A friend and a gentleman

The wine industry is one of the toughest games to be in at the moment, and by the look of the current state of the market, things are not going to improve for a long time. Some days I wonder if it is all too tough but then something always happens to make me realise that all the hard work is worth it. Since starting our tiny little winery I have made many new friends and gotten back in contact with many old ones that I had lost touch with over the past years.

One of the nicest people I have had the pleasure of meeting is a gentleman by the name of Bill Biscoe. When I first met Bill, he was working at the cellar door of Penfolds at Nuriootpa. As both of my parents were employees of Penfolds for around twenty-five years each, I felt quite at home chatting to Bill whilst tasting some of the fine Penfolds range of wines.

It was during one of these visits that Bill and I began discussing our mutual admiration for Eden Valley Rieslings and to cut a long story short, we became friends. I find his unwavering encouragement to be a continual source of inspiration when times are tough. In fact, he is one of the very special people whom our latest (as yet unreleased) wine is dedicated to.

We were absolutely chuffed to have Bill, his lovely wife Jan and nine members of his family visit us last weekend for an informal afternoon of sharing bottles of wine in our lovely old stable on the occasion of Bill's 70th Birthday. My husband James had worked tirelessly to have our restored car ready to pick Bill up from his home in Angaston and bring out to our property via the scenic route past the Kaiser Stuhl Conservation Park. Bill was very happy indeed and we enjoyed being able to do something extra special for him on his birthday.

These are the moments that James and I love about having our own business - to be able to have good friends visit us and enjoy the simple things of life - the company of nice people, good food and good wines. Life is too short and we all tend to work so hard that we forget to have fun. We are definitely not your "usual" Barossa winery people - we are country people who open our home to friends and simply like to share our passion for what we do - make miniscule amounts of what we think is terrific wine. To have guests visit us and see them drive off with a smile of their face really does make it worthwhile, and that is what makes the hard times worth it.

Happy Birthday Bill!

Going back to the roots of my family and the Flaxmans Valley area

I always thought it was quite ironic that I ended up living near a road with my name (well, my maiden name, Pohlner) on it. On this road is a cottage, now renovated (and extended) and renamed "Naimanya" but for many, many years it was known as one of the Pohlner cottages. There is another Pohlner cottage further to the north about 5km and only a few km to the east of that one, still stands the original Pohlner homestead - a magical place now home to Bob and Wilma McLean of McLean's Farm Wines.

As a young girl I often heard mention of "Pohlner's Scrub" which was up high in the Barossa Ranges around the Menglers Hill area. A lot of what is now known as the Kaiser Stuhl Conservation Park was originally part of the Pohlner land-holding and a controversial row arose around 1984 when the site was considered for the open-range zoo and sanctuary which was later located at Monarto.

The Pohlners were the third largest land holders in the Menglers/Flaxmans Valley area in the 1900's (after the Evans and Angas families). In 1910 Charlie Pohlner still owned between 4000 and 7000 acres but unfortunately over time, the land was broken up and sold off (or divided up due to marriages) to other now well-known families in the area(s): Argent, Randall, Zander and Thorn.

I am still tracing the family history back to the beginnings of our settlement of this area and this will take some months but I have been told that Charlie was also a councillor on the Flaxmans Valley Council. I am not certain when the FV Council disbanded but there is a plaque at Craneford (Lander's Corner) which is where the Flaxman's Valley Council used to be located. It will certainly be an interesting journey researching all the history but already I understand now why I feel so at home out here "in the hills" and how lucky I am to be of the same blood line that saw the beauty of the area over one hundred and fifty years ago and did such a wonderful thing by preserving a lot of it so that we can now enjoy it as a National Park.

Nature's symphony under a Full Moon

A few nights ago, after a magnificent day where the temperature teased us with a summery 32 degrees celcius, I spent most of the late afternoon and early evening in a comfy chair under our wisteria-covered pergola. The garden was alive with fragrance: the pungent sweetness of the wisteria in flower; the last scent of the spring freesias; the first rose blooms and finally, the intoxicating smell of petunias.

The sounds audible in the garden were as harmonious as the fragrances. To the south, I could hear a week old calf and it's mother mooing, to the north, a lone peacock - in between these creatures, the banjo frogs and crickets rythymically croaked and chirped - the echos of the frogs going across the valley. And finally, across the road, spring lambs bleeted happily under the moonlight. It is surroundings like this that make our international visitors even more in awe of Australia.

Living in a close vicinity to the Kaiser Stuhl Conservation Park means we have native animals and birds much closer to us than most people. Kangaroos, birds, snakes, lizards and numerous other creatures searching for water mean we see them regularly. The honey-eaters, superb fairy wrens and many other birds speed through my garden at lightning speed. Just how they manoeuvre under the pergola is quite amazing. I find that by having many bird-baths in the garden quite close to the house, the birds seem to be quite happy to sit and bathe just a few metres away from us.

One of the funniest things I have seen in the past weeks are a couple of willie-wagtails "attacking" our dog whenever he gets within a ten metre distance from their nest. They are one of the most tenacious little birds around and despite their size I have seen them "stand up" to magpies and other much larger birds. They are also prone to "hitch-hiking" on sheeps' backs in the paddocks on the odd occasion! They sit like "Kings of the Castle", gaily swinging their tail from side to side as though they don't have a care in the world whilst getting their fill of airborne insects quite literally "on the sheep's back".

We are so fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful areas of Australia. Being able to sit outside in my garden and enjoy the sights and sounds are huge advantages of having a small family business that can be based in our house. Since becoming "commercial" we can no longer make our wines on our home property without vast expense to satisfy bureacracy (unfortunately the rules for making miniscule amounts of wine are the same as for someone making very large lots) but I would rather process our grapes offsite, under our watchful eyes, than risk losing the natural treasures we already have here. Sometimes you can't have it all but as our visitors see, why would you want to when you already have so much.