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On a recent trip around Taranaki to take in a few of the Fringe Garden Festivals gardens [well worth the visit], we (Evelyn) came across Okurukuru | Okurukuru Winery | Taranaki out on the Surf Highway in Taranaki.
Okurukuru is a West Coast vineyard with associated Luxury accommodation, Cellar Door, The Vineyard Bistro restaurant and extensive Function Centre.
They are a small operation and only make four wines, but they’re certainly different and worth a visit. The grape variety that survived on their, at first, exposed plot of land was Plantet and were obtained from a retired Kiwifruit grower, Mr Vern Evans. This is a red berry. Mr Evans had himself been gifted this grape variety from a friend who ran a nursery.
They also have accommodation on location, either Studio Apartments or Chalet Suites and are only 10km from New Plymouth CBD.
Our tasting was of all four of their wines and cost us $20 p/p. Their wines, all included in the tasting are:
Okurukuru Rosé – grown in Taranaki – presents inviting floral aromas and a mealy of vibrant red berries on the nose. The palate reveals a harmony of ripe strawberries, luscious cherries and a refreshing hint of watermelon. This rose delivers a balanced and delightful sip that lingers elegantly.
Christine Sparkling Rosé – grown in Taranaki – produced in the methode traditionelle style this rose, made from grapes picked from the Taranaki Vineyard, has a fresh, clean finish. This wine is gently expressed on the nose showing raspberry, lemon zest, apple and spice aromas, followed by a lively palate that is juicy and mouth-watering.
Sauvignon Blanc – grown in Marlborough for them – produced from our sister vineyards in Marlborough, this Sauvignon Blanc boasts inviting aromas of ripe tropical fruits, where juicy passionfruit and sun-ripened mango take centre stage. The palate is greeted by a harmonious blend of zesty citrus, succulent stone fruits and a subtle herbaceous undertone that adds complexity.
Plantet [French Style Red] – The Plantet is produced from selected grapes in the Taranaki vineyard, maturing for nine months in seasoned French barrels prior to bottling. Bright and fragrant, the bouquet shows dark cherry, plum, floral and subtle spice aromas, leading to a juicy palate that is nicely rounded and smooth. This wine offers youthful charm and vibrant fruit flavours, finishing long and silky.
They also have a restaurant on-site and we had polenta chips flavoured with Rosemary and Chilli with our tasting. All in all a lovely vista, different wines and great food for an afternoon experience.
As they are a small and unique vineyard their prices are way above what we expect to pay at the supermarket, but if you want something different and are up in Taranaki, it’s worth a tasting experience!
Membership is still at the top of mind for your committee members. Can all members please endeavour to seek out new members. Bring along fellow wine enthusiasts, neighbours or friends that want to join in our monthly evenings, emphasizing that this is a very good value proposition and a great exposure to wines you may never have known about, or tasted!
Please remember to promote that as a bonus for potential members, our meetings are held in close proximity to both the Johnsonville Train Line and the bus station.
The committee is formulating a short pamphlet for anyone who wants one to hand out to explain our Club a little bit.
Thanks
Thanks again to everyone who helps with the tables and chairs at the start of our evenings and taking the same down after the meeting. Also taking the tables contents: spittoons/water jugs/cracker plates back to the kitchen.
Looking ahead
September – Misty Cove, Blenheim with presenter Carlos Rojas Stiven October – Peregrine, Gibbston Highway Queenstown November – Bubbles Evening, tbc
You’ll all remember the article I published on the Granite Belt in the August edition of our Cellar Club Newsletter, of course. The Granite Belt has over 50 wineries, from boutique producers through to award-winning estates – along with breweries and distilleries [for vodka and gin].
Well, I decided it would be a great break to go see what it was actually like.
This holiday was a little tempered when the area in Brisbane had a series of fires start in early November just before we were due to go. So, we tracked them as best we could via the internet, plus were in contact with the locals [via email]. The locals confirmed the fires were out in their area before we departed New Zealand shores.
The damage done by the fires was quite apparent as we got close to the Granite Belt, which is between 900 – 1,000m above sea level. Both sides of the road were scorched in places, and the railway line that [did] run through Granite Belt territory was completely charred. They use untreated timber in Australia and treat the rails with creosote to preserve it! Fuel to burn there.
On the way to the Granite Belt area, we stopped at the Summer Lane Camel Farm. Nice, and a different place to have morning tea, buy gifts and experience camels, if you’ve never had this experience.
On the Friday evening when we arrived in the Granite Belt, our first stop was at Balancing Heart Vineyard, a short drive from the town of Ballandean, with the backdrop of Girraween National Park. We indulged in a tasting flight and one of their woodfired pizzas – well worth it. They were welcoming and had a relaxed approach at the end of the day.
Balancing Heart Vineyard
Blanc de Blanc – blend of their chardonnays
Verdello – soft, pineappley taste, dry on palate
Rosé – cherries on the tongue and nose
While we were enjoying our time at the vineyard, we could walk along the vines and see the naturally occurring balancing rocks. These were throughout the area and are huge! You could slightly smell the smell of ash or burnt wood in the air, but as they’d had four days of rain before we arrived, the odour wasn’t that strong at all.
Well worth a visit, taste wise and visually.
Saturday, and our second vineyard was Ravencroft Vineyard, which is a boutique vineyard and small batch winery, founded by award-winning winemaker Mark Ravenscroft. The new owners had worked with Mark for three years to get a good transfer of knowledge and skill. All wines are made on-site with minimal intervention and additives.
We joined in with other visitors and did a full tasting:
Verdelho 2022 – very gentle on both nose and taste
Vermintino 2022 – really lemony [their crop wasn’t very good that year, so they imported the grapes from Chalmers in Victoria]
Skin Contact Fiano 2022 – smooth with honey and fruit on the tongue [this is a Naples variety]
Reserve Chardonnay 2021 – it had eight months in oak, and was lovely
Rose Sangiovese – dry Italian style, smooth, could alter with food [Tuscany variety] had added Fiano and Vermentino to boost flavour
Nero d’Avola 2022 – light and grassy – would go great with pizza on a Friday night [Chile variety]
Reserve Petite Verdot – aged in old oak barrels, you can taste mushrooms/ earthiness, smooth and dry.
2022 Cherry Bomb – total cherry nose, smooth, dry, nice cherry flavours on the tongue
Pinotage Waagee 2021 – smooth, dry, fruity, lemony bite at the end as it goes down.
Would recommend a visit, to relax in the atmosphere and taste their wines.
That same day, while it’s not a vineyard, it’s well worth going for a meal at Varias Restaurant & Fine Training facility, training the staff of the future. Their menu reads like a tantalising travelogue of the Granite Belt’s finest food producers. We had the two-course option at $59 per head, plus wines of course:
Sparkling Marsaane – pear, citrus and honey esp. honey, went magnificently with the pork belly entrée’
2023 Verdelho – pears on the nose and palate [John’s wine for the whole meal]
Tempranillo 2023 bronze medal Qld Awards – soft tannins, dry finish, white pepper, red fruit, went well with the Main of brisket with broccalini, pumpkin, greens beans and the best road potatoes.
Dessert was Lemon meringue pie with Raspberry ice cream.
This establishment would be the equivalent to the Whitireia & Weltec Hospitality Campus we’ve been to as a Club in Cuba Street. Well balanced and thought-out meals and wine combinations. Located at the Queensland College of Wine Tourism, this restaurant is all about celebrating seasonal produce year-round.
Then on Sunday, we had what was the most comprehensive wine tasting of the week in the Granite Belt, at Ballandean Estate Wines. Ballandean Estate is Queensland’ oldest operating winery family-owned and operated by the Puglisi family since 1932.
This is a single-vineyard, cool climate made-with-love wine establishment, with Shiraz from 50-year- old vines, as well as their ‘Strange Bird’ varietals.
We had booked in for one of their tastings, hosted by their wine educators. Their tasting came six limited release wines served with a gourmet platter, to complement the tasting. The platter turned out to be a meal in itself! When you arrive at the Estate, you go through to their Barrelroom Wine Lounge.
Must add in that they had a disability path, as well as their main steps, into them establishment. Handy if you are disabled, but perhaps mostly handy on the way out?
Ballandean Estate is one of the vineyards in the Belt that grow ‘Strange Bird’ wines. Strange Bird wines are rare, alternative varieties that represent less than one per cent of Australian vines – albarino (also known as alvarine), chenin blanc, cortese, fiano, gewurztraminer, gros and petit manseng, gruner veltliner, malvasia, marsanne, roussane and savagnin. While we didn’t taste all of these, we certainly tried a few.
Monday night we dined at Granite Belt Brewery. On the way up their driveway, driving past the vines, we saw kangeroos grazing the vines, with joeys in their pouches, so special. They weren’t bothered by us, but were keeping an eye on us, as we’d stopped the car for the photo opportunity. The Brewers is Stanthorpe’s premier brewers, crafting delicious beers and ciders since 2012. They use the local water supply, as well as the finest malts, hops and yeast.
It wasn’t a busy night for the restaurant, but it was about half full, and while they were focussed on craft beer the food and wine was fabulous. Everything was of course overwhelmed by the thunder and lightning storm that hit sometime before we were to leave to go back to our accommodation. Driving back-country roads without the sky full of stars to guide you [besides the GPS], was a little dodgy, so the valley-wide lightening was quite helpful!
OTHER things we enjoyed seeing during our stay was their Mt Marlay lookout – don’t walk up to it! There is an 8% gradient to get up that particular piece of road – drive!
Go and find their pyramid – a local farmer got overwhelmed by the number of smaller granite rocks on his property and constructed a 17m high pyramid with them! Quite impressive and good photo opportunity, though you can’t get into the field now, selfie still looks pretty cool.
Viewing their giant thermometer is fun too. The Belt is the only area in Queensland that usually gets snow every winter. They’re fully equipped and operational during their Winters for visitors.
They have their own Granite Belt Christmas Tree Farm, which was so much fun! This runs from Oct-Feb of each year. We were there in the last week of November, and it was packed! As well as rolling up to pick your own tree, getting it cut down, then using their tree wrap machine(!) there was a huge barn set up for all sorts of artificial trees and larger decorations, a smaller building with shop full of smaller decorations, plus morning tea supplies and gelato – we tried Christmas cake gelato and Kinder gelato. Both passed the test. Again, would recommend if you’re there at that time. Go to Sutton’s Juice Factory & Cidery – they are famous for their apple pie, and their steak pies are pretty good to! We indulged in both.
There were two places that we wouldn’t recommend, as the experience we were anticipating simply didn’t happen:
Hidden Creek, whose website we had checked 2-3 times before we got to it, to see if we could breakfast there. According to their website this was ok, but on getting to their vineyard, not so:
Robert Channon Wines was off-hand and disorganised. Not welcoming to the point that even though their vineyard had an ‘Open’ sign out at the gate, no-one was around, facilities were semi- closed and the only person we saw ran away!
Despite the above two businesses, we had a delightful time, met interesting and informative people and tasted some great wines. Would recommend paying a visit to the area if you don’t mind a three-hour drive inland from Brisbane.
Reminder: At the August Monthly Meeting, for the first 10 minutes, we will hold an SGM to discuss and pass some small changes to the Club’s Constitution. Please ensure you are up to date with the contents of an earlier email sent on 21 July in relation to these changes.
Evening support
It was great to have everyone help with the tables and chairs at previous meetings and take the same down at the end. Also, take the spittoons/water jugs/cracker plates back to the kitchen. Could we please continue this new routine?
PLEASE NOTE: We can’t arrive to do the setting up activities any earlier than 7:30 pm as we interrupt the cleaner(s) schedule; the cleaners are in the hall until 7:30 pm.
3-4 raspberries or strawberries, plus extra to serve 30ml Chambord 750ml sparkling Rosé
Add 3-4 raspberries [or strawberries] into a cocktail shaker and muddle
Add Chambord to cocktail shaker, stir gently
Strain raspberry [or strawberries] and Chambord mixture into a Champagne flute
Top with chilled sparkling Rosé
Garnish with extra fruit and a mint leaf (opt) on a cocktail pick or toothpick.
The eighth year of the popular wine celebration is fast approaching and now is the perfect time to get your pink party plans in order.
Love Local – Rosé lovers in NZ have found a taste for lighter, drier, more savoury styles such as those you would find in Provence and Kiwi wineries are responding to consumer preferences by successfully crafting Rosé wines inspired by iconic French estates
It Pairs Perfectly – Rosé is incredibly food-friendly and pairs with a variety of dishes and cuisines. Invite family and friends over for Rosé o’clock, a pink long lunch, or Rosé dinner party on the day.
There’s a Style for Everyone – NZ wineries are producing a delicious line-up of top-quality Rosé wines that are fruit-forward, crisp and sophisticated. Wine lovers are spoilt with a wide variety of styles, sweetness levels and price points now, with the premium Rosé category experiencing a significant increase over the years.
NZ Rosé Keeps Rising – Rosé is the fastest growing wine style in the country and sales have doubled in recent years.NZ made Rosé is not only popular at home, but the locally made pink drink is now the fourth largest NZ wine export.
A huge 7.9 million litres have been exported globally in 2021, which is double of 2018 when NZ exported 8.6 million litres of Rosé and 10 times that of 2010 at just 0.56 million litres, according to NZ Winegrowers statistics.
According to IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, the Rosé category is forecasted to grow by almost 70 percent from 2020 to 2024.
This year your Committee have fronted more than a few of the monthly Club meetings. This has been with a view to not cancelling the monthly meetings when vineyards have had to cancel, sometimes at the last moment!
The variety, information, wine variation and conversations these meetings have generated have been heartening to the various Committee members who have banded together to put these on.
However, the Committee would like to let you know that these are not what we view as the norm, and we hope that 2023 will see less cancelling, better health for everyone, and many more presentations from vineyards and their winemakers.
Roy Kellahan grew up in Johnsonville in Wellington, in an era when it was affectionately known as Cow Town.
Roy Kellahan, a well-known equestrian enthusiast and entrepreneur, at his Johnsonville riding school.
In the 1940s and 50s, stock drovers moved sheep and cattle along the main road to the stockyards, many of the youth had horses as their mode of transport, and the main social entertainment was seeing a movie at the Empress Theatre on a Saturday afternoon.
Kellahan was born with a passion for horses, and all things Western and Spanish.
At age 10, he surprised his parents by buying his first horse – a lame old mare from the Johnsonville pound, called Betsy.
He would later admit he had not considered how he would look after Betsy.
“In my frantic haste to buy a horse, I didn’t give a paddock a second thought. That would come after I got the horse. During that night, the Kellahan household didn’t get much sleep. The mare was tied to the base of dad’s bean trellis on a long rope, where she could graze on the back lawn.
Roy Kellahan was well known in Johnsonville.
“She somehow managed to pull the trellis down and walk over the still-wet concrete foundations of a new tool shed dad was building and eat a large quantity of carrot tops from his veggie garden. An article appeared a day or so later in the local paper which read ‘Boy brings home unexpected guest for dinner.”
At 16, Kellahan started his first riding school from his parents’ house in Bannister Ave, and the direction of his future was established. From small beginnings, he developed what was to become a successful trekking and riding school based in Ohariu Valley.
The equestrian enthusiast and entrepreneur died in February, aged 81, after a long illness.
His commitment to the horse world meant over the years he brought into the area more than 2000 horses – mostly good strong station hacks from Gisborne, providing quality horse trekking including his famous Moonlight Treks.
Kellahan in the Festival of Wellington, at the Basin Reserve in 1961
Kellahan built and ran Wellington’s first indoor riding school in Ohariu Valley, alongside a fully stocked equestrian saddlery shop and licensed cafe, and manufacturing equestrian horse care products.
He generously let Riding for the Disabled use the indoor facility free of charge, for many years.
Ohariu Valley is now home to many people with horses, embracing the lifestyle he helped establish.
With the help of four friends, Kellahan built the recreational Spanish-themed Country Club.
A facility considered 20 years ahead of its time, it was frequented by Wellington families at the weekend and international corporates during the week.
Roy Kellahan, Rodney Scanlan and Beni Paroli, with a restored buggy in 1959
The club featured two restaurants, tennis courts, a swimming pool, boardroom, billiard room, squash court, sauna, wine cellar and, of course, horse trekking and operated, successfully, for over a decade.
The sale of alcohol was problematic and they began a lengthy battle with bureaucracy. After an eight-year campaign, eventually, the law changed, enabling private clubs to legally serve liquor.
Over the years Kellahan had many friends with whom he shared his love of European history, art, architecture, music, food, wine and culture.
He attributed his passion to his parents giving him a recording of Bolero to play on the gramophone when he was just 10 years old.
Childhood friend Rodney Scanlan said Kellahan was a character.
Marguerite Smith and Roy Kellahan ran a soap business in Porirua.
“By the time Roy was walking he was into mischief – never one to sit still. There were always adventures to be had and that never changed.
“His achievements are the result of hard work, the ability to take risks and being willing to face any challenge thrown at him. Rarely has anyone packed so much into their life.”
He was regarded as a gentleman with a highly developed sense of fun and a strong dislike for injustice, bureaucrats and gorse – a good Kiwi with a mix of culture and a bit of mad cowboy thrown in.
In 2020, he married his partner of 40 years, Marguerite Smith, in unusual circumstances.
As a young girl Smith had been told by her grandmother she would have a long life and a short marriage. Engaged in 2010, she was afraid to take the next step due to a fear that the prophecy would come true.
Roy and Marguerite Kellahan married after a 10-year engagement in 2016. Roy was in the Mary Potter Hospice and was only expected to live a few more days.
In 2016, Kellahan was diagnosed with a rare aggressive form of lymphoma. He was only given days to live and they were married in a ceremony, at the Mary Potter Hospice, in June 2020.
As well as the wedding, the couple had another cause to celebrate – after 10 years they published his autobiography, A Long Ride from Johnsonville.
Marriage proved a good tonic for Kellahan, who rallied and, against all odds, lived another 20 months.
He is survived by Marguerite, his four children and four grandchildren.
By Marguerite Kellahan, with additional reporting from Nicholas Boyack.
Industry experts have warned that food and drink are tasting different to how they did before the pandemic CREDIT: Xurxo Lobato/Cover
Is your pinot noir smelling a little funk? Perhaps your chips are on the salty side, or your chocolate is strangely bitter?
Industry experts warn that food and drink are tasting different to how they did before the pandemic because so many sommeliers and expert tasters lost their sense of taste and smell after catching covid.
Wine producers and research chefs were impaired and food product teams were forced to come up with alternative ways of deciding on flavours and formulas with some bypassing research chefs and tasting panels altogether.
The unfortunate predicament has forced some sommeliers and chefs to keep their condition quiet, while others have signed up for courses to retrain their senses in secret.
Lockdowns have affected our palates, experts say CREDIT: E+
The winners were companies like Analytical Flavour Systems, a United States business that uses artificial intelligence to model people’s preferences when it comes to flavour, aroma and texture.
Derailed by anosmia – the partial or full loss of smell – many food producers bypassed their usual approach of asking research chefs to come up with gold-standard recipes and went straight to their A1 platform instead. ‘The pandemic was very good for our business,’ said Analytical Flavour Systems founder and chief executive Jason Cohen. ‘Companies couldn’t hold tasting panels because of social distancing rules, and when chefs couldn’t taste, we had more companies coming directly to us.’
The experience of lockdowns has also affected people’s palates, and will also start to seep into the recipes and formulas that are made. For example, while stuck at home, people drank fewer soft drinks, which has lowered their tolerance for artificial sweeteners. ‘Quarantine has been the largest consumer shock since rationing. We’re seeing huge shifts,’ Cohen said. ‘The world is not going to taste the same as it did before Covid.’
Are your chips a little too salty? CREDIT: Clara Molden/Clara Molden
Analytical Flavour Systems has in the past been asked to help reformulate recipes for cancer patients and the elderly. Cohen said this could start to happen if it became clear that people’s senses had been permanently affected by Covid.
Across the industry, experts have been retraining their senses, from wine producers and restaurant sommeliers to food and drink tastes. ‘It will have affected the production of wine. I will have been asking for a second opinion by getting another professional to help,’ said Federica Zanghirella, vice-president of the UK Sommelier Association.
Zanghirella, who temporarily lost her sense of smell in the middle of a class she was leading in March 2020, added; ‘Some students say they couldn’t tell their bosses or head sommeliers, because it was too risky for their careers, so they had to use their knowledge of ingredients and flavours.’
She added that restaurant sommeliers, who pair wines with dishes on-site, had been struggling in particular.
Industries beyond food and drink have also been affected. Isabelle Gelle, the founder of the Perfumery Art School, said half of her students were now retraining after losing their sense of smell. Her clients run businesses across Britain, including soap and scents candle shops.
Your committee is looking at the conditions we may have to operate under in relation to the use of WCC facilities under COVID19 mandates.
At the moment, the wearing of masks when entering and exiting the Johnsonville Community Centre, plus the distance we have to be settled at, etc is all in play and we’ve adapted well, thank you.
With the new Traffic Light System coming into play on December 3rd, it may become mandatory that in order to get into any public facilities in the near future, it will require the display of your vaccination pass so please ensure you have one with you.
It is certainly the expectation of your committee that members will be double vaxed for our events. But as always, please if you are feeling unwell, do not attend any of your Club’s meetings, thank you.
Please read the steps being taken by your committee so we can all comply with the current COVID Level 2 requirements for the evening:
Please remember to either scan the QR code on your phone or sign in – this Is a mandatory government requirement
Please remember that you are required to have a face covering on when you enter and exit the premises
The tables will be set up 1 metre apart – please do not move any tables
The number of people at each table will be reduced to 4 – please do not add more – you are required to sit 1 metre apart
Please bring your own glasses for the evening
The tastings will be served as per normal, but due to the regulations the pourers will need to be masked and gloved – please make this as pleasant as possible for them
NB: please if you are feeling unwell, do not attend, thank you
An update for members who ordered wine from our August tasting – yes it does seem a while ago now – these are in hand. The Level 4 lockdown in Auckland has meant they could not be dispatched to us, but now Auckland is in level 3 we are working with Keith to organise distribution from the warehouse, and we hope deliveries will be next week.
