10.19am, Tuesday 17th July, McDonalds Riccarton – thanks for the free wi Fi!!, Christchurch, NZ
Well folks, it would have been a balmy old summers afternoon in the little village of Wareham down on the southern English coastline of county Dorset on this day 200 years ago – when the founder of Yalumba – Samuel Smith – was born. So it’s quite fitting that the sun is belting down from a powder blue clear sky here in Christchurch at the moment – which mid winter makes this 18 degree C day pretty much a heatwave moment!
I’m spending the day doing trade calls with our top of the South Island Negociants NZ team Ju Mannering and Bruce Smith around Christchurch on our Yalumba Goodwill Tour, only today we’re taking birthday cake and hats with us!
We started by having breakfast earlier this morning at ‘Decant – Wine Cheese Cafe’ with Davy and Juliet…..
But none of us smoke, so we couldn’t light the candles! Bruce’s wife Sharon has been a trooper and made the birthday cake last night, and iced it this morning. We’ll be cutting it up with 3 more cakes from The Sweet Kitchen this evening at Vino Fino, where we’re doing our Yalumba tasting with Rex, the boys, and 60 of their customers. So it’s pretty much a progressive 200th Birthday excursion around Christchurch for us today…..celebrating 163 consecutive years of family winemaking at Yalumba………because on this day 200 years ago young Samuel Smith popped out in Wareham, Dorset, England……..and would go on to do great things on the other side of the world in Australia. Happy Birthday Samuel!!
Watch this space, as we have much more planned!!
nice! X