Alright everybody, what is going on? Welcome back to another video. Today's video, we're going off topic, but not really, because my YouTube channel started about the sport. And that's Rugby. You guys know that? I know that. And you know what? The All Blacks just got beaten. The New Zealand All Blacks, the mighty All Blacks. You might have heard about them, you might not have, you probably should. They are basically the national team of New Zealand. Rugby is the national sport, and the All Blacks are the national team of that sport.  So with that said, I did the exact same. I'm in Australia now, I'm focusing on another sport, but that doesn't mean that I don't still like to follow the All Blacks at least. And the reality is that they got beaten on the weekend by South Africa. So the All Blacks play in a 14 competition each year. It's a Southern Hemisphere type competition. You've got South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. And they play in what's called the Rugby Championship. South Africa beat the All Blacks on the weekend, and we're going to watch the highlights. So let's do that. Let's see what happens. Oh no, Kieran Reid, the captain. Let's see what he had to say after the test. Let's look at highlights first. Wellington, New Zealand.  Oh no. The Katen, Wellington, New Zealand. See that's a massive stadium for New Zealand and I think it holds like, shit, how much does it hold? Like 40,000? Maybe 45,000? So that kind of stadium in America would be probably the same size in width, but it would just go up like two more levels, I'd say. For the seventh time, New Zealand undefeated against South Africa in the previous six encounters here. The only wins that the Springboks have got at the stadium were at Rugby World Cup in 2011, when they defeated feature goals at the stadium. You want to take those guys on, man? Do you? All right, who we got? Owen Franks, Sam Whitelock, Scott Barrett, Liam Squire, Sam Cain, Kieran Reid, Aaron Smith, Bowdoin Barrett, Rico Arning, Ryan Crotty, Antoine Lennart Brown, Ben Smith, Geordie Barrett, and I'm not even going to try and name the South African team because I don't know them now. I know it's been too long, but I know New Zealand.  He's got like a 4-6-40. Well maybe 4-5. There's three brothers in the All Blacks. Can you believe that? These three boys grew up together, wishing they could play for the All Blacks, and all three have actually made the team. You've got Scott Barrett at Lock, you've got Bowdoin Barrett, the best number 10 in the game, and probably the All Blacks best player at the moment in first five, and you've got the other brother Geordie Barrett at 15, which is Fallback, which is the position that I like to play at the back of the pack, slicing through, seeing gaps, kicking the ball, returning punts, which is one of my favourite things to do. We don't call it a punt return, we call it a counter-attack. The team will punt the ball down the field, you'll grab it as the Fallback, you've got your two wingers, or your two wide receivers, and you three will basically run up the field and try and create something. It's a great feeling, man, it really is. Anyway, let's skip this. There we go. Let's have a look. Let's go. Read at the top. Off to Smith. Oh, the little pop pass from Barrett. Oh, no, what are you doing? Oh, look at that! See, these are passes, but even like in this first phase of play that I've seen, there's like three passes that just got given that you'd think, fuck, how did that stick? How did they actually catch that? And that's the thing about the All Blacks. There's always someone in support. In the game of rugby, you can only pass the ball backwards, right? And when you fall over and when you're tackled, the play doesn't stop.  So if you go to ground, the tackle's made, the defence is here, your offence is here, you're in a bit of a wedge because you can only pass the ball backwards. So that person at the back of the ruck either has to pass the ball right or left, but it has to go backwards, in which case your players waiting for that pass have to be behind you in a bit of a formation like this. So then you'll start passing it out, passing it out, passing it out, or you'll start passing it out, then you'll have another guy coming in on this angle, coming back towards the play, and you'll open gaps, you'll spy holes, things happen, but you need those passes to stick. You know what I mean? The little passes, the little pop balls, the little behind the back passes, they open up the game, but if you drop the ball, it's not worth it. But the All Blacks man, they just seem to just catch it somehow. Beautiful pop pass. Look, that's a little one. That pass could have been dropped. And this one... That was two brothers, that was number 10 to number 15. Oh, see? See that? That was number two. He's a hooker. That's like an offensive lineman in the game of football, doing like an awesome no-look pass. And I bet you he's going to run past this guy and keep up with him. And you know, you've got pace, you've got skill all over the park, man. All over the park, doesn't matter what position. Yeah, Smith! The two Smiths! So watch that again. Yeah! See look, oh yeah. Okay, this is the half back, all right? Number nine, here. Smith passes it backwards slightly. It's on such a nice line that this number two, Cody Taylor, is going to run onto it. He's going to grab the ball at pace and in the same motion just do this nice little flip pass. He knows someone's outside of him, right? He knows that Ben Smith. Ben Smith's right here. He's probably about five meters behind him right now, but he knows. He's got the pace. He just holds it up a little. Oh my god, look at that pass. That's beautiful. Now, let's see what Aaron Smith does. He's just passed the ball, right? He's passed the ball. He knows something's about to happen. He's starting to run through, right? This number nine. He's starting to run through. He knows. He knows now. He's like, sweet, that pass has been made. Ben Smith has got it. He's about to run down the sideline. I've got to get there in support for that backwards pass, right? So that's what he does. He starts sprinting. Look at him. Number nine. Number nine. He's through. He knows what's about to happen. He knows he's that man that needs to be in place to receive that pass, that lateral pass, so that he can score. And he's going to position himself perfectly to receive that pass and score. See? He actually slowed down. He slowed down a little bit. Watch this. He's in front of him at the moment. He's slowed down right now. He's going to slow down a couple of paces just to let Ben Smith get in front of him so he can receive that ball backwards. See? Boom. What a pass.  That's positional play. See? Aaron Smith, he's coming through. He holds it back a little bit, gets the perfect pass. This guy's quit. He is quit, man. There's a lot of fast South Africans, believe it or not. They're quit. See, look at this. It's draw and pass, draw and pass, draw and pass, draw and pass. One, okay. He's drawing this man, pass. This one, drawing this man, pass. And the guy on the wing or your wide receiver is open. That's what you want. Ah, good.  Oh, look at this. Look at this. This is going to be great. This is going to be an awesome counter attack. Okay. Ah, look at that chase down by number 10, man. Bowdoin Barrett, best player in the world, right? He just made that tri-saving tackle. Watch this. Watch this. He's right here. He's right here. He's at a standing start. Okay? He's at a standing start. He's got to turn around and go. This winger is already on the burst. Okay, look at him. Look at him. He's got the ball now. This is one of the fastest players in the field. But Bowdoin Barrett is even faster. Watch this. Yes! Just as he kicked the ball.  And what's going to happen now in the game of rugby, if the ball goes out, it's the opposition's ball at the point that it went out. But if the team that gets the ball doesn't want to wait and they see an opportunity, they can actually take what's called a quick throw, which means it's a line-out. It's a normal line-out, although the forwards aren't placed in their line. They can just be anywhere. So basically, what's happened here, the brother of Bowdoin Barrett who just made that tackle has grabbed the ball. He's seen, alright, South Africa's not down here yet. We've got some space. What do I want to do? Should I pass it? Should we try a counter-attack? And it looks as if that's exactly what's going to happen. So let's see. He's going to fire off a massive pass into the centre of the field and the All Blacks are going to try and create something on the counter-attack. Let's see what happens. Bang! Look at that!  And that is the exact reason why you wouldn't want to do that. Don't listen to me, guys.  That's a shocker. What a shocker! Guys, guys, guys. The All Blacks don't do that. See, that's a normal line-out. That is a normal line-out, okay? It's a brilliant response from South Africa. See, the two teams, basically... Well, I don't know exactly why South Africa has the ball. It's probably because of the fact that they got a penalty, which means that they can then kick the ball out and retain the ball. If it's in general play and they kick the ball out, it goes to the opposition. But if they get a penalty, they can opt to kick for goal, or they can opt to have a scrum, or they can opt to kick for the sideline and get their own line-out, which is probably what they've done. So here, they're five metres out. That little checkered white line is the five metre line, and he's about to throw it in, and South Africa may convert a try. Let's see. See, now, this is a maul. This is a maul, all right? The ball was off the ground, which means that both teams can continue to push. Once it hits the ground, it stays there, and the ball gets recycled. Marshawn Lynch, in the game of football, did this exact thing. He got the ball as a running back, he ran into the pack, his players got behind him, and pushed him, pushed him, pushed him over the line, which is exactly what could happen here, effectively. But I feel like the ball is going to come out the back, and it's going to be spun out wide, and the backs are going to try and score. Let's see. Come on, all blacks! Push him! Push him back! Push him back! Don't let him in. Come on, boys! See, the ball was there at the back. Oh, for fuck's sake! See? Marshawn Lynch. Boom, right there. Right? Good stuff, boys. Good stuff. See, and the thing is, is that the all blacks, I mean, obviously someone could just, in the middle of that, someone could just pull the players down, and they'd all collapse to the ground, and then it couldn't be a try. But the thing is, if the all blacks had have done that, it's a penalty. So, you know, the refs know, okay, the offensive team want to keep the ball up, the defensive team want to bring the ball down. And if it's so obvious that the defensive team have just pulled them down, without actually trying to push, then it's a penalty. And because of the fact that it's so close to the try line, it's only five metres out, that's quite possibly a penalty try, which is the worst thing you can give in the game of football, in the game of rugby. The worst. A penalty try is terrible, you know? Because if you didn't do that, that action that causes the penalty, they may not have scored. But sometimes you're just like, it's a brain snap, you just do it. Anyways, it looks as if, the all blacks know what they're doing, they had to keep it up, but they didn't have the strength to push them back, and South Africa scored. No wonder they're happy. Two metres out, spin it, and again, oh, what a pass. What a pass, good hands, boys. Nice pass, man. See, they saw that they had three on two. Draw on pass, draw on pass, and he's in. Just like the South Africans did. But the passes had to be absolutely pinpoint and perfect and done so quickly, or else the opposition would have tapped the ball down. So watch this. He grabbed it, literally, in half a second, he has to let it go, which he does. And this one. He's just grabbed that. He hasn't even looked where he needs to pass it, and he's going to fling it out. Like, this pass is crucial. If it is stuffed up, there's no try. If it's good, there's a try. And lo and behold, it's good. And it's right at the end of the half, too. Rugby has 40-minute halves, 37 minutes 52, that's right at the end of the half, which means that the South African defence would be tired. And actually looking at this, the 20th phase, which means that the All Blacks have retained the ball for 20 tackles, which means that South Africa have probably been defending for like five minutes straight, or probably three or four minutes straight, which is... It is so tiring. It is unbelievably tiring. The cardio-vascular ability of these players is incredible. And same in football, but rugby, I mean, it doesn't stop. The play doesn't stop. So, you know. I'm not surprised that the All Blacks scored then, because South Africa would have been completely out on their feet. Yeah, this guy, Rico Uane, he's a star. I think he scored like 17 tries in like 17 games or something. He's definitely one of the new breed in the All Blacks wingers.  He's probably got like a... I don't know, four, four, three, four, three, five, fourty, maybe? Oh no! Alright, here's the penalty. He's taken it quickly. See, look, that's the other option. Where the ref is, that's where the penalty was called, the opposition. The South African did something wrong. I don't even know what they did. Basically this is the half back, Aaron Smith, the one that you always see at the back of the ruck, hitting that ball and then passing it out. So he has decided to take a quick penalty.  You can either take a scrum at that point. The two teams come in like this and then the ball's recycled. You can either take a kick out, like I said, get a line out. You can take a kick for gold, but obviously this is probably about 60 metres out, so it's too far. Or if you see the opposition not having been set and they're sort of everywhere and you see an opportunity, so obviously sometimes this is the wrong decision to make, but obviously, you know, we'll see what happens here. He's taken a quick tap, which means that he can just go. The ref calls the penalty, sweet. He makes the mark. He's like, yep, okay, you can do what you want from this point. Aaron Smith has seen an opportunity in front of him. I don't even know what he's seen, but he thinks that he can make something of it and we are about to see what he does. Let's see. Breaks the tackle, spins it, draw and pass, and another one. Oh! I knew it. I knew it, man.   This is the equivalent of a pick six.  Absolutely the equivalent of a pick six. Watch this. Watch this. Pick six straight to the house. Straight to the house. Oh, yeah, that's a nice interception, man. He's got a pace, too. Pick six, or pick five. Good stuff, mate. You deserve it. See, and the All Blacks come back here. We've got 30 minutes to go, so let's see what we're made of. Let's see what we can do. Bring it back, boys. See, and that's the replacement half back. Number 21, this must be a sub, so number nine has gone off. He's been replaced by his substitution. So this guy will play the last 30 minutes of the game. Which keeps you fresh and, you know, fresh legs on the field and the opposition is tired as a game breaker. It truly is. Anyway, we've got one pass here and another one, no. How did he pick that up? That was a terrible pass. Look at this. See, we have to ground the ball, right? In the game of football, he could have been going for the line and he could have literally just touched that pile on. Is that right? And that would have been a touchdown. But we need to stay inside and actually not touch the pile. I think if we touch the pile on, it's actually counted as out, believe it or not. So, um, yeah. Boom. Slams it down, try. He's got two tries now. Pass. No, you can't score.  It's a nice step. It's a very nice step, but we had enough defenders there to cover that that shouldn't have been a try. No way. Fuck, man. Let's have a look at that step. This step. See, that's why it worked. He literally has caught the ball in the air.   Let's have a look at that bang off the left again. Well done. Well done. He stokes. So, here we go. Another mall. See, we did the exact same thing that the South Africans did in the last thing. Last one. From the other side of the field. Well done, boys. Well done. Draw and pass. Oh! Oh, man. Draw and pass. Oh! Oh! Oh, he dropped it. See, this is the penalty. Offside penalty. He's going to take the kick, which is worth three points. No, he's not. They're going to go for the try. And they score. And they got it. And that's the final score. 34-36. Which means they must have missed the kick, and it's a really close kick, so... Brav, he misses this kick to equal it. Are you kidding me, man? Oh, my God. Two out of five. He gets two out of six for the day. That's not good, man. What's the post? Come on, boys. Get a try. Come on. I can try. You're joking me, man. And this is an overtime, too. Look, 80 minutes gone. Two minutes 49 in overtime. And the fact that we're in the 17th phase, which means we've recycled it for 17 phases, South Africans are just holding on. Just holding on on the defense. Waiting for us to make a mistake so that the game can be called over. And it looks as if we just made a mistake. Fuck. But I'll run through this with you, man. Watch this. Watch this. This pass... This guy drops it, right? But if he was to hold it... Oh, no, he tries to step inside. He should have just given the pass. So he tries to step inside this guy and then give the pass, and what happens? The guy knocks it out of his hand. See, look, if he had have passed that ball out to this number 14, he's got a clear run for the line, and that would have been a game-winning try. But we made a mistake. Great defense by South Africa. Great defense. Absolutely epic, man. That is epic. The first time I've ever won at Westpac Stadium. But I gotta say, man, New Zealand, you did it to yourself, bruh. You know, a couple of interceptions there that led to tries. Well done, South Africa. See, that's the thing. You need certain things in the game, certain moments in the game to go your way. And I guess South Africa did. Well done, guys. Well done. Fuck, man. All right. Well, I wanna hear our captain talk about the game. And that'll be the last clip we watch. Here he is. Karen Reid. What a legend. Hey, man, it's like 6-5.  It's a quiet locker room. He said, if you didn't hear that, he said, we conceded 36 points, and it's hard to win when you do that. And that's true. Like, the All Blacks would never, really, usually concede that many points. But, I mean, you saw a couple of interceptions. That's why. Yeah, they defended hard. They let go forward, and they just, you know, played off that really well. So, that's something we tried to stop. Because of that building phase, there wasn't a lot of lead in them off the hook, and we had chances. So, yeah, those ones. It was a great test match. Bloody tough, and tonight we just came out the long side. Boys are gutted and rightly so. You know, the best thing is that we can't dwell on this for too long. Still had a great opportunity to go overseas to finish the regular championship, you know, as strong as we can. Which is all on the line. So, there's lessons in the game. We'll certainly take care of it. I hope you get credit for the screen box there. They came out with a great game plan. I think they're part of it. They'll probably last few games. We've been scoring those drives that wide, and, you know, they've bummed with us into touch. So, you know, their mindset was outstanding. They, you know, set them to their toes. Cool, man. All right, guys, so that is my analysis and my reaction to Rugby Day. But it does happen. So, guys, if you did enjoy or you want to see more, you know, rugby style videos, this was my full analysis of this whole thing. I knew going into this reaction I wanted to stop the play when I saw something that I wanted to explain. So, I hope you guys enjoyed. And I'll see you in the next one. If you have enjoyed this, if you have liked it, please press like. If you want to subscribe and you haven't, please do. We're mixing the sport of rugby and American football right now. So, stay tuned. Peace out.


The presentation is on scaling of local land adaptation through local adaptation plan of action. Local adaptation plan of action called LAPA is a mechanism or approach through which different stakeholders, whether there is central, provincial or local government, they act in a collective manner with the aim that it trickle downs climate financing at the local level, builds capacity of the local government to really integrate climate change adaptation in their planning and budgeting process and mobilizes the vulnerable groups, especially youth, women, children, so that they are part of the decision-making planning and implementation that are aimed at reducing risk and building adaptive capacity and overall building resilience of their society. In Nepal, that has been in practice since 2010 and particularly LAPA, that is a very popular program in Nepal on climate change adaptation at local level, that has been localized and decentralized by the government. It uses particularly tools of BRA in which districts and communities are differentiated based on their vulnerability. It is actually a community-led and multi-stakeholder initiative and it integrates the financial mechanism from different sources, government, donor, local government and it can have budget from donor to both, un-budget and up-budget, both kind of budget. So it particularly focuses reducing risk and vulnerability of the poor people and actually it integrates gender and social inclusion component of climate change. So it includes women, youth, children and other. Particularly it integrates traditional knowledge and current science. You will know that when we prepare NAP, National Adaptation Plan, now question is how to implement the NAP at local level. LAPA is a means to implement national level of adaptation at local level. So particularly in the NAP and LAPA framework, you know institution, policy strategy, all level of government are integrated into one. So this is the model how the LAPA is being implemented at local level. So particularly it has been truly decentralized, truly localized. So it integrates with local community group, particularly community forestry, irrigation and other groups. So particularly LAPA is not business, it is business unusual because decisions are made at local level, lowest level, in which groups are formed and user committees are formed, in which particularly women, youth, children are given priorities and the funds that is available from donor communities are prioritized. It has been said that 80% of budget should go to local communities to implement the LAPA. So it invests in local people in order to develop their capacity and capability, so that they can continue their intervention and the program may be sustainable. So the LAPA reduces climate risk and uncertainty. It is flexible in terms of programming and learning, particularly it is based on community choice, community's priority, particularly and it ensures transparency and accountability because people when the funds are allocated at local level, so there is inbuilt process having monitoring and evaluation and public auditing very clearly. So through LAPA process, there is opportunity for collaborative action and investment through government, through donor, through community, through NGO, through civil society organized. So there is an opportunity. So if we talk about journey of LAPA, so I already spelled that. It has been started since 2010. Then first support that we have received from DFID and EUA, particularly to implement the LAPA process. The government then put the provision that 80% of the budget should go to local communities in order to implement LAPA. Now the government intend to implement LAPA in all 753 local governments. So in government, particularly intend to produce report in every five years, particularly with regards how the program is implemented. Now Nepal, the political system in Nepal has been changed previously from unitary system, federal system. So government also devised the LAPA primer in order to accommodate with federal system. So that is LAPA primer was devised in 2019. So there has been interconnection, vision and financial flow. So particularly it capacitated local community in terms of reducing immediate analysis priority and reduced loss and damage of local communities. So the question, how international community can better support LAPA. So they can allocate support, particularly focusing on locally their adaptation that must be incremental, predictable and time. So the climate finance should be accessible directly. So the intermediary organisation should not be expensive. The support that has been received in Nepal should go to local community. So we knew that LTCA adaptation point and different funding will do. They need to focus funding on locally related adaptation. Now at the moment, the amount of funding is just more than that. So we can develop mechanism of tracking, measuring and reporting, particularly on money being allocated to adaptation based on the primer that is being implemented. The particularly there has been limitation. If the budget is allocated by national government, that don't reach the level in time. It is a matter, not matter of corruption, but it is a matter of delay and bureaucracy. So particularly our request to international communities provide adequate funding support for implementation, both in terms of hardware and software. The LAPA begins with mobilising the local communities, especially these vulnerable and the most marginalised group. So they are involved in looking at what are the issues of climate change, how climate change is impacting them, their livelihood, their other resources and why it is a problem for them. Then they will look at probable causes of climate change across different types of livelihood assets where it is impacted. They will look at how specific interest groups are impacted negatively and then they are the one who are also proposing that what should be done. So if you look into all assessing, designing and planning in all stages, these groups, especially women, children, disabled, elderly and especially ethnic communities are part of this whole process and cycle of really building on the local knowledge and try to identify the issues as well as suggest what could be best for them and for the communities. LAPA is a process, it is a framework, it is a government, it is an implementation mechanism of locally-led adaptation, particularly governed by local communities based on political boundary and local government. In their constitution, it has been said that one third of the representative must be from women, girls, disabled, that means at least one third representative must be from gender and social English, that has been legally binding. So they intend to raise this threshold to 50%. So one of the major relations was during the piloting and implementation phase, it was, LAPA was more projectized. So it looked like a parallel process through which development agencies funded projects are running in parallel with local government planning. But after the federalism, since local government already have the institution structure mandate separate legal policy and they are capable of doing that. So in spirit of the federalism, the LAPA framework really focused on now we can't do parallel planning. So LAPA has to be part of the local planning and budgeting process where local government will take lead, where local communities will be involved in identifying their needs and priorities, where the resources will be decentralized and flow through the local government to the targeted groups. So this is one, one fundamental thing is how do you really move from projects to more program and more means streaming approach. Second fundamental thing is because there has been so much investment on development. So one of the challenges is how to make development investment more secure and how to make development more climate resilient. So the LAPA focus is not just only on community best community led livelihood, it also looked into infrastructure resources that are used by community that are for the communities. So how can local government secure their investment through climate resilient development planning and budgeting process. So the climate resilient planning and budgeting really guides the local governments to really look into the development project so that they can climate proof their development investment as well as it will be sustainable. So these are the two basic principle which really recognizes local government at the heart, but it recognizes that it is for the local communities, it is for that enhancing their livelihood and resilience and looking at the local infrastructure that are very, very important and relevant for sustaining the local livelihood. That's why it is locally led means local governments are in the forefront but in the decision making but the benefit are all in a trickle down to communities and also led.


Hello, hello, hello, I'm Matthew Horkey and I'm Sherin Tan. Together we are Exotic Wine Travel. We've spent the last three years traveling around the world, writing and speaking about unique and exciting wines. Our journey has taken us to both lesser known and established wine regions. In 2016, we came to Croatia for the first time. We fell in love with the country and the wines, prompting us to write the book Cracking Croatian Wine, a visitor-friendly guide. Now we're at it again. We're going to re-tour the country and bring our book to life. We aim to take you deep into the Croatian food and wine scene. So sit back, relax and join us as we go Cracking Croatian Wine! Croatia is a resort town on the west coast of Istria. Many families flock here for the laid-back atmosphere in crystal clear water. We're not here for the beaches though. We're here to catch some seafood. And Sherin is ecstatic. Our guide for the day is our friend Milan Padinski. He's the head wine maker at Vina Laguna and is a former Croatian spearfishing champion. He's offered to catch us some raw and uber fresh selfish. Milan starts us off easy with some sea urchin. Next, some local seashells. The toughest you can find in the sea. And it's strong. Mmm. Yeah, it's quite an unfamiliar flavor.  But I really really like the texture. I like the stock. Oh, it's bitter. What is this? Sea egg. And you can see why it's called sea egg. Not everything is sweet and delicious though. That's a funny one. And it's considered for the easy egg because it's high in your body. That's funny. You eat it. Vina Laguna keeps Milan busy but he still manages to come out to the sea on a regular basis. After the morning on the boat, Milan and his wife Ivana invite us to their home for a seafood feast. Some local clams. Fresh prawn for risotto. Lobster. And more sea urchin. Ooh, it smells good. We pair the first few dishes with the reserve wines from Vina Laguna. The winery is one of the largest in the country but don't let that fool you. Thanks to Milan they pump out some serious wines. The Vizionata Malvasia Reserva is considered to be one of the best fresh Malvasias in Istria. And it's showing beautifully on this day. They're grilling the lobster, sea bream and a local codfish. In Croatia, fresh fish is prepared with as little ingredients as possible. It's all about the freshness and the flavor of the fish. The first dish up is the lobster and it takes shireen by surprise. It's soft and it's really sweet and it's really salty. I don't know, it's none of the lobster that I had before. And because of the preparation, you know, we grilled it so there's like a nice smokiness to it.  Next up, the grilled fish with Swiss shard and potatoes, known in Croatia as Blitva. It's my favorite of the afternoon, but shireen keeps returning to the lobster. I think it's good, don't disturb me, I'm gonna eat. What? It's phenomenal! We're stuffed, but now it's on to the vineyard and winery tour. Istria is famous for its terra rosa and iron-rich red soil. And Milan tells us a little bit more about it. So the terra rosa is high in clay and it's not a deep soil, but there is a calcareous rock underneath which serves as a sponge. That sponge can take the water during the winter, but only if you allow that water to pass through the soil. Next Milan shows us the new vineyard in the village of Vizionata. It was just planted this year and will be 100% certified organic. It's adjacent to the current Vizionata vineyard, which is regarded as a prime spot for Malvasi Estarska. All the terra rosa data, you can crumble it to the smallest pieces. So terra rosa has a structure which is based on clay. This soil here has a structure which has to be or needs to be based on organic matter. This soil here cannot be treated as terra rosa. Here you need to do everything to preserve the organic matter in the soil. We know the wines of Vina Laguna well, but this is the first time we're seeing the winery. The company pumps out nearly 6 million liters of wine annually, but it uses only fruit from its own vineyards. All of the wines are good from top to bottom and are regular award winners at many worldwide competitions. We're big fans of the Fistigia Castello, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot and Syrah. After a full day out in the sun, eating and tasting were exhausted. But we have much more ahead of us. The next day we rejoined Dimitri Brecevich. In addition to working at Clay Winery, he also has a personal project and he's taking us up to the village of Verve to see it. Young people, the left, you know, the Rizno, young people, so much more here. Or if they are here, they don't work vinyards. It's a beautiful hilltop town with views over northeastern and central Istria. Dimitri gets terra rosa from these vineyards. It's only been a few weeks since the shoots have started, but they're already growing like weeds. And you see? It's like it's closing now. Next we're off to the village of Buzet to see Dimitri's cellar. His winery is called Pequentum. The building is an old water storage facility that's built into a hill. Today it's scorching outside, but inside the winery it's damp and cool. We have to experiment. If not, we don't move, you know. Pequentum wines are made with little to no intervention. They're formated with native yeasts. We're usually fond of the Pequentum Taran in Rfosko, but today we're very impressed by his Sveti Vital Malvazia. It's a reserve wine made from vines over 40 years of age. Verve is home to many abandoned vineyards, and it keeps a few secrets. Perhaps none better than Gerbat's winery. Adriano and his father Entune produce around 2,000 bottles of sparkling wine per year. The winery makes only three wines. Two from Taran and one from Malvazia. All are made using the traditional, aka Champinois method. The Rose Sparkler is the most popular wine from Gerbat's and it's extremely memorable. We first tasted it over a year ago on my birthday, and it's showing well today. First of all the bottles are really fine. And secondly, the wine maker said it's not perfect. I think I smell a little bit volatile acidity, but it tastes so good. It's so memorable, and there's a sense of place. When you taste the wine, you remember it. Second, you ask the question of where it comes from. You ask for the stories, and that's exactly what we felt when we first tasted this wine. And it just gets better and better. Or at least for me, I feel like I want to eat when I drink this wine, and it gets me happy really. Adriano doesn't speak English, but somehow we understand each other. He shows us everything in the winery. Don't expect any fancy riddling machines or a bottling line. Everything here is done entirely by hand. These wines are true gems in the history and wine scene. Don't expect to find them in any shop or restaurant though. You have to go to the source to taste them. We want to grab a quick snack, so we stop at a staple in the history and restaurant scene. Canoba Stardig Podrum. The interior is modern with plenty of natural light. The wine list is also fantastic, and the markups are modest by Croatian standards. Our light lunch includes an history and frittaya, or also known as an omelet. It's good because of typical prosciutto, they are using a smoke in this bag, so it adds more flavor and dimension to the egg. The egg is nicely flavored, they probably added a little bit of salt the very day. So yeah, I don't have to do any seasoning. And some tiramisu. The atmosphere and food are delicious, but shirin can't get over the fact that I stole her seafood risotto from the previous episode.  Don't take it. Our last stop is Kabola Winery. It's a certified organic winery focusing on Malvazia, Taran and a local muscat called Muscat Momjanski. Today we're catching up with the owner Marino Markožić and his daughter Ana. Italian winemaking legend Jasko Gravner deeply influenced Kabola. So much so that Marino decided to buy several Georgian quaveries, also known as Amforas, to make wine in. He was the first in Croatia to adopt this ancient winemaking technique. We revisit the cellar which is full of old goodies before we start opening bottles. One wine that always impresses us from Kabola is the barrel-aged Malvazia Unica. You smell the oak first, but the oak has turned into this sweet cinnamon, really sweet spy's nose. And you get a little bit of the nutty nose as well. But a deeper sniffle could start getting a little bit of dry fruit. Next stop is the Malvazia Amfora, made in Georgian Quavery. It sits on the skins for seven months in the quavery before being racked in a large oak casks. It's a beauty. Just look at that color. The tasting is going great, but the Markožić family isn't done yet. They have a few more goodies to show us, including their new vintage of spicy olive oil. Next up, they're 2007 Turan, which is evolving beautifully and still tastes like a baby. What I like about each Turan is like some of our favorite San Giovese grape. It always is sweet cherry, especially for Turan as well. It's different. It's quintessentially from Istria, and it has high acidity. But when you get low pH because of the soil that it comes from and you have low alcohol, it gives you a very long life ahead of it to grow, to gain these savory notes, to get a bigger body. And I love that for older Turan, you feel that the body starts to get bigger. You get a little bit of the texture, and it's just like a meal in a glass. Kabola is another fantastic wine that shouldn't be missed on any visit through Northwest Istria. Sadly, our time in the region is done. We've revisited many friends, tasted a number of stunning wines, and stuffed ourselves with the cuisine. We feel very fond of Istria and hope to make it back soon. But now, we have to head south. In the upcoming episodes, we take you to Dalmation. If you would like to learn more about Croatia and Croatian wine, keep a lookout for our next episode and check out our book, Cracking Croatian Wine.


Aaron it seemed like a bit of a grind for Montgomery tonight. What were you seeing from him? Yeah, same thing. It seemed like he got ahead of a handful but then just you know what I thought was a little inconsistent with this change up and just you know got into some deeper counts and obviously a couple of mistakes you know the hangar to Raul Muto and then you know prior pitch he wishes he had back on the on the Gosling double but he competed. I actually thought he finished you know a little bit better and got a little more aggressive with his fastball but yeah just a just a lot of hard time putting some guys away or letting people back into the count a little too much. With the exception of Garrett Cole you really have not received much length at all from your starting rotation. Are you concerned about that fact especially knowing how the schedule is? Well I mean the way our roster is constructed you know it does allow us to have some you know obviously a couple more arms in the bullpen but yeah you know we've you know nothing beats you know several outings from your starters that give you a length that really kind of preserve and set everyone up down there in that pen and you know obviously a couple guys were working back and massa building him up you know and hoping to get patched and rolling like we know he's capable of so yeah we on the long haul we got to do a little better job of that. Gary Sanchez really had a rough go offensively to start the season but you continued to voice your confidence in him. What did you see that told you he potentially was capable of having a big hit like he did tonight? Well his track record and how talented I know that he is as a hitter so you know he's certainly had his struggles and you know really struggling with his timing and stuff. I thought all night tonight even again a couple of his strikeouts the pop up there to end the game obviously the home or the other way you know he's certainly not where he wants to be or where he needs to be but hopefully you know he's starting to make those baby steps to get back into being the presence we know he is. Just a hit like that can that help take a little bit of the pressure off too? I think so you know obviously that got us right back in the game it was a good at bat so yes I'm hoping that you know I'm really excited about the work he's doing behind the plate and the fact that you know he's been able to separate the two but hopefully this is another step towards him getting back and right in the box. Thanks Aaron. We'll take the next one from Ken Davidoff. Aaron after Tora struck out I'm sorry didn't strike out flew out in the third inning you spoke to the umpires was that about the fans outside the premises making noise or was that something else? Yeah yeah it sounded like a horn was going off as the pitch you know and in the environment we're in it's almost like a golf environment where that sudden thinking so I thought there was a timing element to it may be that obviously I didn't necessarily think they would be able to do anything about it I didn't necessarily know who or where it was coming from but it is something that I at least wanted to point out. And did they say they couldn't do anything because the people are not even in the ballpark? Yeah unless we saw somebody in the ballpark or you know something that will obviously make a note of but that's about the extent of it. Thanks Aaron. Next one goes to Marley Rivera. This is a rarity when uh when your bullpen doesn't perform so well and you have a short outing from your from your starter. How do you adjust when the game just seems you know kind of harder even though I had come to you guys so easily before? Well bullpen gave up zero runs and sorry about that yes. Yeah I mean so I mean they did a great job of keeping us in the game and and allowing us to get back so you know it was just a you know it was a grinded tough night you know for money you know to get through four with you know whatever he ended up 95 or so pitches. But you know the the bullpen you know when when we're short a lot of people down there tonight that we're obviously going to stay away from you know Hale comes in and does a great job and then John Holder comes in and and gives us you know a real big boost getting getting us through two innings. So they did the job and gave us a chance and I thought our bats there against Narris um their closer um you know I liked our bats all all all the inning against him and and even Luke's done the game just missing really clipping one. Aaron and in terms of Jonathan Holder his change-up seemed like he was doing most of the damage today. Is that um how how pleased were you to see that? Yeah I'm excited about the way John's throwing the ball. I mean you know his you know he's not overpowering with the fastball but he's got really good characteristics to it so he can pitch at the top with that pitch and then you know if he's commanding the secondary and his change-up was great tonight um you know that's he he's looking like um you know more of the John we saw in 2018 and then parts of last year as well excited about where he is and the way he's throwing the ball right now.