In late January, four of the Glengarry team, including me, our Victoria Park Site Manager, Zane Winskill, Fine Wine Sales Consultant, Regan McCaffery and Product/Marketing Assistant, Anthony Sorensen, headed to Central Otago for three days of pinot noir immersion.
On day one we left Auckland super early, arriving in Queenstown in time to board an 11am bus and head for the shores of Lake Wanaka and Rippon Winery. Taking the long way around, with winemaker and local history legend Matt Dicey on the microphone, we were treated to a visual update of the region around ownership changes, new plantings and all the comings and goings.
Once at Rippon, the afternoon started with a series of poets exploring a sense of place and belonging. From there, a series of sub-regional tastings set the tone for the event, which set out to highlight a sense of place through exploring not only Central Otago, but its sub regions. Day one then concluded with a trip to the Cardrona Hotel to taste another collection of white wines from the region and taste local fare. Back over the Crown Range and an early night for most. Except, unfortunately, for one of the buses that did not quite make the Crown Range turns with ample application and became stuck!
Day two started with a scenic gondola ride to the Skyline, where a formal tasting was held. This gave the team an opportunity to try wines from forty of the region’s producers, with the focus of this pinot noir tasting being current vintage and the opportunity to explore aged wines. As we headed to this, I challenged the team to come up with their ‘top 12’ wines for the tasting. It’s the collation of the resulting four lists, which had remarkable similarity, that forms the collection featured in our April Wineletter.
From there, we were treated to lunch at Peregrine with the talented New Zealand chef, Monique Fiso. Monique’s focus is on foraging and indigenous ingredients. One such example served at lunch was kamo kamo, a native squash, which took me back to days up north when my mother cooked this. Our evening took us across Lake Wakatipu on the TSS Earnslaw to Walter Peak High Station. Despite having been to Central Otago many times, this was my first time on the TSS Earnslaw and what an experience it was. Highly recommend this to everyone – it’s not the tourist trap you may think it is.
Day three of our pinot noir immersion took us to Bannockburn. First stop, Carrick Winery and a rose tasting. Oh, how things have changed. In the early years of this celebration, rose was frowned upon and whites were served behind closed doors. The region has grown up and it’s more diverse and exciting than it’s ever been.
We were then divided into groups. Whilst locomotive transport was provided for some in the group, for the four of us it was electric bikes – well, for me and Regan, that is. Zane and Anthony’s bikes lost power and they actually had to cycle. We rode our bikes up and down Bannockburn and talked wine, the region and viticulture. The final part of the event – lunch under a marquee at Mount Edward’s place in Bannockburn. Lunch was a BYO affair. We all shared wines from around the world, benchmarking and talking about the great wines of the world. Oh so important.
Reflecting on the event, the wines and the people, I start first with the latter. This is a region full of generous souls that are so proud of what they do and eager to share it. Every time we go there, we are welcomed with open arms and it feels like going home. Having been at most of the celebrations in the history of this event, I reflected on the first ones when I’d have been comfortable with a selection of the wines on the shelves at Glengarry.
Now, all of the wines tasted are at the level that we’d love to have them in our stores. The difficulty being, where to put them all. What also hit home now more than ever is the difference in the sub regions and that the winemakers are doing all they can to enhance that and not mute it. Letting the vineyards speak for themselves. Check out the collection of wines the team have selected – what an impressive range. (LIZ WHEADON)