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:)

Melbournians and Mooncakes

Spring is here and what a magnificent weekend it was, in every way. Our favourite Melbournian friend, Terence (www.terencepang.com) came for another visit. We had not seen him since April so it was a long time between visits. Terence brought two friends with him, Moses (from Singapore) and Dennis (an ex-pat American who resides in Australia and works with Terence in Melbourne).

Terence, Moses and Dennis had flown into Adelaide the night before to meet up and travel from Adelaide to the Barossa for the annual Artisans of the Barossa tasting held at the Angaston Institute. Terence makes his trips from Melbourne to the Barossa as crammed full of all things vinous as possible but always makes time to visit us. He is definitely one of our favourite visitors and we always enjoy the time spent with him immensely.

We opened up a bottle of our 2005 Eden Valley Riesling, a 2005 Bullfrog Flat Shiraz, a 2008 Eden Valley Riesling (not released yet) and a non-vintage Sparkling Shiraz - a collaboration between us, our neighbours, Colin & Fiona Sheppard of Flaxman Wines and one of their friends, Nathan. Sitting in the old red-gum stable, sharing mooncakes - a lovely gift to us from Terence - (see below for information on these treats), cheese, crackers and wines, life could not have been any better!

We ended up sitting around our kitchen table sharing fabulous Roaring Fordie's pizza til quite late in the evening. It was a terrific night and we hope to have the company of Terence, Moses and Dennis again sooner rather than later.

MOONCAKES - During the Yuan dynasty (A.D.1280-1368) China was ruled by the Mongolian people. Leaders from the preceding Sung dynasty (A.D.960-1280) were unhappy at submitting to foreign rule and set how to coordinate the rebellion without it being discovered. The leaders of the rebellion knowing that the Moon Festival was drawing near ordered the making of special cakes. Backed into each mooncake was a message with the outline of the attack. On the night of the Moon Festival the rebels attacked and overthrew the government. What followed was the establishment of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644). Today, moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this event.

You can read more about mooncakes here: http://www.chinatown.com.au/eng/article.asp?masterid=155&articleid=743