Point of View: Home truths from the Chair of New Zealand Women in Wine
OPINION: “I’m a woman and I’m in wine. Why do we need Women in Wine?” I was asked this great question recently.
OPINION: Flicking through the fourth edition of the Oxford Companion to Wine (OCW) I came across a word that neither I nor my spell-checker were familiar with.
Homoclimes is a geographical term meaning ‘similar climate’. Anyone prospecting for a vineyard site in their quest to make serious Pinot Noir probably takes more than a passing interest in Burgundy’s climatic credentials. Michael Cooper describes in his Wine Atlas of New Zealand (second edition) how the founding partners of Martinborough Vineyards at their first meeting were invited to enjoy a glass of grand cru burgundy and were told, “this is the objective”.
It helped that the partners included a soil scientist, a pharmacist, and someone with a background in horticulture and viticulture. Their scientific minds must surely have addressed the extent to which Martinborough and Burgundy were homoclimes. Martinborough rapidly become New Zealand’s Pinot Noir capital thanks in no small part to the region’s similarity with the world Pinot Noir capital, Burgundy. “Homoclimes are typically sought using temperature and rainfall data” explains the OCW. “For example, Tamar Ridge Vineyards has used this approach to identify new vineyard regions in Tasmania with the same climate as distinguished the Marlborough region of New Zealand.”
Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. Tassie Savie anyone?
OPINION: Harvest begins, and almost immediately we start to get media enquiries about how the vintage is going and whether it…
OPINION: Rachael Cook is the smiling grape grower on this month’s cover, tending vines on the miniscule, beautiful and dream-driven vineyard…
New Zealand wine enthusiasts have a deepening understanding and growing appreciation of sparkling wine, says Mel Skinner, Chair of Méthode Marlborough…
One of the biggest mistakes wine marketers make is in assuming consumers are as passionate and knowledgeable about wine as…
Taking two sustainability awards at two events on a single evening felt like "true recognition" of the work Lawson's Dry…