Want to try something new, and not already a member? Come on your own, grab a friend, workmate or partner and join us for our next tasting. Take a look and see who's presenting. Scroll down to view the website.
It wasn’t overwarm in Sydney while we were there but I must say I don’t think I have been warm since our return. Never mind the tasting this month should go some way to warm the cockles of the heart. I have it on good authority that the AGM went well in my absence, and it is a pleasure to have Cecilia join in the ranks of our life members.
Payment advice
Please find attached a PaymentAdviceforJune2018 for this month’s meeting. The form provides an opportunity to pay your membership subscription, entry fee for the June tasting and the July Dinner. Please bring this with you next week (completed of course) or contact Wayne by email.
President’s Report & Financial Statement
I would like to remind members that if you are interested in looking at the President’s Report or Financial Statement from the AGM, they can be found on the club website.
Moët & Chandon calls the salty, crunchy snack one of the best things to eat with bubbly, and our wine editor agrees.
Mike Pomranz | April 19, 2018
Everyone likes Champagne—if only because it’s the quintessential, upmarket celebratory drink. But for that exact reason, some people can be unsure when to drink Champagne. Weddings, graduations and holidays are obvious choices. And if you’re Biggie Smalls, when you’re thirsty also qualifies. But is ordering Champagne during an otherwise ordinary meal posh or just pretentious?
For bigtime Champagne producers like Moët & Chandon, this question is about more than just image: moving more Champagne boosts their bottom line. So clearly, it behooves the brand to remind drinkers that you don’t need to wait until your golden anniversary to pop a bottle of Brut. Along those lines, Marie-Christine Osselin, Moët & Chandon’s wine quality and communication manager, recently told The Drinks Business that one of the best possible pairings for bubbly is one of the most common sides on the planet: French fries.
According to Osselin, Champagne’s acidity and bubbles make for an excellent complement to fries saltiness and crunch. In fact, regardless of whether the cuisine is low-brow or high-brow, Osselin insisted that simplicity is the key. “Champagne is a wine that asks for simple ingredients, no more than three,” she was quoted as saying.
Of course, it’s easy to be skeptical: If you were trying to move $50 bottles of wine, you’d probably say they pair well with every food under the sun. But Food & Wine wine editor/guru Ray Isle actually completely agrees with Osselin’s assertion. “I’ve been saying this for years, as have many, many sommeliers,” he explained.
“Basically, salt and fat plus high acid and bubbles equals a great combo,” Isle continued, giving Champagne and French fries the mathematical treatment. “Fries, potato chips—hell—fried pork rinds would work too. But I don’t think you’re going to get the folks at Moët to suggest pairing their champagne with fried pork rinds—that’s too down-home for them, for sure.”
Moët won’t say it, but apparently we will. Grab your Champagne and pork rinds! Is it college football season yet?!
Unison Vineyard is a Family Estate at the heart of the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowing District in Hawkes Bay. It was established in 1993 and specialises in fine wines.
Due to the consistency over the years in high-quality fine wines, Unison Vineyard has been rated by Jancis Robinson (Concise Wine Companion) as one of 28 up-and-coming producers worldwide “… whose success seems most obvious to me at the beginning of the 21st century …” – the only winery in NZ which has received this accolade.
Unison Vineyard is a Family Estate run by professional husband and wife team Philip and Terry Horn. Joining them are the boys, Luke and Oliver together with cats Olive and Pip. More detail next month but this is sure to be a great tasting.
A ghastly night weather wise and a long list of apologies through autumn ailments meant that the turnout for this tasting was a little lower than we had hoped for. Despite that, those who braved the conditions enjoyed an excellent presentation and some great wines. Simon Bell and Craig O’Donnell from Macvine International presented for this tour around Europe. The tasting was a little different from the usual but was done with great style and enthusiasm. The wines presented were not necessarily well-known wines from Italy, France, Spain, and Germany. Simon and Craig enjoyed the evening and expressed a keenness to return in the future.
The tour included the following wines:
Andre Delorme Methode BDB (France) Pazo Cilleiro Albarino (Spain) Bernard Defaix 2015 Cote de Lechet Chablis (France) Cantina Terlan Lagrein (Italy) Dourthe No 1 Rouge (France) Alpha Zeta “V” Valpolicella Ripaso Superiore (Italy) 1994 Burgermeister Lauer Drohner Hofberger Riesling (Germany)
Attached to this Newsletter you will find the minutes from the 2017 AGM. The President and Treasurer will present their reports on the night and details will subsequently be made available on the Club’s website for those who might be interested. This is your club and the AGM does offer an opportunity to have your say and/or raise matters of interest. If you have ideas or thoughts to offer please don’t be shy to raise them.
Quote
While travelling in Hawkes Bay and visiting wineries (purely for research purposes you understand) Anne and Jenny came across the following quote. “anything is possible with a little lipstick and a great glass of wine.” Personally I will skip the lipstick and cut straight to the chase
Tastings
They also came across a couple of Hawkes Bay producers keen to present to the Club and as a consequence we have Unison for June and Clearwater for August. This will give members an opportunity to compare wines from a producer from the Gimblett Gravels area and one of the equally excellent producers from the more coastal Te Awanga area. Much to look forward to over the next few months.
(These are some excerpts from an article which actually canvassed 10 things you might want to know about wine. I have picked out several that I found more interesting. The rest, in fact, we didn’t want to know.)
What is orange wine if it’s not from oranges?
The new rosé? Orange wine is having a moment. Photo: Edwina Pickles
Orange, some say, is the new rosé, occupying the demilitarised zone between red and white. The colour crosses a spectrum – from pale apricot to enraged Trump, all the way to amber – but what’s really different about orange wine is the way it’s made. Traditionally, red wines are made from the juice of red grapes plus grape skins. Whites are made without skins.
Orange wines are made from white grapes but get the red-wine treatment – the juice is macerated with the skins, a technique dating back 8000 years to wine’s birthplace, Georgia. The resulting texture, tannin and colour means these “skin-contact” wines have more in common with reds than whites; styles vary from fruity, floral or earthy to sour and funky.
What is natural wine and why are people so excited about it?
Natural winemaking is a broad church in which wines are generally (purists say must be) made from grapes grown without commercial chemicals. Processing takes place with minimal “intervention” – so, for example, the wine may not be filtered to remove cloudiness. Additives, such as sulphur dioxide – used for centuries to keep wine tasting fresh – are shunned or kept to a minimum. It’s a departure from the kind of large-scale industrial winemaking that values hygiene and consistency over quirks and imperfections.
As with conventional wines, quality varies hugely. There’s no regulation of what’s called natural, so if you’re going that way to avoid chemicals, look for certified organic or biodynamic wines – they’re more likely to be what you’re paying for. When made by winemakers of skill and integrity, the best natural wines celebrate quality, individuality and character – hallmarks of all great wines, regardless of whether they’re pitched as natural.
What’s better – Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio?
The wine world can be daunting. Photo: Jennifer Soo
Same grape, different name – one name is French, the other Italian, with “gris” and “grigio” both meaning “grey”. In Europe the French approach to making gris produces a highly perfumed wine with plenty of mouthfeel; grigio from Italy is often (not always) a crisper, lighter wine. “Better” is in the eye of the beholder – good news is they’re all food-friendly styles. So in short, no difference in the grape, just the name.
Why might some wines contain traces of eggs, fish or milk?
Egg whites with fish bladders and milk: a dish that might make guests at a Game of Thrones banquet actually welcome the post-dinner massacre. Yes, it’s medieval stuff – each of these has been used for centuries to “fine” wine. Fining is a process in which one or more of these proteins is dropped into unfinished wine to bind with components that taste bitter, astringent, or are likely to make the wine hazy. They are then removed. Traces, as the label states, may remain. If any of the above have been used you’ll find them listed on the label as allergens. The fish bladder derivative also goes by the name isinglass and is rarely used in Australia but egg whites and milk products are still common.
How long will a wine keep after it’s been opened?
Like fish and houseguests, opened wine smells less appealing after three days. Aim to finish an open bottle over no more than two nights. As a rule of thumb, red wines stay in condition for longer than whites (some robust reds taste better on day two). Exposure to air changes the aroma and flavour of opened wine, so reseal a bottle you’re not planning to finish in one go.
A bottle that’s mostly full will last better than one with only a glass or two left. It’s about the proportion of air to wine – more air in the bottle means faster deterioration. Store an opened bottle upright, not on its side. If you keep a clean, empty half-bottle handy, decant unfinished wine into that – it will stay fresher than in a full-size bottle. Otherwise, start scouting wine-saving devices.
(This last item may not reflect editorial opinion, surely once the bottle is opened it deserves to be finished in one sitting. The person I live with frequently draws my attention to the week that passes between a tasting and when the committee downs the tasting leftovers, but members may not understand the deterioration that has occurred during that time and the generous effort made by committee members to get rid of these leftovers on their behalf.)
I recently went to my new doctor. After two visits and exhaustive tests, he said I was doing ‘fairly well’ for my age.
I was a bit worried what he meant by that, so I asked him, “Do you think I’ll live to be eighty, Doc?” He looked at me and asked me, “Do you smoke or drink beer or wine?” I said, “No, nothing like that. And I don’t do drugs either.”
He looked at me again and asked me, “Okay, do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?” I said, “No, my old doctor told me that all red meat is very unhealthy.” He looked at me again and asked me, “Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, sailing, hiking, or bicycling?” I replied, “No, nothing like that.”
He looked at me again and asked me, “And do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?” I said, “No, nothing like that, Doc.” He looked at me again and said, “Then why do you even care?”
The Cellar Club Inc Annual General Meeting will be held as follows:
8pm Wednesday 9 May 2018 Johnsonville Community Centre Moorefield Road, Wellington Directions
Please give some thought to any proposals you might want to introduce for the meeting, we are happy to take ideas from members about future activities for the Club.
As always members will be provided with a light supper and the opportunity to sample some wines from our cellar after the formal part of the evening. We will send out a formal notice and documents closer to the meeting in accordance with our Club rules.
What a great evening with Mark and Susan. A nice blend of where they have come from and an outline of where the business is going now. Their business in Martinborough has taken an upturn with the introduction of platters at their tasting room. This has guided them into the tourism area and is looking very promising for them.
To recoup on the wines we started with the Rose 2017 as the quaffer. It is a dry style rose but with huge fruit sweetness and flavours of strawberries and raspberries. That was followed by the dry Pinot Gris and the two drier Gewurtztraminer’s. After a break we tasted the 2012 Pinot Noir, followed by the Reserve Pinot from 2013, which was a superb wine. It won a gold medal from the Air NZ Wine Awards. We then finished with the sweet Auslese Gewurztraminer 2013 (Pamela) that is a luscious wine.
Some good orders which was very pleasing for Susan and Mark. There were two things following from the evening. With harvest fast approaching there is often a need for pickers. If you are interested please let them know. Secondly, Haythornthwaite will give Club members a 10% discount at the tasting room. Give it a try, a trip to the Wairarapa, a platter and a tasting of some really nice wines. What more could you want?
You may recall that in the last issue I raised the matter of Montana using Australian wines in some of their cheaper varietals. Those of you who watch TV1’s Seven Sharp programme will have noted that this matter was canvassed last week. Once again elements of the mainstream media are lagging behind your newsletter in bringing these matters to your attention. I can only repeat, read the label fully. The origin of the wine will be mentioned.
Watering vines
Lansdowne 100-year-old pinot noir
And if it is not enough that we were ahead with the Montana story, no sooner do we give Lansdowne some coverage in our Summer Romance tasting than the DomPost is in on the act.
Those of you who get the weekend paper may have noted John Saker’s article in the “Your Weekend” magazine. John talks about the fact that not watering vines actually produces better wines. He highlights two wines, one being the Lansdowne Pinot Gris that we tasted in February.
To quote; “Since planting a vineyard with his son near Masterton more than a decade ago, Derek Hagar has never irrigated. This Pinot Gris is special, with fascinating Chablis-like characters, pear and minerally finish. It’s dry with a gently viscous mouthfeel. Excellent value too.”
You can still get it through me at under $20 a bottle if you hurry.
We all appreciate Grant Taylor’s knowledge, expertise and sense of humour. But I’ve never heard a harvest described the way Grant has in the latest edition of the winegrower magazine. He describes the anticipation of a first harvest after he has taken over managing a vineyard in the Waitaki Valley.
