End of Harvest and Costume Party with the Frenchies Part 2

Waking up late after a wet night I teamed up with Anne and James to go for a guided tour of the winery held by assistant winemaker Todd Stevens. Very nice and interesting tour throughout the whole process of making Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at Felton Road. After a very tasty lunch on the terrace of the Mount Difficulty's restaurant (neighboring winery), Anne being German had no Difficulties in arranging a tasting and quick tour at Quartz Reef by Austrian born winemaker/proprietor Rudi Bauer.


We tried their rare and well made Method Traditionnelle NV, a great Sparkling wine with good firm acidic structure and lively citrusy fruit with notes of bred and yeast. We also had Rudi's very nice Pinot Gris which definitely stood out among the other Pinot Gris I've tasted in NZ. Pinot Gris is somewhat of a new trend grape here in NZ, where I guess both costumers and winemakers are looking to diversify the white wine market from praised and massively planted Sauvignon Blanc. I've found most Pinot Gris to be to flabby, with high content of alcohol (which of course is praised by the masses) aromatic and sometimes parfumee style. But the Quartz Reef Gris 07 has good acidic structure a nice ripe pear and peach like fruitiness, balanced alcohol and a long slightly creamy after taste. In short, a damned good food wine with potential to age.

Last but not least they make a really nice Pinot Noir 07, with firm and structured body nice balanced acidity and lots of raspberry and plum flavors, with spicy notes from the oak barrels.

To finish of an already fabulous day we cooked (read I cooked) dinner together, Lamb with a Lebanese bulgur salad paired up with two half bottles of Quartz Reef one Pinot Gris and one Pinot Noir + an extra whole bottle of Pegasus Bay Riesling. Then Anne made a very nice desssert with vanilla ice-cream and cherries in Kirsch.

Friday morning the 24th of april I woke up with a mission to try some more wine! Took my seriously dirt sprayed Nissan (unfortunately I don't have any pictures to illustrate the matter) down to Bannockburn and Carrick wines for lunch and tasting.

Arriving at Carrick I started of with ordering the fish of the day, seared grouper with Moroccan chick pea and aubergine ragu served with avocado and rocket salad. While my empty stomach eagerly awaited lunch, I started of the tasting with the Carrick Riesling 07. At 12,5% alcohol it was a decent Riesling with all typical features like; crisp acidity, lively fruit notes of lime and a hint of chalkyness (I have to ad that I does not come close to the quality of Felton Road's Rieslings) . I then continued with Sauvignon Blanc 08, not to common wine in these parts of the country, Had all the usual features of a Kiwi SB but just slightly more elegant than most of them more towards the mineral side than the green asparagus inferno.

Carrick Chardonnay 07 showed a good example of what I would describe as a "posh new world Chardonnay" with it's charmingly pear and citrus fruit and well integrated but pronounced toasted oak characters it was far from flabby but still more of a catwalk model than a food wine.

Moving on to reds I got the Carrick Pinot 06 and 07 side by side which was interesting. Wile the 06 showed more of raspberry and almost jammy notes of strawberry and vanilla, the 07 showed more dark fruit characters with cherry and plum as the most pronounced ones, and also firmer tannins and more coffee and liquorice type of toasted oak notes. Both wines where of good quality only lacking the intricate notes of terroir that Felton Road and even more so the Burgundy Pinot's have.

Having tasted all these wines my lunch was now ready and my stomach thanked me immensely for not pursuing any more wine experiences. Sitting outside on the lawn cherishing my perfectly cooked grouper, which i wisely paired with the Carrick Riesling, it felt like the Central Otago wine region was embracing my presence.

After a quick espresso I drove on to visit the Bald Hills winery. This small Estate is situated on the very same gravel road that had caused my Nissan to look like a rally car just arriving in Dakar (driving to and from the Cornish Point vineyard of Felton Road). Bald Hill is a quite small Estate mainly focusing on Pinot Noir, they do both Rieslin and Pinot Gris non of which are particularly impressive. The Pinot Nor 06 on the other hand is a beautiful example of just how good quality you'll get for money here in NZ, especially when it comes to Pinot N.
The Bald Hill Estate Pinot N 06 had spent 11 month's on french oak barrels and shows and intensely red fruity and spicy nose, with notes of raspberries, cherries and tobacco. The medium bodied palet had balanced acidity with medium concentrated fruit flavours of red berries and nicely integrated spicy notes of toasted oak, with a smooth lingering finish. I thought I made a bargain buying it for 44NZD (ca 200 kr) If you're interested it is imported to Sweden by JPC Wines.

Tasting all these wines it was now time to meet up with the Chalet's Crew (Adre ze German and Andrea the loud American) to go to Arrowtown to Rent Costumes for tonights party. Andre drove us in his scrapyard premium edition Mazda stationvagon, a car that just recently had gotten a new battery which at least made it start when you turned the key. 45 min later we arrived in Arrowtown, starting the search for the costume shop hidden away in a private house not in the smack center of the town. After acquiring a map at the iSite we soon fund our way, just in time for our appointment.
The place was in the garage of a private house and very busy, sins there as a 80's party going on that night in Arrowtown. The lady running the place was very friendly and helpful though clearly stressed, she soon found a suitable Minnie Mouse dress for Andrea, a Fred Flintstone one for Andre and I fell for a tight green Riddler costume. We also got a Barney costume for sir James of England and a blue Marge Simpson wig for Anne.

Later that night all suited up we met at the Chalet's (a holiday park = Camping) where we took my car to the party. Arriving early we saw no one in costumes so we decided to park around the corner and drink some beer while we where on the look out for other party guests. After two or three beer my impatience had grown to the point of frustration, so I decided we should go and check it out. With the Riddler leading the gang we silently approached the house of the Frenchies. Fortunate enough we hadn't been fooled into dressing up in costumes and where met by liking cheers when we showed our faces. I think my tight green Riddler suit had a nice mix of complete dorkiness and slight notes of cool villain glimmer.

Though we where first to arrive we where soon joined by The Hulk, Catwoman, New World Man, Wolverine and many others just having a ball. Just a very good way of saying goodbye to everyone in a silly kind of way. I sang Helan Går and drank Absolute Vodka to pass a little bit of Swedish knowledge on to my fellow grape pickers. Sir James showed us all how a real Englishman drinks and fell asleep on the couch towards the end of the Party. And Andrea of course to no ones surprise where loud enough to help some of the late arrivals find the way, and not having to look like fool's knocking on the wrong door. Good on You Andrea! we can always trust in the Americans coming to our rescue :-)

This is all for now, hope you've been able to read it all. As you might understand I made it home safely from the party by foot and had some help picking up the car next day.

Cheers and see you soon!