Work has been pretty steady with the last of the grapes being picked last week, it has been mostly pressing and barrel filling. I've picked up some French, had a few good nights out, played golf for the first time, and met a couple of people who have worked in Napa.

When I want to know what an object in the winery is in French, I point at it and ask Olivier, then I tell him what it is in English. It's a good system we have. Clara has helped me with verbs and whatever else I want to write down. She even translated my resume into French so I could send it to wineries in France. We spent a night with two of their French friends, and I could definitely understand more than I could before I came here.

At the end of harvest party I met a New Zealander who worked at Clos Pegase near Calistoga at the same time that my dad was there and an American who worked with my first supervisor's son at Chasseur winery in Sonoma County. Christine, the owner, left for a business trip to Canada and London so it has been a bit more relaxed around the winery. Gerhard bought tickets for us to go to a Grand Bordeaux tasting in Wellington this Thursday. It will have the big names like Chateau Haut-Brion '95, Chateau d'Yquem '97, Cheval Blanc '07 and some other Chateaux as well. Fifteen wines for $120US sounds expensive but it should be worth it. I want to take notes because they will probably be the most expensive wines I've ever tasted.

Our game of golf was a lot of fun because Olivier, Clara, and I had never played before so we had trouble shooting in a straight line. We heard the ball hit a lot of trees and it took about three hours to play nine holes.

On Friday we had another end of harvest party just for our winery. We started at a locals' pub where one drunk old man complained about all us foreigners pissing in his rivers. He thought it was much better here 50 years ago. Then we went to The Lounge in Carterton because they have a good selection of beer and wine. I tried a pretty bad local IPA, but the American Pale Ale was much better. Then I went to the big town of Masterton (about 25,000 people) with the 25-year-old vineyard worker and we had a good time.

Yesterday we went to Wellington to see the museum, which was so-so but did have the largest giant squid on display. We met up with a couple more French people and I then led them to the Malthouse which had some great American-style beers. I even saw Sierra Nevada in the fridge. It seems like craft brewing has really taken off in New Zealand in the past two years. It made me very happy.

I have only one more week of work at Gladstone, then I will need to figure out exactly what to do next.