, while things are still up in the air somewhat, I still have some work to do.....

On that note, we still have a lot of wine to sell, despite not making new wines for the past two years, and despite on-selling our (still in barrels) red wines to a fellow winemaker in the Barossa. As our website was hacked a few weeks ago, and very well I must say, I now cannot rely on that to assist me. I am still assessing whether I feel like spending my rare time off of work messing around, rewriting, reformatting and updating something that can be destroyed so easily.

We have had our 2006 and 2007 Shiraz Cabernets, and our 2007, 2008 and 2009 Eden Valley Rieslings out at great prices for most of the past year, and though we have sold a lot still have some left so if you are interested in purchasing any, please email me at karrayertawines@gmail.com

Our 2008 Shiraz Cabernet (Silver Medal at the 2009 Barossa Wine Show) and what is left of our 2010 Eden Valley Riesling (Gold Medal at the 2010 Canberra International Riesling Challenge) is available for $20 per bottle, or $200 a case, plus postage (bank transfer or cash only, no credit cards, sorry).

I have been rather tardy on marketing/promoting our wines in the past year, and perhaps the fact that we are winding down does not help our sales, but our wines are still great value and we are far from being the only winery that has decided to wind down dramatically (most are forced to close, and fast). As I have said in previous blog posts, there are many reasons for us taking this path, and perhaps one day soon I will elaborate on some of them.

For now, I just want to get our stocks down significantly more so that our storage costs are much lower. I am not 100% sure if we will ever make wine again, or not. That will depend on many things, but for me, passion. If my passion does not come back for the industry, then there is no sense in returning to it. My life is too short to put my all into something which does not make me happy a lot of the time. Perhaps after a special experience at the end of this year things will be different. We are going to go right outside of our square and do something that we would never have had the time to do had we made the decision to process our grapes this year and produce yet more wine to watch go into storage, and spend so much more money merely to hope and wait for any kind of return.

In the meantime, I am going to take life a week at a time, explore new opportunities when I can, and continue following my newest passion - taking photographs of the amazing country that I live in. I have never seen so much beauty in my life as I have over the past ten months. There is a lot more to see, and whichever road of work I take, I will continue to appreciate the things in life that many others forget to even notice. I hope you enjoy the photos included with this post. This is what life is about - experiencing beautiful things, not money, not prestige, not possessions. This is what MY new life is about. Living. Australia. I'm right out of the square, and never going back into it, ever again. I want to be in the whole chess board.

For those of you who have supported us in the past, thank you sincerely. For those who continue to support us, even bigger thanks. It really is appreciated. And again, I thank Steven of Kurtz Family Vineyards and Mark of Gumpara Wines for being the fabulous guys that they are, and for making the job of closing Collective Barossa much easier than it could have been had they been men of lesser qualities. Selah.

Cheers for now,
Marie

Birthdays & Bonfires in the Barossa.

Following up to my previous post, I'm back home in the beautiful Barossa Ranges after another stint of working away. Within a six hour drive, I went from an afternoon of being sandblasted, in the middle of Woop Woop where the sun was shining and it was indeed short-sleeves weather, to an evening in the rolling hills of the Barossa where the first raindrops started falling on my car windscreen at Stockwell. Along the way, I finally managed to take another stack of photos of the Australian countryside that I am currently smitten by. The photo above is one of them, and thus today's blog post song is Elvis Presley's Mystery Train. Yours truly is a big Elvis fan. I'm not sure how many songs I get to listen to on each 450km trip to work, or back, but it's a lot. Elvis is often on the playlist.

My first day at home was the perfect example of a Barossa Ranges winter day; I awoke to the magnificent sound of rain falling on the roof, I could see the heavy mist through the lace curtains and there was a hint of crisp air in the bedroom despite the wood-fire going in the lounge-room of my cottage, down the hall. All was good in the world and as winter is my favourite season, and moreso now since I am often living in a region where there is little rain and certainly no mist, it was the most blissful feeling to be able to lay in bed and literally soak up the magnificence of the day. I pondered much and then eventually arose to start planning the day, and the weekend, for it is my youngest son's birthday this weekend. Oh how time does fly. He will be seventeen tomorrow, on Saturday June 23. Happy Birthday to my fabulous Son #2 (as I call him, regularly:)

I think a bonfire by the redgum stable may be in order. With marshmallows toasting on the antique fork that I used as a little girl at my grandparent's farm oh so many years ago. Bowls of home-made soup and a barbeque. Good home-style country cooking, which is what we Barossans do best. I am spending this afternoon in the kitchen making lots of delicious goodies and honestly can say that I do miss cooking. I do not need to cook when I work away nor do dishes. As a mother and wife for so many decades it feels strange to not do these tasks on a daily basis but it sure does make my time at home much more productive:) I never leave home to go back to work without having at least three meals in the freezer for the family to pull out when the need arises.

Once the cooking is finished, then it will be time to go for a look in the cellar for a bottle of red wine to indulge in tonight, in front of the fire, and a couple of special ones to enjoy tomorrow. I promise to try hard to steer away from anything grenache related but it won't be an easy task. Currently I am very much enjoying the Yalumba Bush Vine Grenache (one bottle less out of my half-case since opening that with last night's dinner of beef schnitzel) but I am thinking that a bottle of McLaren Vale Shiraz may be the perfect companion for tonight's beef cassoulet. So much wine, so little time. 

Winter really is a gorgeous time of year, for many reasons, but first and foremost I think it is hard to beat having a bottle of red with a slow-cooked meal unless perhaps one is indulging in a bottle of riesling with beer-battered flathead and home-made chips. Yes, these are the things that life is about. On that note, it's back to the pots and pans for me, and I do wish you could smell the aromas floating around my kitchen. You can take the woman out of the kitchen but you can't take the kitchen out of the woman........ Cooking rocks, just like Elvis!


Cheers for now, 
Marie

The best of both worlds.

"You say times are tough

 We've got the best of both worlds here

Things are rough

We've got the best of both worlds here

Times are tough

We've got the best of both worlds here"......

In three days time, it will be two months exactly since I started a different job, in a different industry, in a different part of Australia. It's been one hell of a ride! I truly do have The Best of Both Worlds at the moment. It's such an adventure, in every way, and I still sometimes sit and ponder how vastly different my 2012 is to what I had planned. 

For one thing, it is a wonderful feeling to be earning a wage. More importantly, and despite the fact that I still have many loose ends to tie up regarding Karra Yerta Wines and Collective Barossa, it is an incredible feeling to be able to travel home and have 'days off'. Real days off where I do only what I want, and feel no guilt whatsoever. I have gone from a lifestyle of Barossa/wine/dine/retail/people/people/people to one of the Outback/mining/isolation/no people/emus/kangaroos.

But most importantly of all, I see almost everything through different eyes. I feel reborn. Enthused. Inspired. I have turned my life upside down and many of the changes have been scary but as a person who used to need plans and order in everything, I am embracing disorder in my new life as a gypsy. My goals now are to take things a day/week/month at time, sell all of our older wine stocks (2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 vintages), enjoy more peaceful days and have more quality time with my family, good friends and my dog (and hopefully a new little lamb which I bottle fed tonight. He was orphaned a few days ago.)

I am finding life outside, or somewhat outside, of the wine industry rather relaxing. The pressure has lifted and I now find myself enjoying a glass or bottle of wine regularly and from a totally different perspective. There's no more hoo haa. It is so refreshing! I am now more of a consumer than a producer and I like it. In fact, I love it.

A lot of things happened, most of them unexpected, and it has been a thought provoking past twelve months. As one who was so passionate about promoting the Barossa, and I guess, feeling obligated to as an owner of businesses and as a resident who really did love what the Barossa stood for, I can now stand back and have more freedom with much. I also see the Barossa with very different eyes. Where I spend most of my time now reminds me of how the Barossa used to be twenty or thirty years ago. I wonder where both places will be in another thirty years. I wonder where I will be. So many questions in life, and most have no answers. 

So (while I ponder which questions are important to continue to seek answers for, and which ones are to go in the Forget-About Box) on the days I am back in the Barossa, I shall enjoy my time at home in my cottage, enjoy popping into my favourite coffee shop (Keil's Fine Food and Coffee) for my lattè fix and to see Veena and Sarsi, enjoy replenishing my stock of Gumpara, Kurtz Family Vineyards and Yalumba wines, and spend as much time as possible living. Doing what I want, when I want, with whom I want. Then I will be back off to work in the amazing part of Australia where the sunrises and sunsets are like no other. 

I do have the best of both worlds, for now anyway. While I have it, I will lap it up and enjoy it. Life is too short and there is still so much to learn, see and experience. To do that, I need to be out in it, not stuck behind a counter day in, day out. I miss working with Steven and Mark and meeting the amazing people who used to come into the Collective Barossa wine sales/tasting room but I am still working with and meeting great people and sometimes but not too often, I even talk to them about wine:)

Cheers for now,

Marie

It's not really a road to nowhere. It leads to a pot of gold.

 "We're on a road to nowhere,

Come on inside,

Takin' that ride to nowhere,

We'll take that ride......"

I've arisen after an eleven hour much needed sleep. It's been a massive five weeks since I started a new life, out of the wine industry, out of the Barossa, and in a whole new world. I have seen parts of Australia that I never thought much about before and my passion has come back, but not for the wine business, and not for the Barossa, but for the remote parts of Australia where the things you see most often are emus and flies. Oh, and the most amazing skies; sunsets, clouds, sunrises, stars and moon risings. And more than ever before, I value my rare time spent with my family, in my cottage in the Barossa Ranges.

I am still selling wine (taking orders via the internet whilst away and processing them on the rare days that I am home in the Barossa) as there is still a lot to sell, and the sooner it is gone, the better. I am also still indulging in wine - most nights I lob to dinner with a bottle in hand. It's a great way to ensure a deep sleep after a long, hard day at work.

I don't miss anything right now, and it sure has opened my eyes to much. Life has become an adventure. Nothing is permanent so I am enjoying the ride. To have received my first pay after so many years of working for nothing, in fact, working to only get deeper in debt, was the best feeling ever. I have even had very premature thoughts of planning my first ever overseas holiday. I am going to Texas. Yep, I sure am! Everything is bigger in Texas! Ha! I have some great mates who are keen to have me lob on their doorstep so I am going to do just that.

As a person who lived, loved, breathed, my life in the Barossa, (and more particularly, the Barossa Ranges), loved the rain, mist, fog, windy roads through the hills, my transition and new love for life in flat country, dry, dusty, colourful country where everything appears to be just waiting for an artist's palette and a willing eye and hand, has been as much of a surprise to me as my sudden life change was to many of those around me. No promises. No regrets. A new life. Life did not begin at forty for me. It began at forty-five.

Tonight though, I am looking forward to a peaceful evening in my cottage, and a Barossa/German dinner of kassler, vegetables and wine. I am waiting for the rain, then the wood fire will get started and I will spend my blissful days off indulging in doing not much. After all, now that I actually have 'days off', surely that is what they are for:)

Cheers,
Marie