Food and Drink

The sound of tractors and semi-trailers grumbling down the roads after midnight. The purple birdshit on the hood of my Jeep, and the sweet smell in the air of rotting grapes on the vineyard floor. These are just a few of the signs that vintage is here and in 2008 it has hit South Australia’s…

It’s springtime here in South Australia, and the people have come to life with a vengeance after a dark cool winter. The sun is bright and there seems to be a perpetual cool breeze blowing off the sea to keep my skin from feeling too hot. With the arrival of this warmer weather, and the…

Where do I begin with New Zealand? I had been working up on the North Island, where business supposedly gets done here, in both Auckland and Wellington. These two cities are populated by over half of the four million people who live in this scenic country. Some good restaurants and importers reside in Auckland, and…

In Tasmania, the island south of Melbourne off Australia’s southern coast, finding an open log fire isn’t as easy as you’d think. It’s pretty bloody cold in Tasmania this time of the year. Hiking through the rugged beauty of the state lends itself well to sitting by a fire and drinking. The problem is that…

There is a lot going on down here. So much so that I haven’t been able to sit down and write because everything keeps evolving too quickly. It’s an exciting time to be in South Australia. The company I’m working with, currently called R Winery, is growing at a break-neck speed. They’re tripling their production…

Today was a day to get up and look around at my new surroundings. It began with a walk through the brown Adelaide Hills, admiring the golden grass, hard packed dry earth, and a few spectacular dead Eucalyptus trees (called gum trees). Rachel described the calcified trees by saying they looked as if they were…