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central otago

TN: Springvale forward (New Zealand, pt. 33)

[Kawarau water](The original version, with more photos, is here.)

The road pointlessly taken

According to my at-hand references, only three wineries in the entire Clyde/Alexandra area are open for drop-in tasting. Having just left the best-known of the triad, full of unresolved gewürztraminer must and wacky theories about Otago cabernet, I leave the eroding forests of rock formations behind and travel a long, straight dirt road across a flat plain to number two: William Hill.

Make that two wineries open for drop-in tasting, for William Hill is – despite its quite clear exterior signage to the contrary – closed to visitors. There’s even a short bus full of disappointed wine tourists pulling out of the driveway as I arrive, and only the shouts of a vineyard worker alert me to the fact that the locked and darkened tasting room is not that way by accident. He has no explanation to offer, either, aside from a bewildered shrug. I return his shrug in kind, and move on.

Woodless and fancy free

Springvale Estate (Dunstan Rd., Alexandra), just a short distance away, is most definitely open, and the expansive tasting room is surrounded by gardens and tables currently undergoing a pre-lunch setup. I arrive just early enough to get the attention I need before lunching tourists (and, by appearances, quite a few locals) arrive in force, because the staff is unquestionably spread a bit thin once that occurs. Nonetheless, my welcome is friendly, and I’m offered a table and an organized flight of wines to study at my leisure, rather than fighting the growing crowds at the tasting bar/lunch counter.

Springvale Estate 2001 “Unoaked” Chardonnay (Central Otago) – Strong apricot – and perhaps very slightly botrytized? – aromas with white plum and peach. There’s a nice core of fruit here, and while the wine is perhaps a touch sweet, it’s got good structure, length and balance. Pretty and fun…and, it turns out, the best wine I’ll taste.

Springvale Estate 2001 “Oaked” Chardonnay (Central Otago) – A touch of charred lemon and apple shrinks from intrusive oak on the nose. The effect of the wood on the palate, however, is tactile rather than organoleptic, as it flattens out the spectrum, hides the spiced (and dried) orange fruit, and abrades the finish to something tannic and dull. It’s long, but things are neither as integrated nor as pleasant as they should be, and the oak ultimately damages the wine more than it adds to its complexity.

Springvale Estate 2003 Sauvignon Blanc (Central Otago) – A shy nose, with green pepper and grass on the palate, and a tart, green finish: all the unwelcome signs of underripe sauvignon. I’ve said it before and I’ll likely say it again: Otago sauvignon may not be the best idea…which is not to say that it can’t be done well (as, for instance, at Carrick), only that the chances seem slimmer than normal. Not everyone in New Zealand is honor-bound to produce sauvignon blanc, a fact that sometimes seems to be lost on certain bottom line-focused wineries.

Springvale Estate 2003 Gewürztraminer (Central Otago) – Light rose petal, lychee skin, dried apricot pit and almond form an enticing nose that falls completely away on the palate and that provide absolutely no finish whatsoever. Initially pleasant, but ultimately disappointing.

Springvale Estate 2002 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Gentle plum and baked strawberry turn quickly bizarre, with bark, green olive sourness, and a sandy texture. This wine is light to the point of being watery, both insubstantial and insufficiently aromatic, and is shot through with a nasty green streak. No good.

Springvale Estate 2001 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Dirty plum, raspberry, rotten strawberry and more of that green olive note, with tarry tannins and a syrupy texture that adds to an impression that the remaining fruit in this wine is starting to turn to liqueur. This is “better” than the 2002 only in the academic sense, and I’d avoid either version.

Like Mt. Difficulty, this is a cooperative venture between vineyard owners. But to an even greater extent than that Bannockburn winery, it seems that grape quality is an issue…which makes me wonder how an equal partnership between otherwise competing growers can effectively encourage viticultural improvements. It’s not as if the threat to turn to other grape sources would be an effective one. Also of concern, or at least questionable: the age of these wines. Tasted in March of 2005, only the sauvignon and gewürztraminer are of what other wineries would call the current vintage, and it’s not as if the remaining products are Fromm-like and in need of extra aging to shed their youthful ferocity. One wonders about the reasons for this delayed presentation, because it certainly doesn’t appear to benefit the wines.

Ultimately, Springvale Estate is a pleasant place to visit and lunch (though I can’t vouch for the food, which I do not try), and their unoaked chardonnay would appear to have the qualities necessary for a nice picnic wine, but there’s a lot of work to do here…mostly in the vineyard, but perhaps also in the cellar.

Driving the friendly skies

The drive back to Cromwell, and then towards Queenstown, is done during some sort of midday lull, and as traffic is virtually nonexistent, I speed homeward at an unforeseen pace. Thus, I’ve got a little extra time before I’m scheduled to meet Theresa, so I endeavor to sneak in a little bonus tasting back in the Gibbston Valley. A tasting where I am, quite literally, taken under someone’s wing.

Disclosure: tasting fee is waived.

TN: A dam shame (New Zealand, pt. 32)

(The original, with more photos, is here.)[Black Ridge vines]

Separate ways, worlds apart

Back when this voyage was still in the planning stages, I’d assumed that, from time to time, Theresa and I would want to do different things. Her capacity for endless wine tasting doesn’t quite match mine, and I also figured she’d desire a few restorative days in between all of our rushing to and fro across the New Zealand landscape.

So it’s a bit of a surprise, just a few days shy of a month into this venture, that today is the first (and, it turns out, only) day we’ll pursue separate activities. Theresa’s going to nap, wander the streets of Queenstown, and spend a few refreshing hours at a local spa, while I’m taking the car to the last of the Central Otago wine regions for a little drop-in tasting.

With a half-dozen drives under one’s belt, the Queenstown-Cromwell road seems less twisty and precarious than it does at first glance. This is actually a slightly dangerous notion, for the road retains all of its perilous edge-of-danger aspects despite the familiarity, but it’s a clear morning and there are few cars on the road, which makes the drive a relative breeze. At Cromwell, the road angles south along the banks of the Clutha, straightening and flattening along the dramatic but rather harsh cut of the Cromwell Gorge. What seems like scant minutes later, the road descends past a mighty dam and drops into the rich valley in which nestle the towns of Clyde and Alexandra.

The layout of the towns – modern suburban grids in uniform two-story sprawl – seems somehow out of place in this otherwise remote landscape. Or perhaps moonscape would be a better term, for outside the (no doubt heavily manicured) valley, the earth is about as hostile an environment for agriculture as one can imagine (short of a complete lack of soil): tussock-covered mountains meet rolling fields and hills covered with craggy outcroppings, shelves, and tables; a forbidding and borderline unusable landscape that…inevitably…formed one of the major open sets for The Lord of the Rings.

It figures that someone would try to grow grapes here.

Sugar, sugar

In truth, the rocky slopes around Alexandra aren’t any worse than some of the great European vineyards…Hermitage and Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe come immediately to mind…though this is not to say that the wines from this region even vaguely compare to those exalted appellations. In the first place, it would appear that the majority of vines are planted not on the difficult slopes, but rather on the flat and fertile plains; rarely a recipe for top-quality wine. Second, there seems to be a lot of haphazard experimentation and, it must be said, pervasive underfunding, especially in comparison to the more developed vineyards and wineries around Bannockburn, Cromwell, and the Gibbston Valley. The end result is that, unfortunately, the wines of the region don’t quite meet the standards being set by the rest of the Central Otago.

My first stop is at Black Ridge, the Central Otago’s first commercial vineyard…though this presupposes that I’ll ever be able to find the place. The map in Michael Cooper’s Atlas sends me on a long but visually captivating detour through the area’s rocky hinterlands, but eventually I pull into the rather dramatic hollow in which the winery sits…on the heels of a small group of youthful Americans. What, exactly, are those odds?

The proprietor is somewhere between goofy and eccentric (in a good way), but his passion can’t be denied, and we delve into a haphazard tasting while I listen to his ramblings…some of which are sensible, others of which are rather the opposite. As for the wines themselves, they’re all over the qualitative map.

Black Ridge 2002 Riesling (Central Otago) – Diesel and mineral with pear skin, wet leaves and a metallic edge; the latter is usually welcome in a riesling, but here it’s a little bit too jarring. The finish is very dry, despite eight grams of residual sugar. Good for short-term drinking, but I don’t like its preparation for the longer haul.

Black Ridge 2003 Chardonnay (Central Otago) – Peach and stone fruit with a big impact, and a decent enough balance that persists until the onset of an oily-textured, low-acid finish that eventually dries out all the goop. It’s quite flavorful, but more akin to a good fruit wine than a chardonnay.

Black Ridge 2004 “Otago Gold” (Central Otago) – A blend of breidecker, riesling, gewürztraminer and chardonnay, carrying fifteen grams of residual sugar. (What’s breidecker, you ask? A müller-thurgau/chancellor cross, which should fill absolutely no one with anticipation. Further, blends with gewürztraminer are rarely anything more than thinned gewürztraminer.) There’s fusel oil and grapefruit, but only a dab of each, and otherwise this wine is sweet, simple fun that’s completely absent anything of interest or complexity. The proprietor suggests serving it over ice (“you keep on sipping until the ice is dissolved”), which seems as good a use as any: the pastis of the Central Otago.

Black Ridge 2004 Gewürztraminer (Central Otago) – My second attempt at this wine, and unfortunately it’s only slightly changed: oily lychee, roses and spiced orange are completely overwhelmed by fat, even blowsy residual sugar (19 grams) and a flabby midpalate. The finish is much better, showing long and luscious, but it’s a shame what one has to go through to get there. This is a cocktail wine, at best.

Black Ridge 2003 Gewürztraminer “Late Harvest” (Central Otago) – 20 grams of residual sugar…just one gram more than the regular ’04 gewürztraminer…but overall a much more solid wine, which indicates the problem at Black Ridge is likely to be insufficient physiological ripeness rather than regular old hang time; a way must be found to mitigate intrusive sugars while urging on the grapes’ aromatics and structural elements to some harmonious end. This wine, which is no more overtly sweet than the basic bottling, shows nice spiced apple and roses with a bitter-sour lychee, pear and peach midpalate that manages to hold into the finish. There’s good intensity here, and the only major flaw is…well, to be indelicate, a sort of “foot cheese” aroma that emerges as the wine warms in the glass. Still, if one can ignore this characteristic, there’s at least potential here.

Black Ridge “Conroy’s” 2004 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – An inexpensive wine meant to be an early- and easy-drinking pinot, except that it’s a little too easy. It’s juicy, perhaps even akin to a slightly flat soda, with light leafy flowers and a short finish. The still-bound CO2 eventually becomes a touch off-putting, but with enough chill this could be a decent quaffer on a hot summer day.

Black Ridge 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Sour cherry on the nose, which expands to fuller, riper and fleshier plum, orange peel and earth aromas on the palate. There’s good structure, balance and length here, but the wine persistently tends towards tartness, and one wonders if the fruit will outlast the acidity.

Black Ridge 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon (Central Otago) – OK, this is the second cabernet sauvignon I’ve tasted from this region (the first was part of a blend at Olssens), and I’m a little baffled at the enthusiasm for the experiment. OK, sure, maybe it’s possible to get cabernet ripe here, in one vintage or another, but the world needs another marginal cabernet about as much as it needs another breidecker. This one shows bell pepper, blackberry, black pepper and dark cherry with good structure, but despite the proprietor’s tremendous enthusiasm it’s just not all that interesting. It’s decent enough, and structured, and will age with all the qualities and problems it currently possesses, but there’s just no call for this wine, and no real purpose in its making other than to prove that it can (very occasionally) be done.

TN: The rusty belt (New Zealand, pt. 31)

[Rippon]The luxurious colon

Just what exactly is “luxury muesli,” anyway? 24-carat gold nuggets amidst one’s rolled oats? Or does it make your…no, wait, on second thought, never mind. I’ve felt some pushback from musing on muesli’s digestive effects in the past, and perhaps the world isn’t truly ready for such ruminations. (And maybe they feel the same about unsavory digestive puns. You know, the kind that leave a bad taste in one’s mouth.)

Anyway…it’s “luxury muesli” in our bowls this morning, and our bodies are virtually brimming with whole grains and crunchy earth-mother goodness. We’ll need it.

The mirrored crown

In a country full of ascendant byways, “the country’s highest sealed road” is bound to be quite something. And indeed, the breathtakingly beautiful and precarious trip from Queenstown and over the Crown Range is just that, flitting its way dramatically upward through golden mountain slopes tufted with tussock. It eventually flattens, shooting relatively straight along the Cardrona River to emerge high above Wanaka, a small but popular town draped across the southern tip of its majestic alpine lake. It’s a good thing the road’s downhill, too, because we’re running on fumes by the time we reach civilization. (Note to selves: next time, gas up before leaving Queenstown, because there’s nothing along the way.)

We’d been to Wanaka before, though only for a few minutes on a seemingly endless drive to the glacial wilds of the West Coast, and had greatly admired something it shared with its nearby “sister lake” Hawea: an almost impossible sky-tinted blue, like something out of an unlikely but riveting painting of the ideal mountain pond. Today, it’s not quite that blue – whether due to season, sun angle, or mineral content we can’t tell – but it’s hardly less beautiful for it. We park near the beach, and emerge into a sun-warmed (but wind-cooled) paradise surrounded on three sides by towering mountains. Wanaka is vacation town for Kiwis and tourists alike, and buzzes with activities and the planning thereof. We stroll along the beach to shaded, calmer groves of trees on the lake’s southwestern corner, then head north along the Waterfall Creek path for a gently pretty, leisurely stroll through trees, shrubs, beaches and grapevines…that, eventually, turns a little boring. What cynical and world-weary hikers we’ve become in such a short time!

Let napping dogs lie

Back to the car we go, to retrace our steps via a road only a few dozen meters from our walking path, leading us to the dramatic entrance to Rippon, a strong candidate for the world’s most beautifully-situated winery. Vines descend in orderly rows towards the lake, which reflects both the sky and the snow-capped mountain peaks in mirrored glass. It’s awe-inspiring. (linked image ©Gilbert van Reenan, Clean Green Images)

Unfortunately, the wines do not live up to the view.

(Continued here, with tasting notes and many, many more photos.)

TN: Fruit, wine, Antichrist (New Zealand, pt. 30)

(The original version, with many more photos, is here.)

The Holstein firm

There’s certainly industrial winemaking in New Zealand, but one doesn’t expect to find it in the smallholder-dominated Central Otago. Thankfully, the giant corrugated airline hangars at Central Otago Wine Company (“CowCo” to the locals), just down the street from Quartz Reef, hold not the worst excesses of mass-market vinification, but the very essence of small-estate winemaking. CowCo is a contract facility for wineries too small to have their own, and serves as both winemaker and stand-in tasting room for over a half-dozen producers.

It would be nice, then, if a few more of the available wines were on offer. I’m sure calling ahead would have arranged this, but our enthusiasm for tasting is flagging at the end of a long day doing just that (Theresa opts to sit this venue out in its entirety), and so I buzz through the four options as efficiently as possible.

Kawarau Estate 2003 Chardonnay “Reserve” (Central Otago) – An organic winery, working with Lowburn fruit. It’s wood-spicy, showing orange peel, clove and apricot with a short-ish finish. Fine in its idiom.

Central Otago Wine Cellar 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Blended from four parcels (I fail to ask who owns them), showing lemongrass, red cherry, strawberry and the classic regional orange rind, with pretty good acidity. Fresh, fun and easy-drinking pinot.

Dry Gully 2003 Pinot Noir (Alexandra) – Powdery chalk, strawberry leaf, banana skin and chewy celery over a bed of gravel. The tannin’s slightly underripe, leaving the wine with a bitter aftertaste, and overall it’s depressingly light.

Two Paddocks 2003 Pinot Noir “First Paddock” (Gibbston) – A winery owned by actor Sam Neil, though it’s most definitely not just another vanity project. This (from the One Paddock vineyard, their oldest parcel) is a fine effort, with elegant strawberry, plum, raspberry, red cherry and orange with very slightly touchy tannin and a long, zingy finish. Tasty stuff. (The brief disconnect of tasting wine from a guy who played the Antichrist is a little jarring, but I get over it. Anyway, the winery’s web site is frequently hilarious, which helps ease the struggle.)

[fruit]Loom of the fruit

After a full day with glass to nose, the highs push out the lows and we remember a rather packed day with appreciation. Comprehensive thoughts on what we’ve tasted are still coalescing, and I resolve to put them to paper after I’ve visited the third – and most remote – sub-region of the Central Otago. What lingers is the feeling that, while the whites continue to lag, the reds are showing a real spark, and finally starting to justify the regional excitement in sufficiently convincing numbers. But at the moment, we’ve got something other than grapes on our minds.

For the Cromwell/Bannockburn area is only recently known for its wine. Historically, what excelled here was produce, especially fruit. Old-timers, in fact, rather bemoan the general loss of the region as a berry Mecca, and consider winemaking more than a bit arriviste. In any case, proof of this history towers into the Cromwell sky in multicolored majesty: a giant, rather lurid sculpture of fruit. We’ve got a bit of a fetish for the kitsch represented by such things – with pictures of us hanging from giant kiwifruit (and kiwis), garlic, apples and even wheels of Munster – so we can’t resist a brief photo stop.

From there, it’s into Cromwell itself to pick up some items for dinner, and then to its historic outskirts for a few minutes in “Old Cromwell,” which is a faithfully- (if somewhat cheesily-) restored frontier town from the gold rush days. We also hit a few fruit stands (today littered with busloads of Asian tourists, for reasons that aren’t particularly clear to either of us) on the way out of town, just to check out the selection, after which the wonderful desolation of the Cromwell-Queenstown road brings us home.

Dinner is a Cromwell-sourced pasta primavera (of sorts; since it’s actually early autumn here, maybe pasta d’autunno would be more accurate) with the remains of our lunch wine.

Amisfield “Lake Hayes” 2004 Riesling (Central Otago) – Green apple and yellow-green citrus, clean and crisp but simple.

For “dessert,” I pop open something acquired at Akarua, which makes me wish I’d spent more time tasting through their brewed lineup.

BannockBrew “Wild Spaniard” Black Lager (Central Otago) – Chocolate and hickory-smoked espresso. Incredibly intensity. This is an aptly-named pit of dark, brooding blackness, and I rather love it.

Tomorrow, we work off the excesses of today. And, along the way, embrace some new excesses at a strong contender for the world’s most beautiful vineyard.

Disclosure: the beer is a gift.

TN: Shorn on the range (New Zealand, pt. 29)

(The original version is here.)

After the wind-whipped hills and gullies of Bannockburn, the flat industrial outskirts of Cromwell are a bit of a downer. This is still the South Island of New Zealand, so “industrial” means “some big buildings on mostly-abandoned streets with tons of green space surrounding them,” but as winery settings go, this isn’t the most enrapturing.

We don’t have much time to admire the non-scenery, however, because we’re racing the clock. Everyone and their assistant at each winery we’ve visited has told us the same thing: go visit Rudi at Quartz Reef. We tend to accept frequently-repeated advice of this nature, but there’s a problem: the winery tasting room apparently closes at three o’clock, and it’s about 2:55. We tear into a deserted lot and spy the makeshift assembly that passes for a tasting room. The door is closed, and locked, but there’s a man striding across the lot.

“What can I do for you?”

“We’re interested in tasting some wine, if possible, but I know we’re here at closing time and…”

“It’s no problem.” This, to be honest, is the answer we expect. After some time in New Zealand, one gets used to the incredible generosity.

“Rudi” is Rudi Bauer, a bit of a winemaking legend in these parts, and he’s got an accent. A non-Kiwi accent, that is. It turns out that he’s Austrian, though he’s been in New Zealand for a while (making wine at various notable establishments, including Rippon and Geisen), and that this particular venture is a collaborative one between himself and one of the branches of the Chauvet family of Champagne.

It also turns out that there’s more to the facility than meets the eye. Bauer makes wine for more than one company: Quartz Reef (including their Chauvet line of sparklers), Pisa Range and Rockburn. All are available in the tasting…well, “room” is a bit optimistic; “shed” might be more accurate…though only a few are open at the moment. Bauer unlocks the door and we take a few exploratory sips while we chat.

Quartz Reef “Chauvet” Methode Traditionelle (Central Otago) – 54% pinot noir, Rudi tells us, but the web site says 38%. Not that it really matters. Also: 26 months on the lees, with 10 g/l residual sugar. It’s very crisp, with apple and lemongrass in lovely balance. A nice, and surprisingly inexpensive bubbly that performs a good deal better than most of its more expensive competition up north.

Quartz Reef 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Dark, brooding, extremely structured and saddled with leather notes. Strong and forceful, yet well-built. An excellent expression of a fuller-bodied form of Central Otago pinot, which…as others have noted…is not that hard to achieve, given decent weather.

Bauer, apparently unconcerned by the time and obviously happy with our interest, offers a brief barrel tasting. How can we do other than accept? The winemaking facilities are slightly haphazard, with more than a few approaches to maturation in evidence, but the tasting itself is revelatory.

Rockburn 2004 Pinot Noir (barrel sample) (Central Otago) – Dark plum, firm and ripe with lots of structure. But, it’s balanced and quite nice.

Pisa Range 2004 Pinot Noir (barrel sample) (Central Otago) – Dried flower petals, celery and earth with darker-toned red and black licorice, yet more refined than either of the previously-tasted pinots.

Quartz Reef 2004 Pinot Noir (barrel sample) (Central Otago) – Assemblage #1, showing blueberry, plum and other, bigger and leafier fruit. Strong, but short-finishing and just a bit goopy.

Quartz Reef 2004 Pinot Noir (barrel sample) (Central Otago) – Assemblage #2, still sitting on eggs from its recent fining. Here, we have blackberry, plum and black cherry with graphite-like structure. Huge, but complex and absolutely stunning.

Bauer hesitates before dipping his thief into a final barrel. He seems full of trepidation, noting “I’m not really sure what to do with this one.” I ask why.

“Just taste it.”

Quartz Reef 2004 Pinot Noir (barrel sample) (Central Otago) – Assemblage #3, a/k/a “Shrek.” A massive wall of tannin and other structural elements, with penetrating dark blackberry, black cherry, blueberry and boysenberry. Drying and chewy, with massive tannin omnipresent on the finish.

It is, without a doubt, an absolute paragon of extraction. It’s good in its idiom, and it does taste more like pinot than any other grape that immediately comes to mind, but it’s pretty extreme…and it’s not entirely clear that Bauer is pleased with its existence. What intrigues me, however, is the name.

“Shrek? Like the animated character?”

“You don’t know about Shrek?” We close up the winery and return to the tasting shed, where Bauer digs through some paperwork and smirkingly produces a calendar. There, right on the cover, is one of the most awe-inspiring sights I’ve ever seen. And one of the more unintentionally horrifying as well.

[Shrek]Shrek, you see, is…or rather was…the world’s most famous sheep.

The brief version of the tale is this: a sheep, lose in the wilds of New Zealand, managed to avoid being shorn for at least six years…to the point that the weight of his barrel-shaped fleece quite literally pulled the wool over his eyes. (Honestly, it’s a shock that the poor thing could even see…or move, for that matter.) Anyway, the renegade sheep was finally caught and, in a massive publicity stunt staged for charity, shorn on national TV. Among the results: a popular childrens’ book, a charity calendar, and an ongoing soap opera.

Only in New Zealand.

With gratitude and visions of Godzilla-sized sheep dancing in our heads, we take our leave of Quartz Reef. Bauer’s skill as a winemaker is unquestionable, but the biggest impression we’re left with is that of the clear differences in source material – both from terroir and from clonal selections – revealed in wines made by the same hand. The pinots are definitely on the larger, more structured side (and Bauer does express admiration for Hätsch Kalberer at Fromm, another devotée of this style), but neither are they out of balance or moving into the zinfandel/syrah realm inhabited by so many other large-bodied pinots.

And the biggest news of all? As we’re leaving, I ask Bauer why he doesn’t plant some grüner veltliner, just to see what it could do in New Zealand.

“Actually…”

TN: Tying the knot (New Zealand, pt. 28)

(The original post is here.)

As wineries ‘round the world have proved over and over, money does not solve all problems. On our last visit to New Zealand, we’d stopped in at Carrick on the recommendation of an acquaintance. It was, apart from a pleasantly drinkable pinot, a complete waste of time and taste buds. And this despite the painfully obvious scale of the funds being thrown at everything in sight…mostly including a then-unfinished tasting room and restaurant facility.

However, in the interim the buzz had spread a bit…just enough to lead to my taking a chance on a bottle at Dunedin’s Bell Pepper Blues. The difference that money cannot necessarily make, time and money can; the wine, a 2002 Pinot Noir, was very nearly extraordinary. A closer investigation was required.

At any given mealtime, the parking lot at Carrick is likely to be full. Rather than hungry tourists stocking up on picnic wine, the draw is the (allegedly; I haven’t eaten there) fine restaurant on the facility, about which there is growing regional and national hype. There’s also a little action at the long tasting bar (which shares a vaulted room with the restaurant), but things seem busier than they are because the tasting counter staff is also responsible for covering the restaurant floor. They do a remarkable job considering the circumstances, but one wonders if – especially at lunch – the promotion of the winery itself might not be better-served by separate staffs.

Carrick 2004 Sauvignon Blanc (Central Otago) – Ripe gooseberry, lime and white spice; a nicely juicy wine that almost makes me recant my dire warnings about Central Otago sauvignon. But I fear it may instead be the proverbial exception that proves the rule.

Carrick 2003 Chardonnay (Central Otago) – 50% of this wine spends twelve months in French oak, and handles it fairly well. There’s spicy clove and fig jam, with plenty of ripe, juicy oranges and a balanced finish. Chardonnay’s still not my thing, but this is a good one.

Carrick 2004 Rosé (Central Otago) – Like most pinks from this region, this is made from pinot noir; I don’t get the opportunity to ask if it’s vat-bled or from secondary fruit. It shows very light spiced peach (more white than yellow), to such an extent that it tastes more like a dark-skinned white wine (complete with a touch of tannin; think Alsatian pinot gris) than a true rosé. It’s strange, and I’m not sure I like it even on its own merits.

Carrick 2003 “Unravelled” Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Yes, that’s how they spell it; the term is a play on the regular label’s depiction of a Carrick Bend knot, which here is…literally…unraveled. Or “unravelled.” Whatever. Anyway, this is intended to be a fresh, upfront, early-drinking pinot sold at a lower price, and it succeeds in those goals (though I wouldn’t necessarily call mid-twenties in Kiwi dollars cheap, either). The fruit – mostly strawberry, plum and the persistent Central Otago orange rind characteristic – is very ripe, with nuts and light earth tones introducing themselves and then quickly stepping back to allow the fruit to feature itself. It’s pure, fruity fun, but more complex than I think most would expect. A nice wine, indeed.

Carrick 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Dark plum and somewhat bulky tannin dominate this tight, concentrated wine. The balance is discernibly terrific, and there’s wonderful length, with crisp and acid-enhanced floral esters on the finish…but the wine is very balled-up right now. Give it the necessary aging.

Carrick 2002 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Another stab at the bottling tasted in Dunedin, apparently opened (from an available stock) in response to my enthusiasm for my previous encounter with the wine. This, thanks to the extra year of development, presents as a much richer wine than the ’03, showing generous plum and black cherry with hints of chocolate on the finish. As with my previous encounter with the ‘02, the niggling flaw is a very slightly bitter tannic bite; one wonders if the seemingly more balanced ’03 might, eventually, turn out to be the better wine. But this, too, really needs age to show its true qualities.

This is a winery still on the ascent, with across-the-board improvement in their wines and newer, differently-cloned vineyards working their long, hard slog towards maturity. Despite this, their next two vintages are potentially problematic (which is mostly beyond their control), so one hopes that their obvious strides forward will not stall while they wait for a more reliable vintage. Nonetheless, I will be completely unsurprised to see even greater things from this winery in the future.

And maybe I’ll give the restaurant a try, too.

TN: Heights and lows (New Zealand, pt. 27)

[lunchtime in Bannockburn](The original version is here.)

No use crying

Dusty rock and scraggly, breeze-burnt trees surround us. Dry grass whips to and fro in the swirling wind. We’re seated at a concrete picnic table in a hollow, alongside what can only be described as a watering hole in the heart of Bannockburn wine country, and would be not at all surprised to see itinerant herds of antelopes (or hippopotami) making their jittery (or lumbering) way down to join us.

Bottles purchased at morning winery visits help weigh down the corners of our picnic set’s tablecloth, as we try to prevent its wind-driven flapping from catapulting our lunch into the pond. We very nearly succeed, until a particularly strong gust spills a full glass of wine all over…well, pretty much everything but us. I guess it’s good that it’s a white.

Amisfield “Lake Hayes” 2004 Riesling (Central Otago) – Lemon-lime and green apple; a fruit-forward and quite acidic expression of varietal riesling character, but with absolutely no additional complexities. There’s no depth here. I think I preferred it at the winery.

Oh, by gosh, by Gullies

The tasting facility at Akarua (technically known as Bannockburn Heights Winery, Ltd., though no one calls it that) is small and cozy, so it’s probably a good thing that we’re the only visitors. Attached are the winemaking facility and a small restaurant. Natalie Wilson, an engaging and eager-to-share host (and, not coincidentally, the winery’s Cellar Door Manager), does the pouring and talks us through the more interesting details, though she seems equally interested in our travels and experiences…a longer-form but no less charming version of “the conversation.” There’s a nice selection of wine on offer (perhaps more when the conversation turns geeky), and some brewed-on-site beer as well.

All the fruit used here is from estate-owned vineyards, and a new winemaker has recently joined, making the notes that follow a bit of an historical snapshot. The core winemaking and viticultural team is now 100% female; though women are not at all unusual at the helm of New Zealand wineries (witness Michelle Richardson, of Villa Maria, Peregrine, and now an eponymous label), women inhabiting all key positions is just a touch unusual.

Bannockburn Heights “Akarua” 2004 Pinot Rosé (Central Otago) – From what Natalie calls “dropped fruit” rather than from a saignée, which seems a somehow less manipulative thing to do than making a saignée rosé for the primary purpose of concentrating a red, as so often happens. This wine is decidedly not dry – which I guess puts it in the white zin category – but it handles that burden with much more aplomb than most “blush” wines, showing sweet strawberry and red cherry in a pretty, sun-filled punch. Not “serious” in the least.

Bannockburn Heights “Akarua” 2004 Pinot Gris (Central Otago) – Pear and dry, ripe apple with a really great intensity on the finish. This wine is partially fermented in French oak (I don’t know how old), and seems to absorb the experience with deftness. A nice wine.

Bannockburn Heights “Akarua” 2004 “Unoaked” Chardonnay (Central Otago) – Peach and tangerine; intensely ripe and fruity, with a short finish. Fun. One must approach most unoaked New World chardonnays with simplified expectations, and this wine satisfies those expectations.

Bannockburn Heights “Akarua” 2003 Chardonnay (Central Otago) – 100% malolactic fermentation, with a dollop of new wood (mostly expressed by a clove accent on the nose), but otherwise dominated by ripe pear and nectarine. Unfortunately, the finish is deadened; a nice wine cut short before its time. I often find this character in wines freshly pulled from new wood, but that doesn’t apply here, and so I’m afraid it must be attributed to the wine.

Bannockburn Heights “Akarua” 2003 Pinot Noir “The Gullies” (Central Otago) – A barrel selection despite the geographical-sounding name, with just 5% new wood and done in an upfront, early-drinking style. Perhaps extremely so: sharp strawberry and fresh red cherry with a rasp of slightly bitter tannin make this a wine very obviously for the now. Only just OK.

Bannockburn Heights “Akarua” 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Smooth black cherry, plum and earth (it’s striking how easily these Central Otago pinots move into the black fruit realm), with its own very slightly underripe tannin, but showing much longer and more intense with superior overall structure. It will never be great, but it’s certainly very good, and has aging potential.

This is a pleasant and tasty lineup of wines…solid (if slightly underachieving) with potential and an apparent desire for improvement. Just around the corner, however, big things are happening. Big things.

Disclosures: free bottle of beer from co-owned brewery, trade discount on wine purchases.

TN: The color of memory (New Zealand, pt. 36)

[ostrich]Pigments of our imagination

The colors here are amazing. Water can be mirrored sunlight, the deepest nighttime sapphire, or a bright, sky-reflecting blue…and then the next day, a milky, luminescent turquoise. Sunsets are particularly exciting: brilliants streaks of fire appear and then vanish in the next instant as the sun transitions some distant and unseen peak or trick of the atmosphere…and in the final moments of light that glow over the western ranges, there’s a neon band of lime green. I’ve never seen its like anywhere other than here. Then there are the aptly-named Remarkables, with their bright tans, grays and browns claw-riven with darker greens and blacks, gradually transformed by the movement of light through forbidding blue-brown, rich and warming gold, and brooding dark blue…light and sun-drenched one moment, deeply shadowed the next, their jagged and razor-sharp edges fiercely ripping the heavens but softened by their nightly dusting of powdered sugar snow.

This morning, the palette is muted and gloomy; dark, wintry and urban earth tones subdued by deep blue melancholy from the sky. Queenstown is shrouded in low-hanging clouds that press down upon the sweeping mountain ranges and obliterate contrast, leaving a depressingly narrow chromatic range in their wake. But we don’t care that much, because we’re leaving.

Not for good, though. Just for the day. That is, if the weather cooperates…

Human nature

How do you go back to the place where everything changed…the place where the lens of your world reshaped itself and an unspoiled wilderness of perspectives was revealed in dramatic new light? And if you can point to the place, the day, the hour when all was renewed and reborn, can you ever really return? I asked this question at the beginning of this travelogue…a philosophical musing, perhaps, but also one with a physical answer. For the place was Milford Sound, visited on our previous trip to New Zealand, and that was indeed the exact moment when everything changed.

Nature works its charms in funny ways. I’d grown up in the midst of it, trapped in a pretty but isolated and lake-infested region of northern Minnesota, a manageable four hours from anything one could legitimately call a city but a seemingly infinite distance from the energy of the modern world. The scope of my world was narrow, its boundaries closely defined despite the limitless horizons visible on the endless flatlands around my home. I’d been raised “in the woods,” with its peace and its gentle rhythms all around me…and I desperately wanted out.

I’d leapt at the first opportunity for escape, retreating to urban and urbane Boston and, several decades later, was generally pleased with the choice. What I craved was not so much the pace or intensity of the city, but rather its complexity and its opportunity, the ability to choose from a wider palette of options than would ever have been available to me in my youth, and the energy of the people and institutions that drive the relentless modern hunger for change. In my subsequent travels, I’d soaked up the country and the city in equal measure, pleased by both in the surface way one experiences a place on holiday, occasionally penetrating to the heart of something deeper and more significant, but never losing the viewpoint to which my life had brought me.

Theresa had arrived at essentially the same destination, though by a very different path. A city girl through and through (from a place much bigger and grittier than Boston), she’d expressed a general preference for the quiet peace of the rural on our travels, but was fundamentally at a certain kind of war with nature and its fundamental indifference towards comfort and ease. It wasn’t that she needed any sort of pampering or coddling, but rather that the difficulties of the wild – the physical perils, the biting and stinging creatures, the lack of “facilities” – seemed to physically repel her. (Or, as she sometimes put it after a long day of fighting off stinging insects, maybe nature liked her a little too much.)

But at Milford Sound, New Zealand’s only easily-accessible fiord and one of the truly majestic sites of the world, the parameters of our worldviews came crashing down, replaced by a stunned yet exuberant revelation in the glories of an earthly paradise. We’d been in New Zealand for just a few days, most of them spent in Auckland, on driving tours with friends, wine tasting, or just ambling around Queenstown and its environs, so the long trip to Milford was our first real chance to escape the normal rhythms of a vacation. We’d decided to drive ourselves rather than take an insulating tour bus packed with fellow tourists, and had soaked up the ever-changing and always-breathtaking landscapes and vistas along the way. Barriers began to melt away, and change approached…until that moment on the fiord, when we were quite literally overwhelmed by the unleashed power of nature. We wanted more.

Since that time, our travels had changed. We’d settled into a decidedly non-urban mode of travel, finding (not always sensible) excuses to avoid all but the truly great cities of the world. We’d explored the wilds of our voyages and the wonders of our own backyard. We’d started to take notice of what was all around us…not the conveniences and the artifices and the constructions of man, but the persistent and encompassing warmth of the not-yet-defeated natural world…and found ways to include its richness into our lives. We weren’t ready to give up the opportunities of the city, but we were no longer trying to escape (or battle) its alternative.

Or, as I previously (and much more succinctly) put it thirty-five chapters ago: we’d changed.

Get back

But of course, “going back” is a notion fraught with the danger of disappointment. It is unquestionably true that nothing could ever replace that first moment of awestruck inspiration. What once seemed untouchably beautiful may, with new perspective, seem to have shrunk in both majesty and significance. And…the thought is inevitable…what if we don’t even like it the second time around?

There’s only one way to find out, and despite the still-vivid memories of our recent trip to Doubtful Sound, we endeavor to recreate our previous journey: the long drive from Queenstown, though Te Anau, into Fiordland and…eventually…Milford Sound, with many stops and side-trips along the way. All timed to miss the bulk of the tourists both coming and going, bringing us safely back to our beds as blue-black darkness blankets the mountains and the lake.

However, another danger looms: bad weather. The forecast is, admittedly, dismal. But we’ve had such great luck with the weather – avoiding predicted thundershowers on both Doubtful Sound and the Dart River – that we decide to chance the trip anyway. We’ve seen Milford Sound in the sunlight, but in the rain its waterfalls are reported to be majestic, its mist-wreathed cliffs ethereal. How can we lose? Besides, despite the thick clouds overhead, it’s not actually raining at the moment. In fact, the sun is starting to peek through a few cracks in the dense ceiling, with sharp beams of light falling on distant hillsides and glistening waves. Undoubtedly, the weather will clear and we will have another fantastic day.

Darkness, darkness, be my blanket

By the time we get to Mossburn, we are considerably less optimistic. There are no longer any breaks in the clouds, and in fact everything is decidedly darker…though not as dark as the westward road ahead. Undaunted, we press on.

Twenty kilometers from Te Anau, we’e in the midst of a full-fledged downpour. Timid drivers are pulling off the road at the every opportunity (and I can’t say that I blame them, for the combination of driving rain and gusting wind is more than a little hazardous). We discuss what to do, and decide that as long as the possibility of a break in the weather exists – fronts move fast in this exceedingly narrow country – we will press on.

Te Anau is frigid, blustery (with the expanse of its lake allowing chilly winds to roar down from the snow-capped Kepler and Murchison Mountains), and so rain-soaked that it feels like we’re in, rather than aside, the lake. Merely opening the car door is an effort, and one is immediately rewarded with a soak (and its attendant chill) that penetrates to the marrow. I dash into a tourist office to cancel our cruise reservation, which draws no more than a wry smile from the girl behind the desk.

“Thanks for the thought, but it’s not necessary. The road’s closed.”

“The Homer Tunnel’s flooded?”

She shakes her head. “No. The whole road.”

(Continued here, with more photos…and even some tasting notes…)

TN: Coffee, sausage, bathhouse, bait (New Zealand, pt. 35)

[Theresa & Lake Wakatipu at sunset]U2 brew

When I left Alexandra, it was sunny and a little hot. In nearby Cromwell, it was warm but cloudy. A half-hour away, in the Gibbston Valley, it was milder, but with returned hints of the sun. And just up the road in Queenstown, the air is decidedly crisp, and a light rain falls. None of these places are far from each other, yet the climatological differences (and their inevitable effect on viticulture) are writ large.

All that said, I’m not here for wine. I’m here for coffee.

Theresa, fresh from her relaxing day at the spa (and her even more relaxing post-spa nap) joins me on a dubious side street, rife with American fast food and truly tacky knick-knack shops, to try what is alleged to be the best café in all of New Zealand. That, as we’ve discovered, is a mighty strong claim, but we’re prepared for a thorough assessment.

It’s not easy to find Joe’s Garage (Camp St.) from the front, mostly because there’s not really a sign, nor are there street-facing windows to indicate what’s inside (there’s one in the back, alongside some outdoor tables, but no one would ever be back there unless they knew precisely where they were going). In this way, it’s a little like The Bunker in its self-conscious invisibility to passing throngs of tourists, and though the word on this place is definitely out, I suspect many are simply unable to locate this venue.

Inside, however, things are a bit more amusing. Joe’s Garage is a single, high-ceilinged room (that does, in fact, look like a converted commercial garage), with a studied mess of haphazard décor that suggests some sort of geographically indistinct road trip…a little Route 66, a little Paris-Dakar, perhaps even a little Southern Scenic Route…and the cornucopia of tchotchkes assembled along the way. In the room: a few small tables, a few stools at a bar, and that’s it. It is strikingly hip via its very indifference to the concept.

I note, however, that the entropy of the main room does not extend to areas behind the bar, where a four-person staff works in pristine, efficient precision. I take a quick look at the menu of breakfast-type comestibles (scribbled on a large board far above the bar), and order a “brat” and a flat white. Here is what transpires:

A sausage is plucked from a rotisserie, glistening and plump. It’s placed on a hot grill, while an even fatter roll is produced. This is toasted in its native state, then sliced open and toasted a second time, while the sausage is rolled and tossed around the grill until it has developed a fine sear on all sides. A canister of a smoky barbecue-type sauce is set next to another full of piquant, English-style whole grain mustard, and these are carefully applied to each interior face of the now well-toasted roll, after which the sausage is arranged precisely in a position to be enveloped by these condiments. The price for all this excellence? $5 NZ.

Meanwhile, the barista – unquestionably the most brooding and serious of the café staff, so much so that Theresa begins to refer to him as Bono – begins the process of making a flat white. With a series of fresh presses from the elaborate brewing machinery behind him, he assembles a lineup of cups and begins to work his art: an espresso here, a cappuccino there, and then a series of flat whites. A dark, almost inky shot of espresso is immediately pierced by a folded mixture of steamed and frothed milk, though top-riding foam is held back by the careful manipulation of a knife. The barista gently adjusts the direction and amplitude of his pour, leaving the finished coffee topped with a delicate leaf pattern traced in the tiny amount of foam that rises to the top of the cup. It is an absolute work of art.

It’s taste, however, that matters…and here, Joe’s Garage unquestionably surpasses its reputation. The bratwurst sandwich is in perfect proportion – meat, bread and condiment in satisfying marriage – while the coffee is utterly flawless and stupendously rich. Laughing with delight over our purchases at a freshly-emptied table, we have only one question: what took us so long to visit this place?

Learning to hate baths

We nurse a second pair of stunning flat whites, then head back to the house to change for dinner. Little do we anticipate the turn our evening is about to take.

(Continued here, with tasting notes and more photos…)

TN: How dry is my gully? (New Zealand, pt. 26)

[Theresa at Mt. Difficulty](The original version is here)

Sergio Leone had it right. It’s OK to film a western in Europe, but you’ve gotta do it where the vineyards that otherwise blanket the Old World aren’t. After all, there’s not a whole lot of Scott Henry trellising in Wyoming…

Perhaps this is why one’s first view of Mt. Difficulty is so jarring. Windswept dust gales across rocky buttes and steppes, looking for all the world like something out of the Old West (and this is, among other things, gold country)…but there’s vines in them thar’ valleys. The partners behind this concern – local grape growers owning and operating a sort of high-end cooperative – probably should have constructed their tasting room out of adobe. Instead, the existing structure is a window-filled white apostrophe on the crest of a hill, encompassing a café and some outdoor tables…though today’s breeze is a little extreme for al fresco noshing.

It’s not yet lunchtime when we arrive, so the room is empty except for a few employees making last-minute preparations. There’s also not a whole lot of wine on offer – much is, apparently, sold out – but we taste what we can. (Later in the year, I’ll hear an amusing story about a couple attempting to corner the market on one of the winery’s flagship pinots; a gesture neither the storyteller nor I can quite understand).

Mt. Difficulty 2004 Sauvignon Blanc (Central Otago) – I am not, at least so far, an advocate of Central Otago sauvignon blanc. From an objective point of view, it seems pointless to introduce yet another sauvignon into a country littered with them, especially when one might fight an endlessly uphill battle against the superior name recognition of Marlborough. The price comparison isn’t too healthy, either. Organoleptically, there’s been little to convince me otherwise; I don’t know that one can’t properly ripen sauvignon in these climes, but certainly the evidence supporting the effort has been exceedingly thin on the ground. This wine sorta proves my point: it shoots past spicy and zippy into the realm of capsicum, showing chile and black pepper on the nose, palate and finish. There’s a bit of dry crispness, but ultimately this is all about underripeness and harsh pyrazines. It’s “interesting” from a certain point of view, but wouldn’t be much fun to drink. Maybe with salsa.

Mt. Difficulty 2004 Riesling Target Gully (Central Otago) – From a true gully vineyard closer to Felton Road than to our current position, this a sugar/acidity balancing act at 25 g/L residual sugar. It is quite sweet, though with ripe apple, lemon and a blend of steel and slate adding their complexities to the midpalate. It dries a bit (and shortens) on the finish, and while it’s quite fun, there’s a serious undercurrent to it that bodes well for the future. It’s not a great wine by any means, but it is a good one.

The woman manning the tasting room is a little on the lecturing side, though she seems wary and a bit chilly towards responsive questions. More enticing is the spittoon, which operates with a swirl of water identical to that in a dentist’s office. It’s very clever, and I briefly wonder why more wineries don’t make use of this nastiness-avoiding device.

Mt. Difficulty “Roaring Meg” 2002 Merlot (Central Otago) – I’m not entirely clear on the nomenclature here. A second label of some sort is the gist of it, I think…but as I’ve noted, the woman doing our pouring isn’t particularly responsive when moved off-script. In any case, the “Roaring Meg” name is ubiquitous in the region, variously referring to a “waterfall” (really more of a stretch of rapids) on the Kawarau River, a gold rush-era madam, and a popular Queenstown restaurant. In any case, take what I’ve written about sauvignon blanc in the Central Otago and repeat it here. Why is this a good idea? The wine itself is barely acceptable, showing chewy baked plum, brown sugar and drying tannin with a gummy pecan paste and peach stone finish. Boil it down, you’ve got a nice and not-too-sweet dessert topping.

Mt. Difficulty 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – A multi-vineyard blend, initially dominated by mercaptans but eventually presenting itself as strawberry, earthy walnut, and chunky black loam with some structure and more than a bit of youthful truculence. Long and interesting, but not for early drinking.

The wines here – at least, those that we’ve tasted – are fine, but could use more “oomph” across the range. Previous experiences with the upper-end pinots (though one presumes the Target Gully will now be hard to find) suggest that better work is possible, but even there Mt. Difficulty is a step behind its regional compatriots.

Tasting completed, we mount our horses and mosey on down the hillside. We reckon there’s vittles, yonder.