The Mottled Oyster

I’ve spent the last few days in Shanghai judging a brand new wine competition, Wine 100 and I’ll post my thoughts on the competition and the NZ wine masterclass I hosted tomorrow.  Having never been to Shanghai before I found it an exhilarating city that operates at a tremendous pace. The contrast between old and new is marked; elegant colonial buildings and modern skyscrapers, luxury imported cars and roads full of cyclists, and everything blanketed in a gentle haze of pollution.

View from my hotel room

The Waldorf Astoria

Now on my way home, I only wish I could have spent longer there.

The Bund by night

When Chris Scott, winemaker at the Church Road Winery, asked if anyone had heard of marzemino, I was tempted to reply that I thought one had just won Crufts.

But I decided not to be flippant. We had just been told that a ghostly figure sometimes appears in the barrel hall and although I don’t believe in the paranormal, I wasn’t taken any chances.

I was in Hawke’s Bay to taste the Church Road ‘Tom McDonald’ wines, a range that pays tribute to the man who started working at the winery as a young man and later went on to buy the property. Scott explained the new range replaces the Cuve series, that despite often containing some gems, suffered from an uninspriring name and label design.

The Tom McDonald series of eight wines is almost exclusively from the group of French varieties upon which this winery, and Hawkes Bay in general, have made their name. But I wonder what McDonald would have made of the marzemino, a grape variety native to northern Italy, that has produced an intensely coloured red with a sour cherry and cranberry character and retains an unmistakeable savoury Mediterranean edge. Perhaps he’d like the more traditional Merlot, an intense gutsy wine with plenty of charm.

Scott isn’t the only winemaker who has been busy launching a brand new wine this month.

Waipara’s Black Estate was established back in 1993 but since it was taken over by winemaker Nicholas Brown and his wife Penelope Naish in 2007, it has gone from strength to strength. I’ve been very impressed by all the releases to date but the brand new 2010 Omihi Pinot Noir is the best yet. This single vineyard pinot noir has oodles of a character I find in Waipara pinots but which I have up until now struggled to define. Tasting this wine I realised that it is redcurrant jelly (a personal favourite) with an intense red fruit note, never overripe, yet with a sweetness and plumpness too.

Although only small in terms of volume and with only 20-odd wineries, Waipara has more than its fair share of talented winemakers.  A quiet achiever and a region to watch.

Fast Fact :  The Church Road Winery houses a small wine museum, open to the public, with tours running twice a day. A fascinating collection of wine artifacts from both here and overseas.

2010 Black Estate Omihi Pinot Noir                    5 stars        $45.00
This intensely fragrant single vineyard pinot has a delightful redcurrant jelly and raspberry character. A savoury edge gives structure and balances the dense, fleshy fruit. Attractive now yet better in a couple of years.

2009 Church Road Tom McDonald Pinot Gris    5 stars        $32.99
Inspired by the late harvest wines of Alsace, Scott has crafted a medium dry pinot gris that is powerful yet pure. Amazing concentration and length, this would be perfect with roast pork belly, fresh chilli and ginger.

How do you show a group of visiting wine writers that you are serious about making great pinot noir?

Ben Glover, chief winemaker at Marlborough’s Wither Hills, chose to follow the mantra, “great wine is made in the vineyard” and had us all walking the rows at his Taylor’s River vineyard to see grapes being hand harvested. Although the organic vines looked scruffier than the conventionally farmed ones in the next field, the grapes were healthy and ripe, no mean feat in a vintage that Glover described as ‘challenging’.

Ben in the vineyard

Next it was off to the winery. With vintage in full swing, pinot grapes were being tipped into the new optical sorting machine, a device that takes a photograph of each individual grape. Those not up to standard are pinged off the conveyor belt by blasts of air. I asked what the machine cost and the winery team paled (especially the accountant) but Ben and winemaker Sally Williams are convinced it helps increases wine quality.

the optical sorting machine - pinot noir berries

But money is being saved as not so many new barrels are purchased these days and less oak means the wines have a real purity and the fruit really shines.

The proof is in the bottle so we tasted 10 vintages of pinot noir, back to 1999. Though some vintages were more successful than others, each had stood the test of time with the 2003 particularly delicious.

That evening, Ben played his ace in the form of Dave Anderson, who with his wife Sarah have taken over the Wither Hills restaurant. A terrific dinner, showcasing the best of local produce, featured horopito, manuka honey, kumara and venison.

late afternoon in Marlborough

We drank some red Burgundies and though of excellent quality, they were just not a great match for the vibrant, intensely flavoured food. However the Wither Hills pinots, which had looked good in cold light of the tasting room, really shone alongside the unmistakeable Kiwi flavours.

The ‘Let Us Eat Local’ movement believes that eating regional food is best. To that I’d add, ‘drink local too’. The evening at Wither Hills proved my point.

Fast fact : I liked Glover’s description that young pinot should be “like a rosebud”. Tightly furled at first, it opens slowly with time to reveal its true beauty.

2010 Wither Hills Pinot Noir                        4.0 stars            $32.00
Bright and floral with lots of red cherry and plum fruit aromas. A very appealing pinot with a touch of tannin giving support to the ripe, plump flavours. Great now.

2008 Wither Hills Benmorven Pinot Noir    5.0 stars           $50.00
Just starting to become approachable yet with bags of potential, this single vineyard pinot has plenty of richness and depth yet is gently textured, silky and smooth. Will repay keeping for a few more years.

The last couple of weeks have been nail-biting times for grape growers. Very unsettled weather, heavy rainfall and gale force winds have played havoc with forecasted harvesting dates. Many have gone online to share their stories and Facebook and Twitter updates paint a picture of winemakers waiting, nails chewed to the quick. Though Easter brought a period of settled, sunny weather, the damage may already have been done in some regions.

If the predictions are right, and the harvest is much smaller than expected, this may go some way to correcting the recent oversupply issues that have plagued the industry. It looks like the end of the road for very cheap NZ wine, sold off under fictional labels.

Is this a bad thing? A friend brought round a bottle of 2009 Redcliffe Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, bought online for $5.99. There was no winery mentioned and though it tasted decent enough, I couldn’t help feeling that for an industry that has prided itself on its reputation for producing high quality wines, this was a sorry state of affairs. Faceless brands, created as a response to oversupply issues, endorsed by paid-for reviews and promoted to the consumer through websites offering everything from earphones to dvds?

Does anyone benefit from wine being sold so cheaply? Could these bargain basement bottles be contributing to our alcohol abuse problems?  Interestingly the British Government has decided to introduce a minimum price for alcohol to try and combat the UK’s binge drinking crisis. The drain on the public purse runs into billions of dollars each year and it is hoped restricting the sale of cheap alcohol will help. The NZ Government isn’t introducing such measures so it is up to the individual to decide how much they should drink.

Wine merchants and supermarkets offer decent NZ wine at heavily discounted prices. This week Montana, Giesen, Selaks and Matua, all highly respected labels, are on sale. Perhaps time to abandon the artificial and embrace the real thing.

This week, two sauvignons with a real sense of place.

2011 Craggy Range Te Muna Sauvignon Blanc            4.5 stars       $23.95
Tight and restrained, this is a classy sauvignon that offers plenty of gooseberry, lime and wet stone flavours. The 06 Te Muna was drinking brilliantly recently, proving that more linear minerally sauvignons can go the distance.

2011 te Pã Sauvignon Blanc                                           4.0 stars        $19.95
This is a generously fruited, intense style of sauvignon blanc, full of red capsicum, cut grass and lime. Weighty and ripe yet the flavours are focussed and the finish is bone dry. An appealing style, drinking really well now.

Last week New Zealand gained another fully certified organic winery. BioGro NZ gave the green light to Marlborough’s Te Whare Ra and for owners Anna and Jason Flowerday, this represents the culmination of three years hard work.

“We are working to an international organic standard and were keen to gain BioGro certification in recognition ” says Anna Flowerday.  “Some growers say they are a ‘bit organic’ which is daft. It’s like claiming to be bit pregnant, either you are or you aren’t. ”

Flowerday should know. She is a mum to four young daughters (two sets of twins) and is passionate about taking care of the vineyards her husband’s family planted back in 1979. Converting them to fully organic practices means they can no longer use pesticides or fertilisers and instead do much of the vineyard work by hand.  “We need to be in the vineyard every day. Things take a bit longer to do but it’s worth it”.

In the Wairarapa, Angus Thomson feels much the same way. He and his wife Davina established Urlar Wines and as parents of three small children (with one on the way) the Thomsons want to care for the land that their children will hopefully farm themselves one day. From the outset they were determined to use organic practices on their vineyards and Urlar gained BioGro certification in 2010.

“We were very keen to preserve the integrity of our environment. Converting to organic viticulture means the vineyards are healthier and produce much better quality fruit.  We make finer wine if we treat the vineyard with respect”.

Twenty odd ago organic wines were woeful, often made by those on a crusade rather than by talented winemakers. But there has been a subtle, yet important shift in attitude so that the new generation of organic winemakers has put the focus firmly back on the vineyard.

Flowerday and Thomson both stress their wines “must stack up on quality first and foremost”.  Having tried the new releases from both wineries, I’d say they were achieving their goal.

Fast Fact : Urlar and Te Whare Ra use cattle to provide manure, a vital ingredient of biodynamic farming. Flowerday and Thomson call their herds ‘part of the family’.

2010 Urlar Pinot Noir                4.5 stars        $35.00
I loved the 09 vintage and think the 2010 even better. A weighty, fleshy style of pinot with plenty of raspberry and wild strawberry fruit flavours. Supple and silky, delicious now though will age 3-5 years.

2011 Te Whare Ra Toru            4.5 stars        $22.00
Alsace produces Edelzwicker, Te Whare Ra Toru. A blend of three noble varieties (pinot gris, gewurztraminer and riesling) gives a sumptuous, richly textured wine its touch of sweetness kept in balance by crisp, lime acidity.

Our children aged 17 and 15 seem to have made the smooth transition from being early risers (Sunday mornings when an eager face appeared beside the bed at 6.30am seem a distant memory) to ones who have no problem sleeping late.
Today the clocks went back an hour and no-one showed any signs of stirring. Which meant Bingo and I could enjoy the sun coming up over Rangitoto by ourselves.

Emma and I don’t get to see each other often as we used to but when I can persuade her to make the journey from Taupo, she always arrives bringing goodies. Free range eggs, homemade jams and of course, wine.  Naturally when a guest brings this:

you know you’re in for a good time. But we do try to pour each other wines blind so that the pourer can laugh at the pourees woeful attempts at guessing the label. But more importantly it is a chance to taste without prejuduce.

Having shared Chateau Pichon Lalande and Chateau Yquem earlier this year, I was delighted when Emma poured me a glass of lightly chilled, white wine. I was 100% certain she’d had a truffle around in the Jenkins cellar and had come bearing something, how shall I say, Gallic.

But smelling the wine, I wasn’t so sure. The colour was quite developed and the nose was warm and rich with the stonefruit (nectarine and white peach), chalk and lemon aromas enveloped in  a cloak of pronounced oak. Hazelnut, cashew and melted butter dominated. Underneath the fruit was quite savoury and there was a rich, creamy textural mouthfeel. The acidity was marked and gave a precision and linearity to the palate.

Hedging my bets, I described it as an ambitious chardonnay, almost Sonoma in style, but I just couldn’t reconcile the acidity with a Californian wine. Emma unmasked the bottle.

I was quite surprised by the amount of oak the wine carried. Pyramid Valley is  a producer that makes much of ‘sense of place’ yet I found the oak blurred the edges, gave a uniformity to the palate and sat at odds with the acidity. Perhaps the wine will become more integrated with more time in bottle but I’m not sure.
We discussed and argued about this wine late in to the night and it seemed we managed to drink the bottle. A thought provoking wine definitely.

Paul Grieco came to NZ this summer to promote the charms of riesling but when we visited his Terroir wine bar in New York, a chilled, crisp white was the last thing I wanted to drink.

With temperatures of minus 10C and a thick carpet of snow covering the city, a warming red seemed in order but the chap behind the bar recommended Beaujolais. I quailed as this light bodied wine would have been the last thing I’d have chosen myself. Too many bottles of acidic, rasping wine, produced in double quick time and released as Beaujolais Nouveau, made this a wine I usually avoided.

But this one was delicious; deeply fruity, juicy and refreshing. I resolved, once back in Auckland, to do a bit more research.

It seems that Beaujolais is undergoing a revolution and a new generation of growers are redefining the style and quality of the region’s wine. And whilst thin, dilute wines are still made, if you look out for one of the ten individual village wines or crus, you are likely to be rewarded with a red of real personality.

New wave cru Beaujolais is the very antithesis of modern, high octane wine, those packed with over-ripe fruit, high alcohol and lashings of new oak. In fact French AOC wine laws state that a Beaujolais cru may not exceed 13.5% alcohol which means the wines are never too heavy but have masses of cherry and raspberry fruit, a good lick of crisp acidity but little tannin, the drying sensation that makes red wine quite difficult to drink by itself. Well suited to being served slightly cooler than most reds (and in high summer could even be chilled) Beaujolais’s acidity makes it a great food wine.

Auckland’s Maison Vauron is championing grower Beaujolais with a range of wines from the excellent 2009 and 2010 vintages. Perhaps its time to banish clichéd memories of the battery acid reds of the past and embrace the new style of Beaujolais; full of personality, eminently drinkable and delicious.

Fast Fact : There are ten Beaujolais crus (Brouilly, Chénas, Chiroubles, Cote de Brouilly, Fleurie, Juliénas, Morgon, Moulin à Vent, Régnié and Saint Amour). The particular cru will appear on the wine label but not the word Beaujolais.

2010 Morgon Cote du Py, Grange Cochard      4.5 stars            $42.00
Morgon produces wines in a weightier style; deeply fruited with fresh raspberry and red cherry fruit. Seductive and spicy with a long crisp flavour. Drink now or keep 2-3 years.

2009 Julienas, Potel-Aviron                                4.5 stars            $32.00
Julienas has a reputation for producing highly aromatic wines and this is a great example; very floral violets, raspberry and blueberry. Fresh and energetic with a succulent bright flavour. Drink now.