Day one; I flew from San Francisco, CA in the evening on March 1st to Auckland, NZ and then to Napier, NZ where I arrived on the morning of March 3rd. This was quite the time warp loosing a full day on my way out to NZ. Once in Napier I was picked up by a man named Tom who drove me around and showed me the Hawkes Bay area. I was given a grand tour of both Craggy Range facilities; Giants and St. Hwy 50. After a full day of driving about, Tom invited me into his home and showed me where I would be staying for the next three and a half months. Tom then decided to welcome me to New Zealand by cooking a leg of Lamb and opening some Craggy Range wines. Overall, it was a very good first day.
              The following day I was picked up in the morning by David Peabody who showed me around some of the Craggy Range vineyards and then invited me over to his house where I met Edouard Maurisset and also the Doug Wisor Scholar from last  year, Ben Ricardi. We spent the rest of the day throwing the rugby ball around and barbecuing some beer can chicken and skewers. 
              On day three I went to the offices at Craggy Range where I met everyone for the first time, and filled out some paperwork. After that I was sent to town in Havelock North to set a New Zealand bank account and an IRD number in order to receive pay on time. This was an exciting moment to be opening a foreign bank account for the first time. 
             After setting everything up it was time to pack for my two week trip around New Zealand to see the different vineyard regions and visit the family of twelve wineries. Normally every year the scholarship recipient makes this two week tour at the end of harvest but because of the strange weather this year, none of the fruit is fully ripe and harvest is quite delayed. Thus the trip was moved up to before harvest. This trip was a once in a lifetime experience; I had an amazing time and learned a great deal about NZ wine and viticulture. I want to once again thank supporters of the scholarship, and I will share details and photos of my trip around NZ in my next post.

Te Mata Peak in the Morning