Rockburn Tigermoth Riesling 2011 Central Otago

Riesling has benefited as much as any wine from the maturing of New Zealand’s vineyards. Older vines give wine substance and depth. Riesling has traditionally been given a degree of sweetness to temper its acid, which can dominate the delicate purity of a variety that is a little like the ripeness of crisp Granny Smith apple in its best expression. German Riesling has traditionally been sweetened to temper high acid levels in the wine of a short, cool growing area. As New Zealand vines mature our Riesling is better able to cope with less residual sweetness. The wine of older vines ripens more completely and is fuller bodied than the wine of young vines.

This Rockburn Riesling is bright, lively pale gold in colour. It has a lingering aftertaste with something of the flavour of ripe Granny Smith apples as well as a twist of rock melon and the tang of ripe grapefruit.  

It is a beautifully balanced wine which was enjoyed at Didas on Jervois Road, while a man on a guitar played flamenco.

Tim Harris - Winewriter

Trinity Hill Chardonnay 2011

                                          ABSOLUTELY CHARDONNAY

Joanna Lumley, as Patsy Stone, in the TV show Absolutely Fabulous tottered about on high heels with her hair falling out, a glass of wine in one hand and waving a lipstick stained fag in the other, while saying things like “you can never have too many handbags or shoes” to express the philosophical element in her role as a fashion editor.

The same can be said about Chardonnay within reason, as in you can never have too much of it. It is not obvious wine and it has the capacity to age more reliably than the aromatic wines such as Sauvignon Blanc. Chardonnay is frequently maligned because of popular prejudice or ignorance. It can be dead dull, and even the better wines can be insufficiently obvious to appeal to people unused to the comparatively passive nature of this non aromatic grape variety. The good ones are subtly appealing, like the scented richness of a bowl full of ripe peaches.

Chardonnay has an enigmatic element. Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc, both aromatic wines, can be described in terms of other fruit they resemble. Sauvignon Blanc is said to resemble gooseberries, or with bottle age as having the tang of stone fruit such as nectarines. Riesling has its own clear as a bell aroma of lemons and limes, and can develop a tang of honey from residual sweetness as the wine ages. The appeal of Chardonnay is in its capacity to develop with bottle age to reveal elements not visible in the young wine and as the vineyards age this complexity will become more pronounced.

Trinity Hill Chardonnay 2011 from Hawkes Bay, made by John Hancock is a good one. It is brilliant pale straw in colour and positively glows in the glass. It is beautifully balanced as to weight and length of palate and has something of the concentration and complexity of crystalline fruit, set against an aftertaste of bright, fresh, balanced acidity.

Tim Harris

 October 2012

And here for something completely different are some shots I took at the Martinborough Airshow of a Sopwith Camel.   

 

Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc Southern Clays Marlborough 2011

              Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc Southern Clays Marlborough 2011

This is bright pale straw wine with an intense bouquet, delicately balanced in the classic style of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, and enriched by the character of clay. It is ripe, tight, and pervasive, with savoury fruitiness and great intensity and is beautifully made and seamlessly blended.   Deep gravel gives the wine from the vines grown on it bright aromatic intensity and definition. This is the “cats pee on a gooseberry bush” description which has been coined for the Marlborough style of Sauvignon Blanc.  Clay soils make more rounded and more immediately appealing wines, in this case with a trace of the herbal scent of sage.   

                                                          Magnolia blooms in Spring

John Forrest Collection 2007 Syrah

                      

                          Tim Harris Winewriter 

                      

                      JOHN FORREST COLLECTION 2007 SYRAH   

This is youthful red wine from the Gimblett Gravels of Hawkes Bay that is probably close to its best time for drinking. It has had about 4 years or a bit less from bottling, and is developing well. It needs to breathe after being opened. It is quite delicate and at first does not show much of itself. It can help in such cases if you take a glass out of the bottle to make space for the rest of the wine to passively breathe for a while before you pour it.

On no account decant delicate wine. It gets a shock it can’t recover from and deprives you of the opportunity to manage the process. This 2007 wine has the bottle age to reveal itself when carefully handled. It has a bright pink meniscus, is bright scarlet in the glass and is quite densely coloured. The  palate is supple and well balanced for breadth and weight against an aftertaste in which fine friable tannin is set against refreshing tartness.

WINEMAKERS RE-UNION DINNER IN HENDERSON

REUNION DINNER AT THE FALLS HOTEL IN HENDERSON

When people from Croatia and the Lebanon came to New Zealand they brought with them from Europe the culture of wine. It was part of their identity. In an earlier enforced migration, for people torn from the vastness of Africa and taken as slaves to America, their most enduring possessions were the chants and tales of their folklore, which evolved as the music of Dixie; the Blues, Gospel, and later on Rock and Roll. Music soothed their loss. These thoughts came to mind as I listened to Soul music, while driving out to Henderson in late July  2010 to celebrate the refurbishment and reopening of the Falls Hotel.  I was invited by Garry Bates, the manager, and by the Winemakers of West Auckland, whose wines were served at the banquet.

The Falls Hotel is a Heritage building dating back to 1854. It was named after a spectacular water fall at Waitakere, which became a trickle when its river was dammed for the Waitakere Reservoir to be built. Early black and white photographs on the walls of the pub evoke the flickering images of silent Wild West movies; as in femmes fatales with bustles, boas, and cleavages; poker players - drone males with eye shades and braces; and cowboys with Colt 45s. The restoration of the old hotel preserves the feel of the 1880s, in stud heights, proportions, colours and finishes. You can imagine cussing fighting cowhands being thrown out onto a clay road, under the restless hooves of tethered horses. The Falls Hotel, it should be said, is as much modern sophistication as Wild West. The food served at the dinner was in the style of nouvelle cuisine, in small portions of carefully matched and mixed textures and tastes. For me the best of them was rare cooked Cervena. It was tender, juicy and slightly spiced.

 At the Falls Hotel I found faces I had not seen for 20 years or more, faces altered by the passage of time to add creases to features and grey to hair, something you don’t necessarily think about, even if you own a face and use a mirror to shave. There were speeches. Brian Corban, grandson of Assid Abraham Corban, founder of the Corban family wine company at Henderson, talked about the history of Corban’s Wines, a history with much in common for all the first wine making families in New Zealand, whether from the Lebanon or from Croatia. They fled here as families from the turmoil of the Balkans in the death throes of the Ottoman Empire. They packed what they could carry into suitcases and walked to the nearest seaport, to catch a ship to the other side of the world. In New Zealand the Croatians laboured in the gum fields of the North. People from Lebanon became small traders.

 The Corban family name is still a major brand in New Zealand wine. In 1979, a century after the earliest pioneers of the family arrived in New Zealand, the Corban family sold a majority stake in Corban’s Wines, to Rothmans. This led ultimately to DB becoming the owner of the Corban brand. The wine interests of the Corban family are now in Hawkes Bay, where Alwyn Corban, a cousin of Brian, is the winemaker for the family wine company Ngatarawa Wines, making wine from its vineyards on the Heretaunga Plains.

                                Tim Harris - Winewriter - and his Sunday morning addiction

Church Road McDonald Series Hawkes Bay Chardonnay 2011

                        CHURCH ROAD  MCDONALD SERIES CHARDONNAY HAWKES BAY 2011

First impressions are important in tasting wine. The initial sniff and spit, crude though it may seem when set out in print, is a vital window of recognition. The other important first impression is colour.  Chardonnay should be pale golden or bright straw coloured. The aroma of the wine should be fresh and appealing. Off odours such as sourness and the smells caused by an unstable fermentation are signs of an unsound wine that will not keep well. A huge part of learning how to make wine is devoted to recognizing the off odours of instability. The other side of the coin is the pure joy of tasting a fine, fresh young wine. This Hawkes Bay Chardonnay is such a wine.

Hawkes Bay Chardonnay is always worth looking at. Obviously some are better than others. The best can be sublime. This wine is tautly structured. It has good tone, and the acid that gives it backbone is friable, meaning it does not assail the senses but insinuates itself as part of a complex citrusy flavour that registers on the palate as a creamy sensation, which fills the back of the mouth and is tart as well as unctuous, lingering on after the wine has been swallowed.

Wine Note by Tim Harris

Telephone 021 477 171

11/145 Howe Street

Freemans Bay

Auckland 1011

9 August 2012

                               Sopwith Camel - Martinborough Air Show - 'One of my favourites' 

Hunters Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2011

                                    MARLBOROUGH SAUVIGNON BLANC

“Cats pee on a gooseberry bush” was the epithet given to Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc by British wine writers when the wine appeared on sale in London in the early 1980s. The first Sauvignon wines from Marlborough were pale in colour and had an intense raw aroma. They were certainly distinctive, and occupied a space in the world of food and wine among the stronger characters in the field of acquired tastes.

That Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc should have become so widely planted and so prominent was due to a considerable extent on an act of faith by Montana Wines, who saw the promise of Marlborough and devoted a significant area of the vast vineyards they were planting there to Sauvignon Blanc.

In the establishment of markets the late Ernie Hunter of Hunter’s Wines, who died suddenly before his time in the early 1980s , was a most effective salesman promoting Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, particularly in the UK where he helped create the export potential of the wine there. He was an ebullient Irishman who always had a bottle of his wine with him and who never missed an opportunity to promote it. He courted the press and the wine trade effectively.

The current vintage of Hunters Sauvignon Blanc  2011  tastes of ripe nectarines, is defined by a fine thread of acidity, is deliciously mouth filling, and has a lingering aftertaste. It is a most enjoyable wine.

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Pegusas Bay Riesling 2009

It is part of the folk lore of wine that old vines make the best wine, and PEGASUS BAY RIESLING 2009 is as good an example of the adage as can be found in New Zealand. It comes from the open plains of Amberley, north of Christchurch, from a vineyard planted about 30 years ago by Christchurch GP, Doctor Ivan Donaldson and his family. It is bright, luminescent wine of fine  pale gold colour, with a lively honeyed aroma; a persistent element that enlivens the wine. Fresh acidity gives the wine structure, definition, and intensity of flavour. It is delicate and Germanic in style, with a robust constitution. It is sophisticated, and has established itself as prominently successful in a field that has been possibly over shadowed by the success of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Riesling of the poise of this wine deserves notice as a New Zealand classic. It was enjoyed in the Lounge bar of De Bretts Hotel in High Street Auckland on a crisp, sunny Saturday afternoon in July.

The bar itself is worthy of comment. Its roof is plate glass, and on the afternoon we were there the sun streamed in, warming the space, and lighting up the view of the Gollum City- like Metropolis Tower block. The bar is a rectangle filling the space between two adjoining buildings, and is furnished a bit like an English sea side hotel in its colours and textures, and discreet clutter. In a sunny corner there is a rococo statue of a brightly painted mannequin boy on a pedestal. The ambience is serenely comfortable. 


Wine Note by Tim Harris

8 August 2012

THE VILLA MARIA FAMILY OF WINERIES TRADE DAY NOVEMBER 2011

          Every spring, Sir George and Lady Gail Fistonich invite members of the wholesale and retail wine trade and wine writers, to the Villa Maria Trade Day, held most recently in November 2011. Guests are invited to the winery to taste a range of the Villa Maria companies’ award and trophy winning wines. The wines shown are all from vineyards Villa Maria either owns or controls, and display impeccable style in the grape varieties they represent.  Everything about the day is deftly executed. The winery buildings are modern, and beautifully proportioned, standing in a landscape that feels like the great hall and the buildings and grounds of a grand European rural retreat. The rich green of mown lawns blends into the bright green of vines on gentle slopes, set off on the open day by bright sunshine, and blue sky randomly patterned by soft white clouds.

The wines presented to the visitors at the trade day were all among the best of their variety, and Air New Zealand Wine Awards medal winners if they were old enough to have been entered. A great many of the Trade Day wines were gold medal winners at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards or the Liquorland Royal Easter Show. Admission to the trade day is by invitation only. Wine tastings were conducted throughout the day by Villa Maria winemakers on topics that included; An introduction to wine tasting; Sustainability and Organics, which related to vineyard practice and management of the environment of the company’s vineyards in Hawkes Bay, Gisborne and Marlborough; “Our Take on the Rhone”; “North Island Chardonnay at its Best”; and “Marlborough’s success with the Pinot Family”, illustrated by a selection of new releases. Villa Maria is producing increasingly complex Pinot Noir from Marlborough. “The Rhone” refers to the deep coloured reds of the Rhone Valley in France and the Villa Maria take on Rhone wines was illustrated by Syrah, grown and produced from Villa Maria’s vineyards in Hawkes Bay. The Rhone Valley is a comparatively hot area in southern central France, with summer temperatures above the New Zealand norm. The selection of a warm climate white wine was a wine made from the Italian variety Arneis grown in Gisborne.  Villa Maria Arneis is sturdy, lively and deeply scented, with something like the scent of Riesling but with gaudy opulence, and structural fullness that set it apart from the delicacy of fine Riesling. It works well.  Both red and white examples showed fineness of balance, depth and concentration..

The wines tasted at Trade Day 2011 were the current vintages of wines from vineyards that date back to the vine planting boom of the early1980s in Marlborough, Hawkes Bay and Gisborne. Vine age was a theme discussed in the open day seminars. Vine maturity is as vital to wine quality as are soil, climate, and careful husbandry, a concept becoming evident in New Zealand wine as the wine of older vineyards becomes more prominent in the national grape harvest. Europeans have known for years of the link between old vines and wine quality, a connection that parallels everything else we know about life. The wine of older vines is deeper flavoured than the wine of young vines. It holds better in the glass, and is better able to unfold and reveal itself as it breaths. Young vines wine can be charming but a flash in the pan. The roots of older vines spread further and produce more regular crops which stabilise over time in terms of yield and ripen more evenly, to be expressed in their wine in heightened bouquet and in palate weight, colour intensity, brightness, and purity of tone, and in the hard to put your finger on sensation of taste and aroma unfolding in the glass. Chardonnay is a good example of the phenomenon in New Zealand wine. It suits our climate and our soils and was the earliest white wine variety to be taken seriously here, in the era before Sauvignon Blanc blitzed the British market. As a white wine, Chardonnay can be easier to read than red, and it illustrates well the importance of old vines.  Chardonnay is very much more important to New Zealand wine than prejudice based on popular chic appears to understand. It has class, and ages well. The same development of depth and sophistication is being seen in red wines as vineyards age. Pinot Noir from Marlborough and Martinborough, and Syrah and Merlot from Hawkes Bay have been in the ground long enough to be producing wines of depth, richness and tannin to give them the capacity to age. Vine age brings middle aged refinement to New Zealand wine. 

Written By  Tim Harris           Blog:  Howe St, Wine Report Auckland NZ

                                              Timhhrs6@gmail.com

Kim Crawford rose 2011

Kim Crawford First Season Rose 2011 has no indication of area of origin on its label nor is there any indication of the  variety of the grapes that it is made from.It is labelled as New Zealand wine and it is possible the grapes in the blend have come from a number of vineyards.  The wine is none the worse for the circumstances of its birth, and at its probable price level sold in a Supermarket such detail is academic.  Most importantly it is  fresh, well balanced, and brightly coloured rose', with a dryish aftertaste and and good length of palate. It is  wine for a leisurely weekend lunch, and proved  particularly suited to fresh pasta in tomato sauce, with green salad.Tim Harris 9 April 2012