This shot shows a police car that Sandra and I spotted last week here in Matakana with a few big pot plants in the back seat. As in Tennessee, this weed is the number one cash crop here in Northland New Zealand. The cop stopped at the local coffe shop for a bite of lunch and must have had the munchies after his last "arrest". I did ask him if it was ok to photo the "evidence" and he was very laid back about it and said "sure, but don't try to steal any of my evidence' as he entered the cafe. NZ is fairly laid back about grass possession in small amounts but this seemed to be an entire row of nice plants. This is an indication of how well most plants grow here in the mild summers with long daylight time and lots of rain. What is good for the grape is good for the pot I guess. At least the tax man gets his pound of flesh from us and our grapes. (there is a flat 3.5% tax on wine here the we pay all at once when we take our bottles out of bonded storage to sell.
Speaking of selling, we are off to a good start selling our 04 NZ wine here in our region. All of the local bottle shops and bars have agreed to take the wine on as they all support the local growers. We will be selling about 1500 bottles of our NZ red blended for local sales. Our best blend went off to Nashville to be sold in Tennessee but what we kept back here to sell to our neighbors is pretty darn good stuff. It is 60% local Merlot from a vineyard just down the road from us and 40% our own young Malbac. It is a nice light low tannin red suitable for early drinking and seems to be a hit locally at the price of NZ $19.95

We are off to America on March the 7 for three weeks and may actually miss the picking of our Cab Franc as it is ripening quicker this year than in the last two years. (global warming?) Actually everyone on in our region say there grapes are about two weeks ahead of average ripening times.

Next time I will talk about just how one decides when to actually pick grapes around here--sort of interesting.

DR D Downunder