A Field Blend of France, the UK and Tasmania

It's been a busy fortnight with lots of exciting things happening here in the green hills of Flaxman's Valley. James is still tending to our red wines on a twice daily basis and our riesling is coming along nicely too. We made an executive decision (not good for the bank balance but great for the wine, and future consumers) and purchased two new French Oak barrels this week - a Cadus and Sylvain. I don't know much about barrels but from James' attitude toward the outlay at this stage of the game, the wines must be worth it!

A special visitor to the Barossa this week was UK wine writer Andrew Jefford who is based in Adelaide for twelve months. John and Jan Angas hosted an intimate dinner for Andrew, a few representatives from the Barossa Wine and Tourism Association, and representatives from six small wineries that produce superb wines from the Eden Valley. We were invited (James attended on our behalf) and the other wineries were Hutton Vale, Poonawatta, Flaxmans and Heathvale. It will be interesting to see what Andrew thinks of the Eden Valley wines, and indeed, the Barossa in general once he has finished his busy schedule.

Our other exciting news is that our Tasmanian friends, Michael and William Frost, have their new business venture up and running. You can check out their website (still a work in progress at this stage) here: Field Blend Artisan Wine and Food . They have been great supporters of some of the smaller wineries in our area and we are fortunate to be one of the wineries hand-picked (no pun intended!) to be a part of their wine portfolio. In fact, the Frosts have wines from all of our Collective counterparts so no doubt there will be a few trips over to Tasmania in the coming year and that is definitely something to look forward to as James and I have not been there since 1989. Tasmania truly is a magnificent place.

So for now, that's it. The coming weeks will be used to arrange bottling, tax and start pruning so even though we are almost at the end of vintage, there's no shortage of things to do. In between we are in the midst of organising our Barossa At Home dinner and a few sales trips away from our hillside hideaway. Perfect weather for a glass of shiraz and as I am almost finished both the glass of wine and this entry, it must be time to sign off:)