We bottled the last of our 2009 wines last Friday. The Good Wine Pinot Noir is delicious!! We couldn’t wait to share it with everyone so it is already on the shelves and people are LOVING it!!! Kudos again to our Kiwi winemaker Ross Wise. Clearly having returned to Canada in pursuit of his lovely Tiffany has been a good thing. Be certain to check out Ross and Tiff’s wedding pictures on our favourite paparazza Nataschia Wielink’s website. It was a blast having a “family” wedding at The Good Earth again.
Plenty of tasty jams in stock!
I know that we are into fall when the days start to get noticeably shorter. When I go up to groom my loyal steed Ben, the sun is low in the sky. The sumac bushes have started to change colour as have the more stressed and ancient of the maples in front of my mother’s house. I have made three batches of Seedless Grape jam and have three pots of Italian Prune plums ready to be made into jam this evening (if it manages to cool down at all). Peaches are bigger, juicier and much fewer — only one block left to pick on the home farm. Our Cabernet Franc grapes are fully coloured on the vines and I wake every morning to the sound of bird bangers in the distance. (I love the sound, I must confess. It reminds me of my first autumn visit to Lucca and waking to the sound of the hunters off in the distance!!). We have put our last wine into bottle….AND in about two weeks we will start harvesting the 2010 vintage! No time to celebrate end of bottling! Every evening, at least 4 “vees” of Canada Geese fly overhead. These aren’t the resident idiots that stay for the full year, but the intelligent ones that head south for the winter!
Peach desserts reign supreme this time of year!
The most obvious sign of the seasonal slide is having to say farewell to members of our Good Earth family as they head off back to school, other obligations and other adventures. For any of you who have had the pleasure to hang out with us this summer, you will be sad to hear that our Tastebud Temptress Loni, the girl of a million earrings, has left and spread her wings. She is off to Nelson, BC to start on a new field of study…fine wood working. We were very melancoly this past Sunday without her. Pat has left to go back to Western where he will no doubt party a wee bit before hunkering down to his studies. We wish them well and thank them for all their hard work. I have had a super team of enthusiastic and wonderfully eccentric staff to breath life into my new little venture. They have worked hard and never forgotten to smile and laugh as they went about their work.
I know that the seasons have shifted when I finally actually go looking for fall mums and pumpkins to decorate the gardens and buildings. Everything is so tired looking in the planters. The flowers have given us their best and it’s time…to toss them out and refresh with the vibrant warm colours of autumn.
The shift has begun but before we say farewell to summer, there will be a few more stops at Hildreth’s Farm Market where the bounty of late summer and early fall collide in one wonderful mouth-watering place. A few more feeds of corn on the cob, peach desserts with whipped cream before I give in to the comfort of a good apple pie. One last “bye, bye, Summer BBQ” at the winery and then…
Enjoy this heat! It may be the last gasp of what has been a most incredibly beautiful summer!