Published NZME Regional Newspapers Tue 29 December 2015 Sauvignon Blanc. It’s the fuel that drives the engine room of our wine industry. So it stands to reason that the home of the world’s first International Sauvignon Blanc Celebration should be Marlborough, New Zealand’s largest wine region. That’s right, between Feb 1-3 2016, the movers … Read More
2015 Archived Columns
Trouble with the Santa list
Published NZME Regional Newspapers Tue 22 December 2015 Why do I do it every year? My offspring, now in their teens, will supply me with a ‘Santa List’ on December 1st. It’s the rules according to them. I go through the lists and secretly cross off all the R18 X-Box games and DVD’s (sorry … Read More
Christmas chardonnay time
Published NZME Regional Newspapers Tue 15 Dec 2015 It’s about this time of year when people ask me what my predictions will be for what we’ll be drinking in the next twelve months. I hate questions like that. I’m about as good at seeing into the future as I am at singing “Our Love … Read More
3 syrah stars
Published NZ Herald Sat 12 Dec 2015 Four weeks ago the 24th Annual Hawke’s Bay Wine Auction collectively raised $141k for Cranford Hospice by auctioning off rare wine lots. Mucho big bucks were dropped on syrah, a rising star from Bridge Pa… Selaks Reserve HB Syrah 2013 $22 Sourced from the Selaks ‘Home’ … Read More
A triple treat
Published NZ Herald Sat 5 Dec 2015 Tween television appears obsessed with churning out programs featuring perfect-looking kids striving to become a ‘triple threat’, meaning they need to sing, dance and act better than anyone else in order to be a STAR. In winemaking you need great ground, great fruit and great skills – … Read More
Dive into a boutique bottle
Published NZ Herald Sat 28 Nov 2015 Make this the weekend you step sideways from commercial brands and dive into something on the boutique side of the bed. These will have you walking the stride of pride the next day… Collaboration Aurulent Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay 2013 $35 Hawke’s Bay-based winemaker Julianne (Julz) Brogden is … Read More
Summer scorcher calls for bubbles
Published NZME Regional Newspapers Tue 1 Dec 2015 I’m writing this column from the comfy new couches at an air-conditioned Napier airport on a day that the weather boffins have predicted will hit thirty-plus degrees. Updates on Facebook are flooding my feed with photos from the dashboards of friends’ cars with outside temperatures of … Read More
Wine with experimental grapes
Published NZME Regional Newspapers Sat 28 Nov 2015 When Kim and Erica Crawford sold the Kim Crawford brand back in 2003, it was fair to say the New Zealand wine industry stood back, scratched it’s collective scalp and wondered what on earth these two vin-trepreneureal powerhouses would do next. The silence stretched for years … Read More
A sense of place
Published NZ Herald Sat 21 Nov 2015 I like it when the name on a bottle gives me some kind of geographic indicator as to the origin or owner’s connection to the wine instead of those awful ghost brands from nowhereville that plague our supermarket shelves. Here are three that shout their sense of … Read More
Wine Stories
Published NZME Regional Newspapers Sat 21 Nov 2015 Homage Returns November 20th sees Trinity Hill release its flagship syrah, Homage 2013 ($120), the first Homage to be released since 2010. Known now as one of the top red wines New Zealand’s ever produced, full-stop, (except I put a comma there) it comes out with … Read More