Craggy Range Winery and our Hawkes Bay Mini-break...

When I was home Peter and I took a mini-break down to the Hawke's Bay. It is a lovely part of New Zealand, where I spent six months as a registrar in a large rural hospital in the middle of amazing wine country. I stayed in Havelock North, a very nice township, just 5 minutes down the road from several wineries, including  Craggy Range. It transpires that it was our builder who built Craggy Range winery! Here are some pictures of the winery...

Peter and I stayed with friends that run a B&B down there, and collected four wine barrels from The Mission Estate  winery to bring home for use at Willowbrook. There are a few ornamental uses we have thought of for them...

Peter also got a one-on-one lesson on how to prune our vines this winter from an expert who prunes the vines for Villa Maria, Church Road, and Esk Valley Estates among other prominent NZ Vineyards...

There are many methods for pruning a grapewine, but the method we will use and which Peter had lessons on is known as spur pruning. This allows one to have a permanent cordon (main vine). This is the traditional French style of pruning. It allows you to grow a nice thick, visually pleasing vine and simply prune back the newly grown spurs to this cordon each year. This is in contrast to cane renewal pruning, in which the best cane left on the trunk at the end of the season is selected to become the new cordon for the following year.

Above: Vines grown with a permanent cordon.

First you select the cane you wish to become your main cordon, prune it and tie it to your main wire...

We did this last year, and so this winter we will now start to spur prune. You need to trim the cordon so that it has about seven spurs on it (at most ten)... 

Each spur is pruned back to 2 buds above the main cordon...

Too many spurs = too many bunches of grapes, which dilutes the flavour and vigour of each bunch. Each spur should be about a hand space apart...

The finished product: a trunk with a permanent cordon going each way along the wire, each side having 7-10 spurs, 2 buds long... 

Update 29 June: putting Peter's pruning lesson into practice!

Above: Vineyard prior to pruning.

Below: After.

Finished product: a beautiful cordon... 

Deadwood...

Construction Progress: Week 12...

The masonry is almost up to the first floor. It is hard to get a scale of the Manor from the photos, and it certainly looks surprisingly small at this stage, but we are assured by many who have built houses before that they always look small when they are being built, and once they are finished and plastered they look more like one would expect. The width across the front of the house (below) is 36 metres (120 feet).

Below: View of the South Facade (Front of Manor House) from across the courtyard:

 

From left to right: Gold Drawing Room, Biliard Room, Foyer, China Room, and Dining Room.

Architect's Model and Elevation of same:

Below: Views of the North Facade:

Kitchen far left, Ballroom far right, and the Informal Entertainment Area in between, all opening out onto the North Terrace.

 Architect's Elevation of same:

Below: View of the West Facade, with the Ballroom on the left and Gold Drawing Room on the right The width of the manor in this view is 20 metres (66 feet):

 Architect's Elevation of same:

Below: The view of the East Facade, with Dining room on left and Kitchen on right:

Architect's Elevation of same:

 Above and Below: Panoramic views of the Informal Entertainment Area looking over the North Terrace

Below: 360 degree video of the Foyer