LiraH - Ingredients of Success BLOG

ABC Landline - Mar2011

2011-03-12T15:26:00.003+10:00

LiraH was featured on ABC Televisons Landline program on Sunday 13 March. The segment, by Pip Courtney, showed the most unusual way we grow and make our Winter Harvest Nebbiolo. The 2006 Winter Harvest Nebbiolo is available on-line now. $40 a bottle or $200 for a case of 6. Only 40 cases available for 2010!
Watch the full story by clicking here.

SBS Food Journey - Melbourne March 2011

2011-03-12T15:25:00.001+10:00

LiraH was at SBS food journey, at the Carlton Gardens exhibition centre this month. Hi to everyone who can to see me cook on stage.

ABC Bush Telegraph

2011-03-12T15:20:00.003+10:00

Hi to everyone who heard me on ABC radio National Bush telegraph on Friday. You can listen to the POD cast by clicking here.

LiraH on the TV News

2009-06-21T11:49:00.002+10:00

Channel 9 news filled a segment on Lirah and how we make vinegar. It was screened on the national Nine News 20 June 2009. Click the link below to wathc the footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74PZJhtdCpQ

Adelaide cooking school - Pictures

2009-03-13T13:21:00.004+10:00

The Adelaide cooking school on Wednesday 11th of March was a huge success. We had 14 participants and everyone had a great time.

Assisting Ian was classically trained french chef Gwenael Le Chendac... Well, it was more like Ian watching the master at work and trying to learn as much as the students did. We had a great time, drank lots of Winter Harvest nebbiolo wine and made 12 items from entree to dessert all using vinegar and/or verjus.

Dishes ranged from fresh oysters with sweet vinegar and shallots, pork belly stuffed with vinegar marinated apple and slow roasted and classical bearnaise sauce. promounced "Bee-err-naise" not "ber-naise"... Sorry Chef!

Anyway, some photos below and all the recipies are available on the website:

www.lirah.com.au/recipes.aspx

Adelaide Vinegar cooking class

2009-03-03T14:23:00.003+10:00

Ian will be travelling to ADELAIDE and running a "Working with Vinegar" class on March 11th.
Starting at 6:30pm we will be exploring the many hot and cold uses of vinegar. Several courses, including dessert, will be made featuring various LiraH vinegars.

Where: Bottega Rotolo, Norwood, SA
When: 6:30pm, Wednesday 11 March.
Cost: $85
Bookings: Bottega Rotolo, PH: 08 8362 0455 info@bottegarotolo.com.au

Verjus Harvest 2009

2009-01-19T12:54:00.007+10:00

It was more a case of "Global Cooling" this year with the Chardonnay verjus being harvested 10 days later than last year. So far a great growing season on the granite belt for grapes - if you escaped the hail that has decimated many of the local farmers this season that is. Our vineyard was "Christened" with hail on Christmas day afternoon but thankfully only a very small amount resulting in very limited damage. The hail-marked fruit was immediately removed from the vines by hand and the total losses were only 5-10%.

We harvested 4 different blocks this year over a 1 week period as the grapes reached that magical day of "verasion" - the point at which the grapes stop growing in size and start to accumulate sugar. In verjus harvest, timing is everything!. We had a "Friends and family" day on Sunday 11 January followed by contract harvesting over most days of the following week.

Here we are enjoying a beer or two under the vines after harvest.

Crush was today, Jan 19. The fruit was gold, firm and the first flavour analysis shows a really nice mandarin/orange character this year which we haven't had before.

Crushing in progress. That's cellar hand Rowan raking grapes into the crusher.

You can dowload the VERJUS FACTSHEET from our website www.lirah.com.au

France, Oh the food!

2007-04-21T20:13:00.000+10:00

We landed in Paris and promptly drove to the Normandy coast town of Bayeux.

I was offered a Toyota Prius hybrid/electric car from Hertz so we accepted it thinking it would be fun. In fact, the Prius is basically very gutless and more like driving toy than a real car.... BUT - It did have "Sally Traffic" the built in talking GPS road map. We came to love Sally. It was liberating to drive knowing sally at least knew where we were. Unlike every other country we went to, we never got lost in France. I personally dont reccommend you buy a Prius, we got better mileage from the Peurgot 207 in Italy, BUT do bring a GPS to Europe.

Normandy was the scene of some of the biggest battles of the 2nd world war and the Normandy coast is where 2 million US, Canadian and British troops landed to confront the German army that had occupied France 4 years earlier.

If you are a travelling Churchill fellow and you want to be made welcome, go to Normandy. Our B&B was just off Sir Winston Churchill Boulevard, next to Eisenhower Blvd. They love Sir Winston here. Our hostess was insistent she make our appointments for us and made special mention of Winston Churchill when making the appointments.

In short - we were made very very welcome. Because we were fellows, but also as the French were very nice in general.

We came to Normandy to learn about Apple cider production - a precursor to vinegar making. We visited a very small and a very very large cider producer. The large producer doesn't take guests but opened their doors to us and gave us many hours of their time. We even got to meet and be part of their quarterly government inspection and meet with the inspector. Very enlightening!

We left Normandy for the Loire valley and the city of Orleans. The town of Orleans gives it name to the method of converting wine to vinegar in barrels... The Orleans process. The warm and hearty welcome of the french people had only one blemish, the vinegar maker "Martin Porret" in Orleans. We had emailed many times, phoned and spoke to them, even had our fantastic B&B hostess call them for us in french (We heard her mentioning Sir Winston and how bad an impression of the french they were giving) but they still insisted in not seeing us.... So we went there anyway! No address, just the street name so we drove down with the windows open literally "Driving by smell" till we found the place. No one home so we left. Only ONLY disappointment of the trip and it was on the last Day no less!

We are no in Singapore at the airport as I write this. I have to go back to work tomorrow which will be hard after 6 weeks on no cooking, washing, cleaning, making school lunches etc...

This week we will put 2 more posts. ONE will be some select photos, the other will be our best and worst summary.

Thanks for reading the blog, I hope it was fun for you, I know it was fun for us.

Ian and Robyn Henderson
Churchill Fellow 2006 - Vinegar Making

Jerez Spain and the bullfights

2007-04-21T20:04:00.000+10:00

The world of vinegar continues to amaze us.

In Jerez (Pronounced "Herethhh" - I think.) We met the incredible people and facility of Exvina. They make the El Majeulo brand of Sherry vinegars. Christina and Joaquin were our hosts and a meeting we thought might take and hour or so took over 5 hours and included a great local lunch. We sampled Sherry vinegars from all over their Bodega at various ages, and various styles. They even have a very sophisticated elaboration area and make a lot of vinegar for a lot of people. It was truly awe inspiring, especially when, like most of the other vinegar makers we meet, they have not been commercially making vinegar for that long. Wow.

We did the obligatory Flaminco dance dinner show in Jerez, and drove to Sevilla for our flight home. Robyn insisted we see a bullfight, even though I tried to explain what happened to the bull. She absolutely insisted, so we went, saw the bull fight (not much of a fight really), drank a beer and left early.

All in all, 7 days in Spain and 1600Km of driving but Spain was well worth the visit.. We loved the people we met, loved the vinegars and the people and sights were great. We were upgraded in our rental car to a Peugeot 407 all leather version. Whats a car, no way I could afford one of those.

Thanks Spain!

Spain, Vinegar and food poisoning

2007-04-12T01:26:00.000+10:00

We love Spain. Having a great time, weather reasonable, though not warm enough to swim but still better than the snow we had just a few weeks ago.

Arriving in Barcelona very early from a early flight from Rome. Grabbed a day of sightseeing in Barcelona following the Steve "hendo" Henderson tour guide advice. Did Las Rambles, La Sigrada Familia, walked the Gaudi old town, popped up to Montserrat etc. We even stayed in Sitges on his advice. All my brothers advice was perfect EXCEPT FOR DONT EAT THE GARLIC PRAWN CASSEROLE. I got the shits bad - really bad. Had the sick spews, the runs, the growling stomach, the night shivers all night etc etc... The 6 hours drive from Forum vinegars to Benidorm was the longest drive of my life. Robyn was a great driver. Its been 2 days and I am still not perfect and I think I have lost all the weight I put on in Italy.

Visited Forum vinegars near tarragona. FANTASTIC! Such nice people, very open and very friendly. Again very inspirational as they export vinegar to 25 counties, and make about 400,000 bottles a year and they only started like 15 years ago. Today they have a very impressive facility, good equipment, some savvy marketing and about 800 barrels full on vinegar in a solero system.

Drove 7.5 hours from benidorm to Jerez today (Robyn drove most as I had to stop every hour or so for a "safety stop" as I am still not well. jerez is the ancestral home of Sherry vinegar and we have some great appointments over the next 3 days. There is also a tourist "vinegar trail" we are going to follow to see what vinegar tourism is like.

Next update from France probably. We will be home in 10 days and counting.

Ian

Central Italy, Naples and Rome

2007-04-08T15:06:00.000+10:00

Hi all, sorry for the delay in this post..... Now where we we when we last wrote... Oh Yes! Vinitaly.

We left Vinitaly and headed into Sangiovese country - Montipulicano to be exact. We toured Tuscany, Pienza and Montalcino but the vinegar maker we read about here we couldnt find and no-one had heard of him. It was a good few days break though after a pretty full on "drive, drive, drive" 10 days...

But unfortunately, the driving was to get much worse. We met a really nice sommellier at Binitaly who offered us a personal tour of Abbruzzo, the region on the east coast of italy level with Rome. We got there after 5 hours driving, she couldnt see us for 2 days, the weather was bad and the vinyards were all small and unattractive...... We spent 2 hours driving around before we made a rash decicion to head to the Amalfi coast, south of Napes that day. We had to go to Naples anyway.... so we drove and drove.... 6 more hours to get to Positano. A total of 13.5 hours, the last 3 in the rain on the winding mountain goat track one way roads. It was a harrowing drive.

The accommodation was great, but way too expensive, and we spent two days trying to contact De Nigris vingars to finalise the promised appointment there. I met the CEO, Dr De Nigris at the SFO fancy foods show and he promised me a tour personally... But he never returned calls or emails! Bugger, back in the car and back to rome.

a day in rome to rest, lunch with Robyns cousins, a night at the airport hotel as our flight is 7am to Barcelona and in a few hours we will be in sunny spain!

Love your work... Ian

Vinitaly - The worlds largest wine show!

2007-04-02T02:04:00.000+10:00

My gosh, How BIG is Vinitaly! Well, it covers about the same area as the EKKA. It is all spearate pavilions for each wine region and each pavilion held up to 500 wineries. It was so big there was a shuttle bus service to get you around and about 200,000 people attend over 5 days. There were 5000 exhibitors and apparently 50,000 wines to try.

A very different type of wine show from, say, Wine australia. Wine was not poured to every punter, but rather you had to be invited into the booth, behind the welcome desk, to get to try the wines. Luckily, were were carrying winery credentials and managed to get a fair taste of what italy has to offer. We met some great people and sampled the good the bad and the ugly of Italian wines. very few ugly (mostly Rose's), and a few standout Primitivo's especially.

Vinitaly is as big as a small city, and there was only 1 australian wine. We met up with friends we have made along the way as they all go to vinitaly, no matter how big or small the winery. The amount of money spent on individual stands was incredible. I would guess some companies spent up to $1M on their stands, many were two stories high, all glass, silver, lighting, bands the works. We could here helicopters flying overhead allday, we found out thats how Robert Parker and jancis robins etc arrive and depart courtesy of the private helicopters of the wealthy estate owners nearby. No traffic jams and tratoria food for them..........

We are no in Tuscany for a few days (The town of Montipuciano in fact) before probabaly heading to Abbruzzo for a few days them to rome.

Caio!

Ian

MODENA - vinegar and other amazing things

2007-03-30T00:07:00.000+10:00

Modena, the ancestral home of Balsamic vinegar and home to our newest best friend marisa. We were given Marisa's details as someone who made balsamic in her home. the only contact we had here, so we followed it up. After driving round and round Modena lokking for her home, and with Robyn on the mobile to here getting directions in Italian... we ended up at Marisa's modest home in the suburbs of Modena.

Marisa made us very welcome. We were invited to the roof space of her home where she makes balsamic - lots of balsamic! You see, Marisa is a medium sized balsamic producer making about 1000 to 1200 bottles a year retailing at about $150 a bottle (100mL). Marisa is also a "Master Taster" with her balsamic degrees all over the walls of the roof space. She is the 29th master taster, and the first ever woman to reach such status. Marisa also won "best tradionale Balsamic" a few years ago and is entitled to wear the silver spoon around her neck at official functions because of all this.

Oh.... And marisa is 80 years old! She is still studying french at nights and is a truely amazing woman.

We tasted all her vinegars, were offered trade price for some bottles, She answered all my questions including the techical ones and THEN MADE US LUNCH in her kitchen.

Lunch was Parmiganno Reggiano marinated in enough 25 year old balsamic to pay off the national debt of a small african country. Plus parma ham, tossed salad in even older balsamic and lambrusco from her town. We left our car at her house, walsked to town and back, had more coffee in her home and stayed at the daught-in-laws B&B that night. Her daughter gave us walking tour directions and her son translated all my technical questions.

It was a fantastic experience!!!!

Next day we went to Federzoni Monari, a VERY large vinegar maker. They are thr 3rd largest vinegar maker in italy. They have a FRINGS vinegar generator that makes about 60,000 litres on vinegar EACH DAY. It was a huge facility, even for a winery, and this was all balsamic. We had the personal guided tour by Vilma the production manager.... it was awesome as well.

We are no in Vicenza going to Vinitaly tomorrow and the next day.

Another tough day in the office.

Ian and Robyn

Barolo - The pilgrimage to Mecca

2007-03-27T01:27:00.000+10:00

Ah Barolo, we are thinking of moving our operations to Barolo to live here - we love this place!!!! if only we could. Something about work, children and some other important stuff that will keep us from living here.

I am amazed at Barolo, and Nebbiolo and how it is grown here. Most vines are literally 30cm above the ground and cane pruned. It must be back breaking to prune here. The trellises are over 2 meters high so there is certainly some vigour. Spent some time in an old cellar drinking 2001, 02, 03, 04, 05 and 06 barolos from the big vats from several vinyards. Cool. We are showing our winter harvest neb around and we have been openly laughed at for making Neb in Australia.... And then they taste it.... and then they change expressions... Hmmmm, we might know a few things about winemaking in Australia and it shows in the faces of the italian winemakers. Some are very open with information, some close ups and say nothing when they find out who we are, very strange.

The town of Barolo is beautiful, barbaresco just as nice. Our B&B is beautiful and our hostess just happened to know the two biggest vinegar makers here and personally introduced us to them. hence we had great, open discussions with them both. The Barolo vinegars are fantastic - I think I might make one perhaps?

Every night has been a 8 or 9 course degustation dinner with several Barolo wines. Max cost has been 80 euro a dinner no matter how much we eat and drink. We dont eat lunch or much breakdfast to make room.

Fantastic wine, amazing vinegar, awesome food, beautiful town, Fantastic people...... We love this place and will be back.

We came to Barolo for a planned 2 nighs, we have stayed 4. Tomorrow we go to our other Mecca of Modena. More news from there.

Ian and Robyn

Trentino and the alps

2007-03-25T04:38:00.000+10:00

Our meeting in trento was with a Contact I made in San Francisco last month. Emanuele is a Vinegar and Food exporter to the usa. we had a great meeting about vinegar and marketing and finished He day with a great dinner with him and his wife Franchesca.

that day we went to the trento wine region and drove high enough to get to the snow line.

next day was drive to Bolzano to see oswin from the univesity there. we managed to get a brief look at the ICEman who was found in ice buried For 5000 years.

to get to barolo we had to drive over the alps. Right up to the Snow at 1600 metres.

In Barolo now having the best meetings with local Wlnemakers. they all love our Nebbiolo and are ssprised how good it is for an Australian wine !!!!

more From Barolo to next time.

Musano/Trento Northern Italy

2007-03-20T23:56:00.000+10:00

In Trento now after 2 days with the relatives in Musano, near Venice in northern italy. We had a night in Vienna after returning from Pischelsdorf and planned on a big night out, but it was near freezing and raining, so we ate near the hotel (bratwurst on a roll - very Austrian) and went to bed early. Our train to italy left at 6:30am and took 7 hours but the view of the snow capped mountains on the way was awesome.

2 days with the relatives basically talking, eating... talking, eating..... eating.. eating... more eating. I think Robyns Cousin, Frazia, was feeding me so she could stuff me with an apple and put me in the oven. But all the food was soo gooood, I couldnbt help myself. Robyns italian was really good and she chatted away for hours with the relatives. I was content to be the "Mute Gimp boy" and sit quietly in the corner and just eat and drink wine.

We are now in Trento meeting with a food manufaturere and vinegar exporter tomorrow. Today, on the drive here it was 3 degrees and raining. It is bloody cold here. Snow on the moutains all around trento and we can see them from our hotel window.

thanks for the replies to our postings. I'm glad to hear that someone has thought to increase the diversity of our childrens diet by adding dry food to their twice weeking feedings. Thanks.

Ian and Robyn

Pischelsdorf - Austria

2007-03-20T23:46:00.000+10:00

Pischelsdorf - the main reason I guess for our whole journey, and it exceeded our expectations. Wow! Our tutor, Andreas, was so generous with his time and knowledge of vinegar making. I thought I knew something about vinegar making and he confirmed this. I knew SOMETHING, but not much. Andreas was impressed with the facility we have built and really liked our Shiraz vinegar especially. We compared our Shiraz vinegar to several other European red wine vinegars, including his, and ours stood up well. I guess its proof that good wine in makes good vinegar out.

We had the chance to work with some very modern vinegar making equipment and also to study vinegar history, regulation, politics and also taste 30 or more vinegars over 2 days. We then did a field trip to the biggest and most respected vinegar maker in Austria, "Golles", and we were so impressed with the tourism facility Golles has built as well as his capacity to make great vinegar and distilled spirits.

We decided we could come home now, mission accomplished, if we needed to , but since we are here....... well, we thought we might go see what more we can learn. Try some more vinegar and wine and enjoy the bitter cold of northern Italy in winter.

Pischelsdorf is way off the tourist trail and in the Internet wilderness which is why we haven't posted to the blog for a week - sorry. We stayed with a family in their home B&B and its was fantastic. We really worked the restaurants in and around Pischelsdorf hard and did a dinner in the old city of Graz as well. It was a great stop. We even managed to enjoy the food and hospitality at a genuine "BusshelShank". This is a farmhouse restaurant where the farmer must make all the ingredients served in the restaurant. We ate preserved olives, beans, tomatoes. Ate cheese and cold meats plus drank apple cider - all made by the farmer in the farmhouse we ate in. very cool.

Next stop - Italy.

Heathrow Airport - En Route

2007-03-13T17:22:00.000+10:00

We left home 36 hours ago and are now in Heathrow. We had some very long connections in Singapore and Heathrow but still excited about getting to Vienna and "Getting on with our learning". Its only another 6 hours till we get to Vienna, then probabaly 2 hours to get to the hotel.

Very tired, yet very excited.

Just a quick post to say we are well, and safe n the the UK and already missing the kids.

Next post will probably be Friday or Saturday after our vinegar making course with Andreas.

Ian and Robyn

3 Sleeps to go

2007-03-09T21:38:00.000+10:00

Well, I had a lot of responses from you all about the new blog. Thanks for all being as excited as we are - well, maybe not quite as excited as us but close!

Thanks to Mum and Arnold who spent a whole day here today to get the last bottling done before we leave. Thanks mum, Thanks Arnold.

To read the emails, you need to click on the message title at the top of the post, or on the message title on the left hand side in the archive. Only then to the the comments appear. To leave a comment, click on "Post a comment" at the bottom of the page.

Make sure you write your name on the bottom of the post please.

3 sleeps to go. Today I bottled the vinegar order for Kylie and Craig. Completely scrubbed the "Bodega" (That's Spanish for Vinegar house) and packed everything away. Tomorrow is labelling, Sunday is mowing, cleaning and packing. No time to spare, no rest for the wicked.

Ian

10 days till we leave

2007-02-28T21:15:00.000+10:00

Wow, 10 days till we leave and I only have 6 weeks worth of work to do.

We are going to run this blog so we dont have to email to eveyone all the time. I thought it would also be a bit of fun. We will try to update this every few days.

I hope that you are reading this BLOG and have already bookmarked this page so that you can keep up to date on our travels. Robyn and I are very excited about the trip. All the Churchill fellows I have spoken to say that the highlight of the trip is learning something that you didnt know you were going to learn. I wonder what that will be?

We have much of our trip planned already, most of our appointments confirmed and a sense of adventure I havent had on a business tip for a long time. We are very excited.

My dad has been here for the past week helping me get the farm and vinegar "Haus" in order so I can go. Thanks dad - couldnt have been ready to go without you.

Dont forget to post replies to our postings so we can get some feedback.

Remeber - if you need us urgently
1. Call the winery +61 7 4684 1226
2. SMS me on +61 429 848 621 (from outside Australia) or 0429 848 621 from inside Australia
3. or email me on my LIRAH email adddress. I wont publish it here as I hat fuelling the spam trawlers.
4. post a reply to this blog.

See you all when we get back!

Ian