Monthly Archives: September 2010

Durvillea Pinot Grigio one of Top 50 wines at NWWA

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At the Auckland NW tasting

Last week I was in Rotorua and Auckland for the New World Wine Awards. Our 2009 Durvillea Pinot Grigio was awarded one of the Top 50 wines in the competition. There were two tastings to give the Rotorua area and Auckland area store reps and owners a chance to get in and taste the wines before they were announced today. For a list of the Top 50 wines, click here 

As I hadn’t been to Rotorua in years I tried to make the most of it by getting up early for a run/walk around the waterfront and to look around the place- One of the best ways to do it I think, when you are in a new city. The place I was staying at was right in town so I was able to go around the waterfront which was gorgeous early in the morning.

Early morning view of Lake Rotorua

This year New World is doing a big push on being interactive, one of the ways they are doing this is by sending the New World’s neck tags for each of the wines.

QR code for Pinot Grigio

This means that you can scan the QR code with a smart phone and it will push you through to the website where you can read tasting notes on the wines and food suggestions/recipes are made.

For those that don’t have a smart phone, you can text in a code and the website is emailed back to you so you can look it up later.
So when you are in your local New World this week, make sure you look out for the Top 50 wine display, and try out this new technology.

 

Thinking of those in the Canterbury Earthquake

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On the Fourth of September 2010, Canterbury was rocked with an earthquake measuring 7.1, the largest in many years. While this earthquake has been compared to the devastating Haiti earthquake, we were very lucky that there were very few casualties. However, looking through some of the photos of the earthquake is awful, as many of the iconic Christchurch buildings have been damaged and the face of Christchurch as we know it may change.

Family home missing a chimney

Family home missing a chimney

My family is from Christchurch, and we were very lucky that with the impact of the earthquake, we only lost a chimney.

For those of you in Canterbury who have been affected by this quake, we would like to let you know how sorry we are. To our extremely supportive retailers and restaurants, we hope you have not suffered too much damage.

When an event like this happens it is amazing how the community bands together and helps each other out, on the news there have been many stories of families, neighbours and complete strangers lending a hand to provide support and to try and help the slow process of rebuilding.

One particular group of people that have been helping out are a large group of University students, led by Sam Johnson. These students have taken to the streets for the last week, taking advantage of a week off university to help those in the worst affected suburbs. Louis Brown and Sam Judd who we supported last week with their Grand Celebration in Hokitika, had some Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc left over. They gave me a call on Saturday to say they were in CHCH and had contacted Sam Johnson, and would we mind if we donated the left over wine to Sam and his team, which we were more than happy to do! Below is a photo of Sam and a fellow student David Turner recieiving the Durvillea SB. Great work that you and your team are doing Sam!

Fellow student, Sam Judd, Sam Johnson and Louis Brown with Durvillea Wine

David Turner, Sam Judd, Sam Johnson and Louis Brown with Durvillea Wine

Sophie’s update

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Hello all, It has been a while since I have written on here, and as you can imagine, there are a lot of things happening.  As we come into Spring, most of our growers have finished their pruning, setting the vineyards up for a great growing season ahead.

We are releasing the 2009 Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc this week to the whole country, with only a pallet or so left of the 2008, which is all allocated. The 2009 Durvillea SB has already had some great results, recieving Gold in the Liquorland International Wine Competition earlier this year, and being selected as one of the Top100 wines, Michael Cooper has also reviewed the wine and I have posted his review up today here.

A Grand Celebration

A few weeks ago I was down in Kaikoura for a friends birthday, I got talking to one of the guys there, who turned out to be a co- founder of Sustainable Coastlines, after talking some more about what they do we realised that Durvillea could help by supporting them in some of their events that they hold. The  result of this has been that Durvillea is sponsoring the world film premiere of “A day at the beach” screening in Hokitika this Friday. The evening is also the launch of Love Your Coast a collaborative initiative between Sustainable Coastlines and the Te Wai Pounamu Foundation. This is to be a nationwide clean up of our beaches and coastline- make sure you look out for the clean up near you.

For those of you on the West Coast who may be heading along to the Grand Celebration, we would love to hear your feedback, it should be a good night!

On a completely different note, I’m not sure if many of you have seen the baby seals on the Kaikoura Coast at the moment, but I went down to see them the other day, and they were incredible to watch, below is a video of them playing. It was great to see that the people who were there while we were, were being respectful of them as wild animals. Meg went to see them too on her way down to Christchurch and I know she has some great photos, so she might post some up soon too.

 

-Sophie