{"id":3294,"date":"2024-07-04T08:10:51","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T08:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.villages.com.au\/?p=3294"},"modified":"2024-07-04T08:14:56","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T08:14:56","slug":"elementor-3294","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.villages.com.au\/lifestyle\/elementor-3294\/","title":{"rendered":"Great things happen in a retirement village: The Grange by name, a grange by nature"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"3294\" class=\"elementor elementor-3294\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-728beac elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"728beac\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-e558575\" data-id=\"e558575\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-c2b5232 elementor-drop-cap-yes elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"c2b5232\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;drop_cap&quot;:&quot;yes&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.15.0 - 20-08-2023 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<p>V<strong>illage residents have had different life experiences and for many, the mind remains sharp and willing to take on a new challenge.<\/strong><\/p><p>There is no better example of that than BaptistCare\u2019s The Grange at Wagga Wagga, the regional city in the NSW Riverina region.\u00a0<\/p><p>The Not for Profit bought The Grange retirement village in February 2022 from brothers Scott and Chris Nash.<\/p><p>Resident Ken Larkin, who has been at The Grange for eight years, takes up the story.<\/p><p>\u201cThe Nash brothers put in the vineyard and left the responsibility for managing the winery to the residents. Initially there were two or three people involved, then suddenly we would have a lot more people from the village involved,\u201d Ken said.<\/p><p>\u201cWe formed a wine club. We now have over 60 members that are involved in the various tasks of running the vineyard.\u201d<\/p><p>It\u2019s not easy work either.<\/p><p>\u201cWhen there is a harvest, we will start about 6am. We finish about, I don&#8217;t know, 12pm, or 12:30pm on two days. It takes about two days to harvest the grapes. Then there are tasks pruning, and that&#8217;ll be coming up soon. So that&#8217;ll be an early start,\u201d Ken said.<\/p><p>\u201cMost of our members like to start early and finish early. They like their afternoons for some reason. That&#8217;s not a problem because we have fabulous morning tea. Sometimes a good barbecue at the end.\u201d<\/p><p>Ken and his team enlisted the help of the Charles Stuart University (CSU), which has a campus in Wagga Wagga.<\/p><p>\u201cOne of the key tasks and the hardest task is the processing of the wine, using the press and then putting it into the vat. We have developed a relationship with CSU, the winemaker and it initially helped us produce a better wine. More recently they have taken over the processing of our wines. A couple of the heavy tasks are handled by the professionals,\u201d Ken said.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-3b6ff7e elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"3b6ff7e\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.15.0 - 20-08-2023 *\/\n.elementor-widget-image{text-align:center}.elementor-widget-image a{display:inline-block}.elementor-widget-image a img[src$=\".svg\"]{width:48px}.elementor-widget-image img{vertical-align:middle;display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Picture4-1024x682.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-image-3300\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Picture4-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Picture4-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Picture4-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Picture4-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Picture4-585x390.jpg 585w, https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Picture4.jpg 1430w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-cebe96b elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"cebe96b\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><strong>How much wine is actually made?<\/strong><\/p><p>\u201cWe can make 4,000 bottles of wine. This year our harvest only resulted in about 2,000 bottles. Getting 4,000 bottles of wine, we mean a storage issue, a nice storage issue in trying to find a place to store the wine,\u201d said Ken.<\/p><p>The wine club grows tempranillo and shiraz grapes, which it converts into its best seller The Grange ros\u00e9. Shiraz and Tempranillo wines are also made.<\/p><p>Village Manager Watermark &amp; The Grange, Sarah Young, said growing and caring for the wine is a year-long pursuit and it keeps the residents occupied.<\/p><p>\u201cIt&#8217;s a very industrious village. The residents raise huge amounts of money for all different charities throughout the year,\u201d she said.<\/p><p>\u201cWe have the bees as well. We have seven hives with three beekeepers who are village residents.\u00a0 All up there are about 15 residents involved in the various activities associated with the hives including making the hives, bottling and marketing the honey and producing the soaps, hand and lip balms.\u00a0<\/p><p>\u201cIt is an entirely resident-driven activity like the wine.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><p>\u201cIt&#8217;s an incredibly busy and productive village.\u201d<\/p><p>The harvest for this year\u2019s wines was in March and April and The Grange Wine Club members are now ready to bottle the wines.<\/p><p>&#8220;We should have 2,000 bottles across our ros\u00e9 and Brunello and Shiraz, and that will happen in July. And then we&#8217;ll start marketing and selling it in August. We&#8217;ll launch the ros\u00e9 with a with a ros\u00e9 launch in August, which we have traditionally done in the past,\u201d Ken said.<\/p><p>\u201cWe have 100 or so people come along and taste the wine and they&#8217;ll take orders on the day. We generally sell 50% of the ros\u00e9 on the day of the launch.\u201d<\/p><p>The cost per bottle for this year\u2019s ros\u00e9 is $15.<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Village residents have had different life experiences and for many, the mind remains sharp and willing to take on a new challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-retirement"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3294"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3306,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions\/3306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}