New Zealand weekend
31 August 2011
I had a quick trip to New Zealand a fortnight ago to celebrate my partner's father's 80th birthday.
We had a wonderful Sunday afternoon lunch celebration at Shanghi Lills Bar and Lounge in Parnell, Auckland. Post the celebrations it was back to Mother in laws house for another family feast and get together.
This involved a number of bottles of wine, and a very late night yakking.
Amongst the wines there were a few notable drops – and one not so notable.
We had a couple of Australian wines, the extraordinarily good value d’Arenberg Stump Jump, GSM blend and the Hewitson Miss Harry 2009 GSM - which the Kiwi’s thought fantastic.
The wines of interest to me were the Kiwi ones - most of which I had not tried before.
We started with a Rockburn Bannockburn Central Otago Riesling 2008, a Kabinett style wine that was a big disappointment. I think past it’s use by date and down the sink it went!
We then had a couple of Pinot’s from Martinborough, firstly the 2010 Te Tera which we all thought not a bad wine for mid $20’s NZ. Next up was the Three Paddles 2009 Pinot, and I thought value for money this wine quite wonderful, it was $19.95 NZ and drank beautifully, light in colour in the glass but it packed a punch on the palate.
We finished up after the two OZ reds with a bottle of Craggy Range Hawkes Bay Single Vineyard Syrah 2009, a beguiling wine, very Cote du Rhone in style, this wine blossoms in the mouth with an abundance of fruit and spiciness.
Cheers for now, Michael @ wineseek