Living in the Wairara-Napa

Perpetual summer is just one of the benefits of Adam and Millie Blackwell’s double life. Adam talks to us about life and work in two hemispheres, and how California’s Napa Valley is not so different to the Wairarapa. By Katherine Robinson.

Many will know Adam and Millie from their Greytown shop, Blackwell & Sons, top-selling global outlet for Pashley Bicycles. But in another life, Adam heads his advertising agency, Stun, and Millie owns and runs Showcase, marketing New Zealand-created software to the world. With most of their clients in the US and Europe, it makes sense for the couple to be based in the US at least half of the year.

“People like to deal with people they can meet and see. You need to get in tune with your market and you can only really do that when you are immersed in their world. If we are in the US, things happen and if we are not, then it doesn’t,” says Adam.

The couple have been switching hemispheres every six months since 2012, timing the flight out for the start of the US summer and the return trip for when temperatures start to lift here.

An endless summer is just one of the perks. One of the others is being able to explore North American national parks, such as nearby Yosemite.

“Exploring the US national parks is something that I guess lots of people will do but not many Kiwis get the chance as often as we do. We’d recommend to anyone travelling to the States that they look beyond the big cities to the countryside and small towns.”

Their Stateside base in the Napa is an uncanny parallel universe to the Wairarapa, hence Millie’s and Adam’s name for their two homes – the Wairara-Napa. St Helena, where the couple live, is a 90-minute drive from San Francisco. With a population of around 5,000, St Helena “has a close sense of community like Greytown; and the towns are economically very similar, as they both rely on tourism,” says Adam.

Nearby Yountville (aka Martinborough) is in the middle of a wine-producing area, and is all about fine food and wine; and quirky Calistoga has enough eclectic shops and cafes to parallel Featherston.

“I find it endearing that these two valleys co-exist in different hemispheres but are very similar,” says Adam.

Which place do they think of as home? The answer is both. “We feel deliriously happy when we get home to both. When we go back to Greytown Millie and I say to each other ‘I’m so happy to be back!’ One of the things we are joyful about is the noticeably cleaner air. The other thing is waking up and hearing birds singing. It doesn’t happen over there because of the heavier use of pesticides. When we get back to St Helena we are also deliriously happy because we know that every day for the next five months, it will be constantly windless, sunny and warm.

It sounds fabulous – are there any downsides? Well, the jet lag can be punishing if there’s more than the usual amount of air travel in a year. And food may be cheap in the US, but the quality is generally not as good, so ingredients that are taken for granted here, such as meat from healthy, grass-raised well-cared for animals, takes a little tracking down.

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Goods are put into storage when they are away, and inevitably there are some double ups – including two wine cellars. “It costs so much to bring wine into NZ, so we have our own cellar over there. These are very different wines to the Wairarapa – richer and bolder. One day, when we decide to come back for good, we are either going to drink it all or pay lots of tax on bringing it back here!”

The Napa even shares some of the same challenges as the Wairarapa.

“In winter things quieten down, and there are fewer tourists. To draw people in, local businesses banded together to collectively market themselves.”

Adam imported this approach to Greytown, setting up Greytown Country Village Heaven three years ago. The difference being that local businesses voluntarily pay to join – something Napa Valley businesses couldn’t believe as the levy for promotion comes from tax, he says.

Generally, Adam sees the US leading the game in marketing and retail. “New Zealand is a DIY nation, but I don’t think we should be so proud to think that our way is the only way. Where people do a great job we should say, ‘how can I apply that to my business?’ Shops have to offer people an experience that makes them feel good ,and entertains them.”

It’s a philosophy that Adam and Millie have already applied to Blackwell & Sons.