Eat, drink and be merry?

If you woke up feeling somewhat delicate on the first day of 2007, this pub landlord must have had a bad morning-after some weeks ago.

Don't worry though - it's not a sign of things to come in my book.

There'll be plenty more wine adventures in 2007.


With lots of food thrown in, too, just for good measure.

In fact, I'm off for my first fish n' chips of the year right now.

Will let you know if they're any good.

Bonne année and bon appétit...

Hot wines and warm grapes

The hole in the ozone isn't ideal for the future of the human race but if you're a grape it's pretty good news: it means stronger sun and more of it. And there's a particularly thin patch of ozone over New Zealand, South Australia and parts of Antarctica.

On Waiheke Island, a 40-minute ferry-ride from Auckland, the sun shines even more, it rains less and temperatures average 3°C higher than in the city.

In fact the climate's similar to Bordeaux, so the 30-odd winemakers on Waiheke tend to replicate what's grown in the famous French region. That means you'll find lots of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon blends with dashes of Malbec and Cabernet Franc thrown in for good measure.

Bob Scott who works at Mudbrick Vineyard on Waiheke thinks Viognier is the new rising star of the white grapes - they planted their first crop of it this year - and that Syrah, which they grow too, will soon overtake Cabernet Sauvignon.

Though when it comes to wine, Bob is more open-minded than most.

On Christmas Day he supped a 30 year-old Australian sparkling Shiraz with his turkey - a perfect match, he says. It used to be known as sparkling Burgundy in this part of the world - and still is unofficially, even Bob slipped up - but it's no longer allowed to be called that.

Which makes sense, as it's never been anywhere near France.

Bob also does a line in balsamic vinegar which is currently ageing in the barrel.



www.mudbrick.co.nz

Heads and tails

Auckland's fish market is on Jellicoe Street, just a few minutes' walk from the city centre. It's open from 6am till 7pm every day of the year. Even on Christmas Day.

If you want to make a living by selling fish in New Zealand you can bypass the country's fish quota by buying the rights. Easy? Maybe, but certainly not cheap.

Cam, who owns FISHmart, one of the two fish shops at the market, bought the quota rights for a lifetime so now he can buy and sell as much fish as he likes. I don't ask him how much this cost as I'm sure he wouldn't tell me, but suffice to say it would have cost a small fortune.

For example, he tells me, the rights for one tonne of snapper a year would set you back $50,000. That's around twenty grand. Snapper is FISHmart's best seller - they sell 200 tonnes of it a year. Salmon's a close second at around a tonne a week.

Marco "The Shark", from Siena, shows me round.

This Kingfish he's holding weighs in at over 20kg and would cost around $200 - in fact they sold a whole one this morning, he tells me.

I ask him the secret for picking the freshest fish out of a pile of hundreds. It's in the eyes, he tells me: "the eyes, they never lie." He shows me two identical snappers - only the eyes of the first one are starting to whiten softly in the middle. "That's yesterday's," he says, matter-of-factly.

Before I know it, he's whisking me round every counter, ripping off pieces of smoked fish and pressing them into my hand for me to taste. The smoked salmon heads are "little fiddly bloody things" but ideal for settling down infront of the TV with them on your lap and picking away at, he says. That's because all the flavour comes from the bones - and the meat's certainly surrounded by them.

He's right - stick your fingers right up into the inner part of the skull behind the eye sockets and pull out the moistest, meatiest flesh that's as deep in flavour as the smokiest, saltiest, most succulent bit of fish you could ever imagine. And do this while watching your favourite TV programme... I could only imagine.

Here's a grim tale, though.

This mouthy hapuka fish lives far down on the bottom of the sea bed, 200 metres deep.

When it was fished out of the depths yesterday morning, the force of the pressure caused its eyes to pop out and its tongue exploded right out of its mouth.

That's why it doesn't have a tongue anymore.

Not a nice way to die.

These long, skinny frost fish are popular with Asians, who chop them up into strips and use them in broths.


www.fishmart.co.nz

A turkey sandwich and a puncture

I've just settled back to bed with a cup of tea and a turkey sandwich on Boxing Day morning, when I hear a loud engine roaring outside the window. It's a fire engine, lights flashing.

Like a concerned neighbour, I'm out the door in a flash - but it's not an emergency. Well... not really.

What's happened is Christine, mother of Nicolas two doors down, has unwittingly reversed over broken glass and found herself with a puncture.

Firemen Vince and Steve happened to be driving by and thought she needed a hand, so did the gentlemanly thing and stopped to assist.

They've been on the Christmas night shift and had just popped out in the engine for some breakfast.

They make swift work of it - they certainly put me and Christine to shame - and the tyre's changed in minutes.

Even though they get their hands a bit dirty, it's nothing really to putting out blazing fires or rescuing cats up trees on spindly ladders.

Satisfied that all's well, I hop back indoors to my turkey sandwich.

Wine and carols at Woolies

It's Christmas Eve in Auckland so I head down to Woolworths to pick up a couple of bottles of turkey-friendly Pinot which I've heard has 40 per cent off.

At the till I'm charged the full price - it turns out the discount only applies if you have a store card - a OneCard as it's known in New Zealand.

A festive shopper in the queue behind me swipes her card through the machine and - just like that - 20 dollars are magically wiped off my bill. I get the discount, she gets the points - everyone's a winner. Hey, it really is Christmas!

I sit outside the store in the sun, eating blueberries and contemplating my good fortune, when suddenly an electric chord strikes up to my left and a keyboard carol breaks forth.

It's two brothers, Tas and Theo. They live nearby and busk outside the store for a few days leading up to Christmas every year. When I ask which charity they're collecting for Tas tells me they'll probably give some to the City Mission but yesterday they spent $140 of it on Christmas presents. They've already made around $300.

Not bad work if you can get it - albeit seasonal. All you need is permission from the store manager - which is pretty easy to get, they tell me - a keyboard and two sets of hands.

Tas is 11 and a real whiz on the keys. He knows heaps of carols by heart and rattles through Little Drummer Boy and Jingle Bells with his eyes closed - my challenge. I tell them I'm afraid I don't have any change ("Hm, a lot of people don't seem to have change..." Theo, who's eight, says wryly) so I buy them a bag of sweets in return for a go on the keys.

I'm a bit rusty so I rope Tas into a duet of Silent Night in the key of C. I take the one-fingered top notes (a tricky sequence, I discover) and just about muddle through. No one throws us any money - or anything else for that matter - but it's fun.

The boys want Lego for Christmas: "we're pretty much a Lego family," Theo tells me seriously.

Suddenly their dad swings round in the family estate car to pick them up. They shove the kit and collection under their arms, jump in and just like that, they're gone. "Happy Christmas, Jennie!" they both shout through the open window as they are whisked away. "See you next year!" I shout back.

And a very Happy Christmas to you too, dear Blog readers.

A cuppa tea... yes, really!

The average Chilean has a pretty sweet tooth. A bit like the average Argentinian.

If you refuse sugar in your tea or coffee in a café, you'll be given some funny looks.

In fact, some cafés provide bottles of liquid glucose at the tables for customers to pour into their hot drinks.


That way there's no waiting around or stirring for it dissolve like regular sugar.

If you order tea with milk, chances are the milk will be steamed. Not only that, it'll be frothier than a Starbucks latté. And sometimes there's no way of knowing whether it's been near a teabag.

Drinking like a local is all very well... though there's times when only a good old British cuppa will do. And in my book that's one that's nicely brewed, with a splash of cold milk, preferably served on the side.

The birds and the bees

Did you know there's no such thing as an organic wine?

It's only the grapes that can be truly organic,
not the wine itself.

That's because all wines contain preservatives called sulphites, says Fernando of Santa Emiliana winery in the Casablanca valley, and there's no such thing as an organic sulphite... yet. Someone's working on it, though.

And the unsung heroes of the organic grape industry? It's the birds and the bees. Let me explain.

In an organic vineyard, grapes are grown without chemicals. So to control predators, birds and insects are brought in to eat them. Geese, ducks and guineafowl live in coops among the vines and are employed to clean the soil. There's certainly worse commutes to work.

Guineafowl are partial to snacking on nematos - a type of caterpillar that pop up everywhere after a rainfall. And bees and wasps, the "good guys", are kept in hives and released to help polinate the vines and eat other pesky bugs.

Worms are good for burrowing into the soil and ladybirds, a "positive" insect, devour tonnes of negative insects that would otherwise eat away at the vines.

Lucikly the birds know not to eat the bees. And the wasps don't sting the worms.

Growing organic grapes is all about prevention not reaction, Fernando tells me. It's like having a relationship with each plant and costs around 35 per cent more than conventional farming. So you can't complain about paying a bit more for the end product.

So what's so good about organic grapes, anyway? Apart from being free from nasty chemicals, they make better-tasting wine.

Chemicals can mask grapes' natural flavours, making them bland and less distinctive. They also dull the colour of the finished wine, too. It's true - a red wine made from organic grapes is a proper glass stainer. It makes a good lipstick, too.

Another natural pest in the Casablanca valley at this time of year is frost.

That's why Santa Emiliana have invested in these wind towers - they light small fires around the vineyard and the propellers blow the warm air over the vines so the frost can't take hold. The winery next-door flies a helicopter over their vines - but that's a rather pricey way of doing it.

So when I come back as a grape in the Casablanca valley, make it an organic one please, with some wind towers nearby.

http://www.emiliana.cl/

The best café in Santiago

My favourite place for breakfast and lunch in Santiago is in a neighbourhood called Barrio Brasil near the university. It's a quiet haven of loveliness in the chaos of the city, where you can sit and read a book for a couple of hours.
There you'll find a café called Café Tales. They do a good line in salads, sandwiches and even Whittards teas.

This salad - verduras de temporada - is particularly tasty. It's a warm stir-fry mix of red and green peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and carrots and costs $1,700 - that's around two pounds. I have it for breakfast or lunch - sometimes both.

Sometimes they serve it in this round wooden bowl, sprinkled with finely grated Chilean cheese called chanco and huge parsley leaves. Other times it arrives on a white plate, spooned into a large lettuce leaf.

It depends who's on in the kitchen.

Either way, it tastes even better with a good glug of olive oil at a table on the covered balcony that overlooks the old square with a fountain.

Two wine-makers and a lost taster

If you're interested in wine and ever find yourself in Santiago you can't not go to Concha y Toro, Chile's largest winery. To reach it, take the metro southbound to the end of the line, then jump on a local bus which drops you just outside the gate.

Or so I was told.

I time my journey from the city to make the last English-speaking tour of the day. The bus crawls up the main shopping street, forever stopping at lights and for people climbing on through the open doors. Finally we swing right into a maze of shacks that are little more than padlocked sheds. Incredible that a wealthy enterprise should exist a stone's throw from this poverty.

There's diversions at every turn as the roads are being hacked up and rebuilt - workmen wave us away. We veer off through a rocky field, the small bus rocking from side to side. Everyone clings on, eye-brows raised.

We hit a long, open road and suddenly fly past the gates for the winery. The bus driver slams on his brakes when I remind him - lucky I spotted it. I'm already late, so I run back along the hot, dusty road and through the gates. There's no obvious place to go, so I keep running up the long driveway and into an open door at some kind of processing unit.

It turns out I'm at the fermentation plant - the wine tours are at a completely different site. Max and Juan, two of the wine-makers there, offer me a lift to the winery - they're going there anyway. It's a tight squeeze in the front of the jeep but I'm grateful as the journey takes about fifteen minutes.

I ask them about the winery and Chile's famous grape, Carmenère, which, until only fairly recently, the Chileans believed was Merlot. Apparently the leaves on Carmenère vines are hairy on the underside, whereas Merlot's are smooth. That's how you can tell.

Carmenère's a hard grape to grow, Max tells me. Grow it in the wrong terroir and "you will taste its ugly face" - raw and stalky. But grow it in the right conditions and Carmenère will taste of violets, blueberries and warm Christmas spices. Just about right for now, I think, longing for a glass.

By the time we arrive, I've missed the English tour so I join the Spanish one that's just started. We walk round the manicured grounds then taste two wines - a standard 2005 Carmenère and premium label Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon - incredibly a 1994. Don Melchors are always decanted first to aerate them. It's amazing - smooth, chocolatey and smoky with a minty finish. I savour every drop.

Then I wonder how I'm going to make it back to Santiago.

A long and winding road

Taking the bus from Santiago through the Andes isn't the quickest way to reach Mendoza in Argentina, but it definitely makes for some jaw-dropping scenery.

The journey takes six-to-seven hours - depending on the weather and the traffic at the border - and once you head out of the smog and chaos of Santiago and into the mountains, it's like entering another world.

Enormous, mind-boggling peaks rise and fall all around you and fade into the distance like sepia backdrops in an off-the-scale film set. Patches of ice and snow cling to their sides in the sun and the clearest trickles of water flow into the river that runs alongside the road.

After a couple of hours, a series of hair-pin bends leads us up the steep climb to border. We queue behind three other buses for what seems like ages, then we're told to get off and line up. Customs are strict: all hand-luggage is x-rayed - some are searched - and three bags from the hold are selected at random. One of them is mine and I have to open it for the officials. They don't dig deep though and everything is fine. Which is a relief as I wouldn't want to be stuck at the border for longer than necessary - it's chilly to say the least and the air's a bit thin. That's probably because we're 3,500 metres above sea-level.

This is Kathy and Jacqueline - they work at the border questioning the hundreds of tourists who cross it every day. They approach me while I'm queuing to have my passport stamped at the immigration window and ask me various questions about my travels: how much money have I spent in Chile, have I been to any tourist attractions, where am I going after Argentina. They take down my responses on a handheld palm-pilot. It's all very high-tech up in the Andes.

An hour through the border, we pass an upturned bus in the road. It must have happened that morning as the police are still there, though there's no one in it now. Everyone around me gasps.

Further down the road, we hear sirens and two ambulances roar past us, followed by a fire-engine and two police cars. Something terrible has happened on the road behind us and it sends a chill through us all.

Still our bus ploughs on. I eat my ham roll that's included in the bus fare, put my feet up like the Chilean woman next to me and pray that we arrive safely.

A town called Casablanca

Less than an hour's drive from Santiago and you're in the vines surrounding the small town of Casablanca. If you haven't been to Chile's famous Casablanca valley, chances are you'll have tasted some of its wines. I set off for a couple of days to take a look.

The bus drops me on the wrong side of the motorway and, after negotiating a bridge and walking down the main street, it's soon apparent I'm the only tourist in town. There's no real reason for tourists to come here - there's nothing much to see or do. Just local people getting on with local jobs. Fixing windows, selling fruit and veg, working as butchers or in general stores.

Besides, if you're on an organised trip and fancied a spot of wine-tasting, chances are you'd book onto a wine tour for the day - or maybe even stay in a swanky boutique hotel at a winery.

But I wanted to go for two days. And I didn't want to pay for a SBH. Not even one at a winery.

It also becomes pretty clear that there's not much in the way of hotels in Casablanca. In fact, there aren't any. Why would there be? The locals live in their own homes. I go to one of the few cafés to enquire.

There's talk of a residencia called Leon. No one is sure whether it's open, though. Or quite where it is. A woman walks me down the road she thinks it's on, but she's mistaken. A cab swings by and before I know it, she's pushed me in and told him where to take me.

Less than five minutes later, we pull into a dirt track and up to a small bungalow. Residencia Leon belongs to an old lady called Guana and her extended family. I'm not sure how the family-tree works, but they're all very welcoming. Don't speak a word of English - there's never any need to.

Across the road is the family's general store with adjoining café. It's all very basic. I dump my bag in my new room and Guana calls a cab from the payphone outside the shop to take me into the valley.

I don't get back until dark as I stop off in the town for a pizza and a beer.

When I arrive back at Leon, the house is dark and locked up - I wasn't given a key. The dogs start barking. As I walk down the path to try the backdoor that was open earlier, I hear footsteps behind me. Suddenly I feel like an intruder. The footsteps belong to a man I vaguely recognise, possibly one of Guana's sons. He saw me from the café and wondered who I was. It's okay though, he recognises me and beckons me towards the café.

There I find Guana and her friend, delighted to see me - they were wondering where I was. She sits me down and pours me a glass of red wine. Grateful, I sip the dark curranty liquid, the long day and the sun catching up with me. Guana and her friend return to the kitchen to chop vegetables. A chicken leg, deep golden, with mashed potato is wheeled out to a guy on the next table. It looks amazing.

I stare, dazed, at the huge hi-fi on the bar in front of me. Next to it is a small fire extinguisher and a bottle of shampoo, Fructis. Guana brings me a cup of tea and a homemade chocolate truffle coated in chocolate strands. It tastes like the ones I used to make at Christmas when I was little and suddenly I remember it's December.

I'm falling asleep in the smoky haze, so Guana takes me home and I crawl into a solid bed in my sparse room. She wouldn't take any money for the wine ("a la casa").

The bed is comfy and I'm exhausted but the dogs bark most of the night. Then the cockerels start up at dawn. It's a nice place to be though, even if there's no hot water for a shower in the morning.

Sour grapes

Pisco is a brandy made from distilled grapes that weren't up to scratch to be made into wine. It's the national drink of Chile.


Most bars in Chile will do you a pisco sour. Every bar has its own special mix but generally it goes something like this:

Put a handful of ice into a cocktail shaker with a heaped tablespoon of icing sugar. Add a good slug of pisco - this one's called Alto del Carmen and it's 35° proof - and the same again of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Give it a good shake - or find a nice barman to. This is Cheo and he works in a bar called El Cafe on Avenue Brasil in Santiago. Then strain into a champagne flute.

Pisco sours used to be shaken up with egg whites, too, to give them a foamy top (espuma) but Chile's Health Minister put an end to that some time ago. So bars have to do without them now.

The first few sips may sting your top lip and make your eyes water a little. It tastes like the kind of drink you'd only ever have on holiday.

But by the time you reach the bottom of your first glass, you'll start to warm up.

Then you might order another.

Cinzano and custard apples

No sooner have I stepped off the bus in Valparaiso - a noisy, bustling seaport an hour's drive from Santiago - and I find myself holed up in an old bar called Cinzano with Eugenio, a former Naval Captain. He´s 81.

A huge bunch of asparagus lies on the bar - Eugenio's just bought it from the market opposite the bus station - and he's drinking red wine from a glass tumbler. He's never been to England but his English is reasonable.

"This place is not elegant," he says of the bar, "but all the people" - he gestures around the room - "are a very good people." Then he points to the barman. "He, excellent. The name is Rodolfo," he declares, and nods to him for a top-up.

Of course, I'd never normally consider drinking before midday - I was halfway through a coffee - but everyone else was at it, so I let Rodolfo pour me a chirimoya from a large jug - a pale, cloudy liquid with yellow shavings floating in it. Turns out it's white wine with chopped up custard apple stirred in. A bit sweet for me but refreshing in Perry-like way. Easy on the palate.

The jug containing the pink concoction is white wine mixed with sliced strawberries. Rodolfo puts plastic bags over the top to stop the flies getting a look-in.

I also try a glass of the fresh custard apple juice - delicious, like sweet, pulpy apples.

Eugenio orders a plate of meat - some kind of chewy pork terrine. It comes with bread and a fiery salsa.

Drinking and talking is hungry business so I dig in. Still the red wine is flowing in Eugenio's direction.

He talks passionately about Valparaiso, Chile and all the countries he called at during the 55 years he was Captain of his ship.

Did you know it takes eight days to sail from Valparaiso to the Antarctic? Depending on the wind, of course. And the amount of wine the Captain's had to drink, too, presumably.

After our chat I offer to pay - a bit risky as I have no idea how far back his tab goes. He could have been there from the night before.

He reluctantly agrees and luckily I end up with enough change for my next meal and the cab fare to take me to the top of the ridiculously steep hill behind Cinzano.

The views are amazing.

The best job in the world

I think I've discovered the secret of Chilean wine. But first let me tell you a bit about Santiago.

Generally the sun is always shining and the sky is blue but in the morning the air is so cool and fresh that you have to walk on the sunny side of the street just to keep warm. You'd want to be wearing a jumper, jeans and trainers, too. Come lunchtime, though, the sun starts to beat down and you'll long for a bit of that cool morning shade.

That's why the wine's so good in Chile. It's because the grapes are happy. They get to have a nice lie-in every morning when it's cool, or just kick back, do their own thing and mull over how the day before went. Or take a leisurely breakfast. Then, around lunchtime, the sun gives them a prod. They then spring into action and put all their energy into becoming big and juicy.

Sometimes they have to work quite late into the evening, depending on what the sun says, but they don't mind because they know they'll have that lie-in the next day. They can drink as much water as they like, too, and even though the afternoons are scorching hot, there's always a nice breeze which makes the grapes work harder without realising it. Before they know it, they're fat and fit to burst.

It's no dog's life being a Chilean grape - it's one of the best in the world - and if I come back as a grape, I'd like to be attached to a vine in the Casablanca valley just outside Santiago.

Who is Eva Perón?

I had an Eva Perón day in Buenos Aires. Eva - or Evita as she's better known on the west-end stage - campaigned for women's rights and social justice and was married to Argentina's President Juan Perón in the 1940s.

She was later declared spiritual leader of Argentina.
She died too young from cancer at just 33, but achieved a great deal in a short space of time.

As she's buried in the city's famous cemetery, Cementerio de la Recoleta, I went to take a look.

The cemetery is a vast grid of tombs - row after row of them - and it's easy to lose your bearings. Eva's tomb is the one that all the tourists ask for.

The guys in this picture are responsible for cleaning all the tombs.

There's 5,000 of them and some are like mini houses, so the cleaners are allowed a break for a photo shoot every so often.

Not all the tombs get cleaned though.

Maybe the families can't afford the service charge.

Or maybe they've just been forgotten.

There's heaps of stray cats in the cemetery, lounging around on tombs, sleeping, fighting with each other or posing for photos.

An old woman feeds them raw minced beef on polystyrene trays. They all flock round her when she calls them.

Then they get back to some more lounging and posing.

After the cemetery and a chorizo hotdog I go to the Museo Evita to find out more about her life.
There's some amazing archive footage and original newspaper clippings. You should definitely go there.

It tells you how she formed the Female Perónist Party and the Eva Perón Foundation - a charity that built housing for the poor and the homeless.

Before she married Perón she was a radio and film actress.

When I arrive back to San Telmo, Diego (who runs the bar) tells me that Eva's body is no longer entombed in Cementerio de la Recoleta, as it's since been moved to her home town elsewhere in Argentina. I'm not sure whether this is true.

He also tells me that he's 33 and not yet married. I politely finish my coffee and set off on my next mission.

An old woman and many dogs

I spotted a thin old woman trying to light a cigarette in a park in Recoleta, a smart neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.

At the same time she was also trying to hold on to several dog leads, each attached to a dog. When I asked her if they all belonged to her, she told me she was baby-sitting.

In other words, she was a professional dog-walker.

I used to walk a dog called Dot round Victoria Park in Hackney when I was a student. I can't imagine having 10 Dots to take charge of.

But this lady took it all in her stride. It looks like the one at the back got away, but no one seemed to mind.

Just after I took this picture and was walking away, I slipped and fell down a muddy verge. Luckily I managed to cushion my camera in my hand as it hit the ground so it didn't break, but the weight of my body wedged it deep into the mud and I was covered in the stuff. And in goodness knows what else.

This is where professional dog-walkers walk their dogs, after all.

Get on down to La Boca

There's some people who'd tell you not to go to Buenos Aires' La Boca neighbourhood. That it's too dangerous. And at night it possibly is. But you must go. It will give you a real insight into how many of the people in Buenos Aires live.

And the truth is, they're all pretty poor.

So it's well worth the half-hour walk from San Telmo. Or jump on the 29 bus. It´s only 80 cents after all.

Most people who live in La Boca hang out on the streets.

That's because their homes are over-crowded and families are literally spilling out of them.

Most children look under-fed and dirty. Sanitation is practically non-existent, too.

This family look like they have more money than most, though the car isn't theirs.

Dark, oily ribbons of sewage lie along the gutters and it smells pretty bad in most places.

Pavements crumble away at the edges like giant broken biscuits and the roads dip up and down for no particular reason.

Some parts of La Boca look like they've recently been bombed. Others look as though they were just never properly built.

There's some nice leafy bits, though.

This is near the famous Boca football stadium.

And there's its famous row of brightly painted houses called La Caminito, named after a favourite tango song, which you must see. It's where artists sell their wares.

The other locals sell all sorts of things on the streets.

Stuff you'd probably never consider buying.

Like the doors off old fridges.

If you're anything like me, this is what your feet will look like after an afternoon in La Boca.

If you think that's bad, you should see the other side...