Got picked up by Simon of Sacred Hill this morning and given a tour of the district, including the farmer’s market.
Then we ran through about a dozen wines of Sacred Hill. Their base level yellow label wines are all decent, well made wines. This is hardly a surprise, as that’s the price of [...]
Started by visiting the Wine Centre in Hawkes Bay. Amazing place, well worth any wine drinker’s time. The Aroma Awareness room alone is a gem of a place. You get to scent each of the 54 scents in wine, including a half dozen of the bad smells.
After that off cruising the neighbourhood wineries. [...]
The weather is appalling, a monsoon. We checked into the County Hotel in Napier. It’s a grand old place, and as it’s winter we scooped the Vice Regal Suite, complete with whirlpool tub, lounge area with beautifully veneered dining suite, and of course our own complete set of dishes should we feel like [...]
So remember the syrah I turned my nose up at, on the flight over? Boy was I ever wrong!
I knew about the NZ Pinot Noir coming over. And I had heard that there were various Bordeaux blends from Hawkes Bay. But NOBODY was talking about syrah.
Well they should.
This is a different style [...]
Off down under, to cold rainy weather. It’s winter in the southern hemisphere, and havng a very temperate climate, the Kiwi’s like to pretend you don’t need heat. Ahem.
Air New Zealand flight cramped - I hate 777 3-3-3 layout. But the food is well above average for plane food, and the wine [...]
Sparkling wine is now made all over the world to generally very high standards. I would encourage you to sample them all. (Unless you’re absurdly wealthy. Then by all means limit yourself to champagne and sneer at the rest of us plebes.)
For those of you who are relatively new to bubbly, and champagne, [...]
So what’s wrong with this picture. Bottle of wine: check. Catchy label:check. Screwtop: check…
Hey wait a minute here! This wine is from Portugal! Didn’t they pass a law that all Portuguese wine had to be corked with the real thing?
It makes sense. Portugal produces about 90% of [...]
Every once in a while, somebody shows me an old bottle of wine and asks what I think. Normally the wine is not very good wine to begin with, and has been badly stored for way too long.
However a couple of months ago a friend showed me five bottles ranging from a ‘69 champagne, [...]
