{"id":9067,"date":"2014-02-02T19:45:43","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T19:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=9067"},"modified":"2014-02-04T20:03:42","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T20:03:42","slug":"in-new-zealand-day-4-celebrating-central-otago-pinot-noir-with-enthusiasm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/from-the-road\/in-new-zealand-day-4-celebrating-central-otago-pinot-noir-with-enthusiasm","title":{"rendered":"In New Zealand day 4, celebrating Central Otago Pinot Noir with enthusiasm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OLYMPUS Day 4 of my visit was a long, enjoyable one. We began with a drive out to the lovely Northburn station, just out of Cromwell. This was to be the setting for the grand tasting of Central Otago Pinot Noir, with 40 wineries showing two wines each: current release plus an older bottle. This was a brilliantly thought out tasting. It was busy and bustling, but there was no problem accessing wines or spittoons, largely because of the lack of tables – instead, wineries each\u00a0had their bottles on an upturned barrel. And chair of the celebration Jenn Parr kicked things off by singing Janis Joplin. Remarkable. \"OLYMPUS This is a bit of a rogues gallery. Above we have John Harris and Marilyn Duxson, ex-research scientists whose label is Maori Point. 2012\u00a0 was a really good, fresh wine. \"OLYMPUS Domenic Mondillo knows how to smile for the camera. The 2012 Mondillo is a lovely warm, ripe style. \"OLYMPUS Andrew Hawker, son of Warwick and Jenny Hawker, has returned from studying enology and will begin making the wines at the family property Pisa Range. The 2006 was showing really beautifully, and 12 is good too. \"OLYMPUS Paul Pujol’s Prophet’s Rock wines really impressed. The current release is sleek, textured and mineral and was one of the wines of the tasting. \"OLYMPUS Here’s Central legend Rudi Bauer with Toronto-based\u00a0Christopher Waters. The Quartz Reef 2012 is one of Rudi’s best. So pure and fine. \"OLYMPUS What can I say about Nick Mills, and his incredible Rippon wines? Nick looks for what he calls ‘tonic’ qualities in the wine, and the Rippon 2011 is just so textured and vital. 2004 from magnum was quite profound. \"OLYMPUS Marlborough-based Tom Hutchison was showing his Rockferry wines. These are concentrated and quite structured Pinots from the Trig Hill vineyard in Bendigo. \"OLYMPUS Claudio Heye’s Surveyor Thomspon wines are quite delicious, with supple, bright, spicy personality. \"OLYMPUS This was my first time trying the Terra Sancta wines, which come from three vineyards in Bannockburn. I really like them. Pictured above, owners Mark Weldon and Sarah Elliot. \"OLYMPUS Grant Taylor is another Central Legend. Seek out his 2012 Valli Gibbston Vineyard and buy as much as you can. He has toyed a little with reduction and got it just right. \"OLYMPUS Matt Connell’s Akarua wines showed well, supple and stylish, balancing richness and freshness. \"OLYMPUS Lucie Lawrence named the Madeleine Pinot Noir after her daughter, and it’s 100% whole bunch. There’s stemmy spiciness and some nice finesse to the 2012 and it will age in an interesting way, I reckon. \"OLYMPUS Marquis Sauvage of Burn Cottage. What a dude. \"OLYMPUS Ted Lemon, Burn Cottage. Top man. Superb wines, juggling richness and elegance in a seamless whole. \"OLYMPUS The tippy tappy brigade. Brookesey, Stocky and Peter Moser. Then it was time for lunch. We were all split up into groups, each going to different wineries. I was off to Mount Maude in Wanaka. This was a great setting: a beautiful vineyard I’d never been to before, and great people. The food was fabulous, as was the company. \"OLYMPUS \"OLYMPUS \"OLYMPUS \"OLYMPUS \"OLYMPUS \"OLYMPUS \"OLYMPUS \u00a0 We ended up back in Queenstown with just a 20 minute turn-around before leaving for another party. This was a celebration at Jack’s Point, a stunning resort and golf course in the shadow of The Remarkables. Lots of wine (including some lovely older bottles of Central wine) and lots of banter. I made the wise choice to go to bed when we got back to Queenstown, despite the siren calls of my chums.\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 4 of my visit was a long, enjoyable one. We began with a drive out to the lovely Northburn station, just out of Cromwell. This was to be the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,60],"tags":[21,352,378],"class_list":["post-9067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-road","category-new-zealand","category-pinot-noir","tag-central-otago","tag-new-zealand","tag-pinot-noir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9067"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9122,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067\/revisions\/9122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}