The Two Terraces Story; Premium Vineyard in Hawke’s Bay

Two Terraces is quickly becoming a familiar name in the Hawke’s Bay. It is owned and run by Ian and Linda Quinn. They’re not boutique wine producers and have little interest in making their own wines, yet they’re a critical part of the wine community here. They provide the most important ingredient any boutique Winemaker needs – grapes. Ian and Linda are growers, the first I’ve interviewed, and they opened my eyes to the world of operating a growing business. They’re not the typical picture most people visualize upon hearing the word “growers;” in fact, they’re quite the opposite. This is their passion project; they are following a dream, and investing their blood, sweat and tears into producing premium fruit for specific Winemakers that they’re selective about working with. Ian and Linda are “boutique growers,” if you will, and their story is inspiring.

Ian has much in common with many of us in this industry, in that it is his second career. His first was in telecommunications, where he spent 25 years, mostly in Wellington. Linda had been working for the Ministry of Fisheries but retired early when they built their house in Paraparaumu, where she developed a passion for gardening and soil health. In 2012, Ian was presented with an opportunity to work in Hong Kong for a couple years, and they jumped at it. They used Hong Kong as a base to see much of India and Asia, but knew they’d eventually come home to New Zealand. Ian’s passion for wine developed in his early 20’s, when he was dating Linda. They both were captivated by the experiences that wine was able to provide when paired with the right foods, and the combination of exploring food and wine together became a shared joy. Ian decided to take some papers via distance learning at EIT while he was in Hong Kong, “just for fun,” to expand his wine knowledge. He started his Winemaking papers, which included some Viticulture ones, that he wasn’t looking forward to. “I thought it was like gardening. I’m not into that.” Once he began though, he found a secret love. He believes it has to do partly with his drive to be constantly challenged and partly because of his intrigue with the science behind growing wine grapes. He saw the ever-changing viticulture world as a host of new opportunities that would keep him learning and growing for the next couple of decades.

That explains Ian’s motivation to start Two Terraces, but I was curious how he convinced Linda. She had her passion for gardening, but also held the same idea many do when they think about living in a vineyard. “How glamorous, how beautiful, how lovely, how gorgeous!” She’s since learned that it’s not what it seems. “No, no, no! It’s just hard work! There’s nothing glamorous about it.” Then she conceded and said, “actually, 7.00 at night. Gin and Tonic on the deck. That’s glamorous. At 3.00am, when you’re driving up and down, up and down. Not glamorous.”

Once the Quinn’s had made the decision to come back to New Zealand, they began looking for land to build their vineyard. They were drawn to the Hawke’s Bay as a destination, with it being the Food and Wine region of the country. With the company mandate, right from inception, to focus on premium grapes, and to work with great Winemakers that are passionate about producing great wine, Ian and Linda set out to find some land. They went into their business knowing they would “let the property develop with good reputation for wine and sustainable soil biodiversity and health.”

When they bought the land in the Mangatahi sub-region in 2015, it was a huge plot, and a rundown sheep farm. They came across it through an off-market sales rep who only sold farmland, but later realized he had a plot that may be perfect for a vineyard. After the soil survey confirmed it was, he set the Quinn’s up with a farmer who went in on the purchase and subdivided with them, giving them the perfect sized 24 hectare plot they were after.

They planted the bottom 10 hectares first, in 2016, followed by 10 more up top in 2018. You won’t find any Sauvignon Blanc planted at Two Terraces. They’ve got Syrah and Chardonnay, not only because they’re varieties that thrive in the Bay, but because they’re personal favourites. Ian’s expanded to 5 different clones of Chardonnay now, after having had the opportunity to sample and compare them at the Villa Maria Winery. The Mendoza clone is one of Ian’s favourites, and although it’s not as high yielding, it tends to produce premium fruit, and that’s in line with their goals. They’ve also got Chenin Blanc and Gamay, chosen through the dreams of some Winemakers they aspired to collaborate with, as well as through their soil survey that revealed what would grow best in each section of the vineyard. They also have 5 hectares of Albariño planted. When I asked why they planted the bottom terrace first, Linda laughed and said, “because we can see it from the deck on the front of the house!” It’s the view that accompanies the well-earned Gin and Tonics at the end of a hard day. They enjoy looking out and appreciating their hard work and accomplishments.

With their fruit in high demand, they can be selective in who they work with, and as they look at the whole process as a partnership, they aim to develop medium to long term relationships. “You work with the Winemaker and your joint knowledge of what to do while growing evolves with each season. It’s getting better with time, and a lasting relationship.” Villa Maria has a contract for quite a bit of the Two Terraces fruit, and Ian and Linda describe the partnership as purely positive. They love working with the Villa team, and have been well supported with advice, machinery, and a great teamworking relationship. They also work with Rod and Emma Easthope, Kate Radburn, Smith and Sheth, Decibel Dan, Amoise, and Organized Chaos. They love the mix and variety of all their Winemaking partners.

Working with all these other small producers, and having access to great fruit, I wondered why Ian and Linda haven’t started their own small label. Ian explained how running the vineyard is what gives them their sense of satisfaction. There’s “so much to know. Pests and diseases. Soil health. Vines. Equipment. There’s more than enough scope for what we’re doing. It’s a good opportunity to work with Winemakers. We wouldn’t be able to achieve what we’re doing if we were trying to make our own wine, market and sell it. It would take the focus off the vineyard. If we really want to grow well, we can stay focused on that.” They have their priorities in line and their passions are clear; they have no missions to create their own label. Linda commented that “it gives us a much richer experience to work with amazing Winemakers. If we were making our own, we wouldn’t have [fruit] to sell to all these amazing people. If we did our own wine, it would just be us. Boring!”

One thing Ian loves about the Hawke’s Bay wine community is that “everyone works together and helps each other. There’s lots of sharing of knowledge and experience.” Linda added, “we work with some wonderful people.” Ian shares the sense of satisfaction he feels when the business of harvest season wraps up, and he looks into the vineyard and sees that all the fruit has gone. One of the most rewarding parts of their job is tasting the wines of each of their producers and experiencing how vastly unique they are. “We’re passionate about wine,” Ian explained. “It’s interesting to see the end product. We buy into what Winemakers want to do. We help in the vineyard to get to that end goal.” Linda added that right from the start of their business, “we had a vision of the type of people we wanted to work with and how we wanted to grow. We wanted to grow top notch fine wine. We haven’t varied from that.” Some have suggested they plant a few hectares of Sauvignon Blanc, because it’s a “cash cow. We said ‘no.’ We’ve stuck to that.” Linda recalled something a Winemaker had said about Two Terraces fruit coming into the winery last year, in that he noticed all the other Winemakers were crowding around to see it, commenting that they were jealous of the quality of the fruit he had to work with. She said, “if we can always produce grapes that make people excited to work with, that’s what we want to do.”

A typical day in the life of Ian and Linda begins well before 7.00am, and involves being out in the vineyard, with dog, Max, tagging along, although that’s about all that’s typical. Ian describes how the vineyard is so different seasonally, and the work they do is constantly changing. From pruning all winter in the cold, to dedicated soil health practices, tucking and leaf plucking in the spring and summer, and overseeing contracting crews most of the year, there’s always something to do. Ian and Linda are often visited by the Winemakers to see how their fruit is coming along, and host and participate in various events in the community to learn more. Ian works 7 days a week. He said, “post vintage we get a little bit of time,” and Linda quipped, “we haven’t had a holiday longer than 2 days in the last 5 years… oh, no, we did go away for 5 days once.”

Key practices for Ian and Linda revolve largely around what’s important to the Winemakers they’re working with, and around soil health. They believe greatly in taking care of the land. They’re conventional growers with the intention of converting to organic practices, a process they’ve already begun for some varietals. Ian uses organically based products like fish fertilizers and Mycorrcin, which helps foster the soil microbiology. They’ve planted Rosemary because it brings in bees and they have flowers every 10 rows to encourage insect populations. It’s important to the Quinn’s to be able to “share ideas and innovation, best practice and generally network” with others who are running vineyards. Because of this, Ian joined the Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers board at the end of 2017. One of the initiatives they have worked on is starting up HBVINE, a viticulture group for the region, where they can collaborate. The group has been working on how to best grow and ripen Syrah, the evolution of under-vine management and increasing biodiversity in vineyards. Ian recognizes that HBVINE “is a great way to get people together off the vineyards for everyone’s benefit, as well as give everyone an opportunity to catch up socially.”

Taking care of the vineyard on the daily falls largely to Ian and Linda, even though the Winemakers are involved. Ian explained that they do the work through to harvest, under the specifications of the Winemakers. They have a consultation at the beginning of the season and create a plan together of how to manage the fruit, and which rows will belong to whom. “Winemakers come in at key times and have a look. We agree on how to proceed.” Ian is responsible to hire contractors to assist with the manual labour. The Quinn’s have worked exclusively with the same contractor for 3 years, and they like to have certain workers back as “they see the process right through.” Ian wants to continue to work with his contractor because he trusts the people, and they’re ethical. Frost protection also falls to Ian and Linda. He explained that it’s a lot like farming, in that they sell their harvest once a year, and that’s when they get paid.

As you can imagine, starting a vineyard from scratch isn’t a problem free aspiration. Ian and Linda have faced their fair share of uphill battles, one huge one being the set-up of water to their site. They knew that having access to water was crucial to growing vines, so made sure to get the water rights in the land purchase arrangement. They had no idea however, that having rights to water didn’t necessarily mean there would be water on the property. It took them over 9 months, and drilling 4 different wells, all at their cost and frustration before they finally had to set up a system that draws from a gallery on the river flats. Ian mentioned how they “drilled fully expecting to get water, and it was naïve in retrospect.” The neighbours had water, so they assumed they would too. Throughout those tough 9 months, I asked if they ever felt defeated, and although Ian and Linda admit it was a discouraging time, they were uplifted by the support around them. Their neighbours pulled together and helped them with temporary access to water and power, and eventually, they found the solution they now use. It may not have been their original plan, but they didn’t give up.

Running a vineyard has given Ian a new respect for Mother Nature, and taught him not to stress about it too much. “Do everything you can possibly do to get ready for weather events. That’s all you can do. What will be will be.” Ian also looked back in hindsight and said, “if you knew everything that’s involved in starting a vineyard it might put you off. Sometimes it’s good not to know everything.”

Linda spoke of some technology they’ve invested in that tells them how much water is in each vine, so they know when to irrigate, and when to hold off. It’s been difficult to learn to trust their system, when it seems hot and dry out, and not to water. “You have to trust it. Take a leap of faith. Don’t water when you feel you should. It’s easier for someone new to trust what they’re learning. You’ve got to find a way to make those decisions because you don’t have the years of experience.”

Ian’s persistence is one of the main skills he’s valued since he joined this industry. “Things can get difficult. Stressful. You can wonder how to get to the end. Be persistent. It’s amazing what you can do if you’re persistent.” Ian recalled a colleague he worked with over the years, and a statement that was made that has stuck with him ever since. His colleague had said, “People often think you have a streak of brilliance [if you’re successful]. It’s not that. It’s persistence. It’s the last man standing. There’s lots of truth to that.” Ian also commented that when his persistence has paid off, it’s been “all the more satisfying.”

Ian and Linda spoke highly of his family, and how supportive they’ve been. “Nobody sat us down and said, ‘no, don’t do this.’” Linda explained how Ian’s parents “are very supportive. They have worked tirelessly. They travel and help. We couldn’t have done it without them.” They also spoke of many friends that have come to help them. They’ve appreciated and they acknowledge everyone who has helped them and continues to partner with them. Ian noted that “Villa lends machinery and sends people to help out. It’s a big company, but it’s a real personal partnership.” Ian added, “we’ve had support from so many people. So many have given time and experience, completely willingly. It’s an amazing industry and region from that perspective.”

After everything they’ve experienced so far, and all the hard work, Ian and Linda hold true to the fact that it’s all been worth it. Ian described how “it’s incredibly satisfying to grow a product. In the past, I’ve always sold products. Now I’m producing something entirely of my own labour. I work outside, and it might have been a hard day’s work but at the end of the day, it’s a good place to relax!”

They have found that the old adage is true: “you only live once.” They’ve taken the risk to make the most of their lives, and they’ve got no regrets about their decision.

To learn more about Two Terraces and to keep up with the adventures of Ian, Linda and Max, follow them on Instagram @twoterracesvineyard.

The Decibel Story; How A Glass of Wine Lead to A Move Across the World

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Daniel Brennan, or “Decibel Dan” as he’s better known, was born in Syracuse, New York, and raised near Philadelphia. He is one of 5 children in a Catholic family, and with his mother having ties to Europe and Italy, plus the family diner, Sicilian food and wine culture was his normal.

His Great Aunt and Uncle owned a beer and shot bar in what Dan describes as “a rough hood.” He says, “I remember going as a kid at 10.00am, and it was packed from the night shift workers. It was busy all day and all night.” Dan’s Uncle, who had been living in France, returned to the States when Dan was 16. At the time, his Great Aunt and Uncle were looking to sell the bar, so his parents and uncle purchased it together and transformed it into an Irish Pub featuring Mediterranean cuisine. Dan began working there, at McCrossens Tavern, and dabbled in almost every role, from dishwasher, to front of house, working in the kitchen and bar tending. McCrossens exposed him to quality made beers and wines, and Dan sunk into the cosmopolitan environment of the city. Dan’s first memorable experiences with wine follow a common thread: Martinborough Pinot Noir. He tried a Palliser Estate, a Dry River and a Martinborough Vineyards Pinot Noir, and he says he can still feel the experience of the wines stopping him in his tracks, making him think, “what was that?”

When I asked Dan what some of his other favourite wines are, he responded with, “Italian whites.” The reason is because “they’re so good at it.” He mentioned they’ve been making many styles of wines for thousands of years, across so many regions. “There are a billion varietals; it’s almost a cop out,” he said as he laughed. He recalls drinking an Italian wine across 4 days and noticing that it got better every day. “It made me reconsider everything I was doing. They thought about it as a different kind of drink. It was way too good to be an accident.”

After he graduated high school, Dan went on to study Political Science and Philosophy at The Catholic School of America in D.C. Although Dan’s study aligned with his interest in Philosophy, Politics and History, life eventually led him to another industry, and it wasn’t wine just yet. A childhood friend of Dan’s sent him the first CD he’d produced with his band and asked if Dan would help organize a bar gig for them. He agreed, and it proved both enjoyable and successful; he was asked to organize again the following year, and then eventually to manage the band. He managed Seeking Homer for 6 years, touring North America with them until he was 27 years old. Dan came away from that experience with some amazing memories; the band played with big names like Maroon 5, but also some of Dan’s “musical heroes,” Levon Helm, David Johansen, Richie Havens, David Byrne and Ryan Adams.

Eventually, touring life took its toll on everyone, and with the increasing popularity of sites like Napster, the landscape of selling albums changed. Dan transitioned back home, and began working part time at McCrossens while studying in Philly. He got into WSET courses, and doing beer and wine tastings, but wanted to leave hospitality, due to the unsustainable lifestyle. He decided to go to wine school, brush up on his chemistry and read anything wine related he could get his hands on. His research drew him to both cool climate and up-and-coming regions. Dan commented on the impression that having his Uncle live in France had left with him. “The idea that your Uncle lives in France says to you, ‘well I can do that.’ It opens your world.” With that little nudge of inspiration towards an international life, and Dan’s ongoing relationship with New Zealand Pinot Noir, he knew where he had to go to pursue his wine passions. It was 2008 when he arrived in New Zealand, and although he moved to the country because of Martinborough Pinot Noir, he settled in Hawke’s Bay to attend EIT for Wine Science. Ironically, he notes “I moved to Hawke’s Bay without having tasted a wine from there. I’ll never forget the bus ride into Napier thinking it sure was smaller.”

Dan’s purpose in New Zealand was clear, so it’s not surprising that he wasted no time in starting his label. He purchased grapes in 2009, and had the concept of Decibel in his mind, aiming to produce New Zealand’s famous Sauvignon Blanc, and one you may not expect, Malbec. His nickname, that ultimately inspired his label, “Decibel Dan” grew out of his signature when he was managing the band. He used to spend time with the sound crew before every show, and would sign off with his initials, dB. dB was already taken as a label, but fortunately, the simple yet significant word he now uses was available, and Decibel was created.

Even though he didn’t originally plan on being in Hawke’s Bay, he’s come to love it for simple reasons, like the fact that it’s the second largest region in the country, a great place to live near the ocean, and that it suits him more than Martinborough would have. More importantly, he recognizes how special the Hawke’s Bay is as a wine producing region. “It’s a great place to learn how to make wine because we do so many great wines well. Other places don’t give you the exposure.” Although he will always love Martinborough Pinot, Dan comments how “we make everything else here. Aromatic whites, big reds. I think it’s the best place in the world to make wine.”

He’s put his time in working in the Bay, with planning weddings and restaurant work at Te Awa in 2008, where he was fortunate to work alongside Jenny Dobson in the winery here and there. He did his first vintage at Te Awa that year. In 2009 he did vintage at Vidal, and says it was not high tech, but “hard work. You had to think on your feet.” From 2010 to 2013, he was the Assistant Winemaker at Unison, and then moved onto Assistant Winemaker at Paritua from 2013 to 2017. He was running Decibel along the way, always doing Malbec, and some vintages of Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. Dan’s not one to add anything to his wines, like acid or sugars, and that’s another reason why he loves making wine in the Hawke’s Bay. “We have natural acidity; typically, we don’t have to add acid and that’s a great start. We don’t have to add sugar either.”

Hawke’s Bay is now home to his family. Dan met his partner, Mara, at one of his famous “Kiwi’s Giving Dinners” in May 2012, that he holds in honour of American Thanksgiving. One of his friends sent him a text right before the dinner asking if she could bring her friend along. Dan agreed, and when he met Mara, he describes their connection as being “instant.” They have a five-year-old daughter, Cecila, named after the Patron Saint of Music, and pronounced in the Italian way, who they endearingly call “Chechy.” They have plans to get married in Italy when they’re able.

Dan’s got a few different labels within his company. Under the Decibel label, you will now find 5 single vineyard wines, including a Martinborough Pinot and a Malbec. His label Giunta, after his grandmother’s maiden name, features 3 young and fresh wines, one of which is a Nouveau style Malbec, and then, there’s Testify.

The birth of Testify came with an exceptional parcel of 2016 Malbec. He put it in a new puncheon, and neutral barriques, and recalls its purity of fruit. Dan said it was so special, he knew it had to be a new label. The name has roots in a song by one of his favourite bands, The Band, founded by Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm. The band also happened to finish in the same year Dan was born. They were largely influential to him for most of his life and have produced one of his favourite albums of all time. One of Robbie Robertson’s solo albums features a song called “Testimony”. He’s named his wine after the song because to him, it represents the testimony of the quality of that wine. “I put my hand on my heart. It’s my best effort. I put my name on it. I promise you, this is my best. I won’t make it if it’s not up to crack. And that’s fine.” For the Testify label, Dan only focuses on the best appellations that have a story to be told. It is a label that is close to his heart. The Testify line features a Gimblett Gravels Malbec/Merlot blend, a Martinborough Pinot Noir, and a Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay.

Malbec isn’t one of the main varietals that comes to mind when most people think of New Zealand wine, so why did Dan go with a Malbec right from the start, and why does he still include it in all 3 of his labels? “I’ve always loved it. It has a similar acid and flavour profile as Syrah, yet it’s easier to grow. With a learning curve and effort, it can grow well. I think I’ve proven a point. Great wine can be made from Malbec. Gordon Russel has proven that. It’s inherently more interesting than Merlot. It’s got plush juiciness, colour, tannin and acid. It’s a fun thing to make every year.”

Dan sources his roughly 80 tonnes of fruit from a few different vineyards in Hawke’s Bay and Martinborough. He works with several growers and has been consistent with some of them since 2011. He uses organic fruit and wants to support organic growers in the Bay. Part of the reason for that is because he’s learned to “take a breath. Let’s do it right. What we’re doing affects our life and everyone’s. Have some perspective.” He dreams of having a biodynamic home and hopes that more growers will move in that direction. “Organics is important. It makes sense. I can’t believe other people don’t go that route. People think it’s an easy path to not go organic. I get it; it can be scary, but it doesn’t make sense to me any other way. I’m not dogmatic about the way you do it. It just seems crazy not to. Why would you think you can do it better than the great designer has done it? It’s tapping into the right way. It goes back to music. I left myself open to writing that song. Conventional is not leaving themselves open to the possibilities. Nature can manage better than us. It’s scary, but we have to let nature take its course.” He refers to conventional vineyard practices, and says, “I wouldn’t want my kid around it.”

Giunta Chenin Blanc sourced from
Two Terraces Vineyard

Although only 60% of Decibel is exported now (due to an amazing local distributor) Dan started his label in an uncommon position, as a 100% export label. If you remember his connections, he just so happened to have one main client lined up in the States, his family restaurant. He’s thrilled that his wine is selling in New Zealand now, but he also loves the unique opportunity he has to share his wine back home. “The best is when I get a message from someone I grew up with or knew from the past. People I have no idea who they are, saying ‘I just tasted this wine and it’s delicious,’ and they’re putting it online. Someone in Brooklyn saying it’s awesome. I’m the guy that gets to bring Hawke’s Bay Malbec to America? That blows my mind. I get to, through the wine, tell people on the other side of the world that there’s this cool place called Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand.”

Dan being Dan in the vineyard!

Dan’s been challenged along the way, in finding fruit that’s up to what he’s looking for. Additionally, he speaks of the all too familiar financial and marketing challenges that many boutique producers face, and says he wishes EIT taught more on business. Although he’s been on the receiving end of great advice from fellow producers through the years, he was unaware going into his label just how financially challenging it could be. It took him 10 years to be able to make the jump into doing solely Decibel, and he wishes there was “bigger dialogue about how much cash is tied up in your wine.” Pinot Noir, his first love, also keeps him up at night. He’s still passionate about the difficult to grow variety, and often finds himself wondering what he’s going to do with it.

Wine life has given Dan a harvest of inspirational lessons. First, he told me, “just do it. Most of the time they’re not going to stop you.” How true of life; sometimes we just need to take that risk that most of us are too afraid to take. Secondly, he has learned to “live life by the season. Have a flow to the year. When it’s time to relax, relax.” Dan described his Catholic upbringing and agreed that he does have traditional roots in a sense. “Friends, social, family, we’re part of something much bigger. I have no idea what it is, but there’s something cosmic about it.” He talked about how he loves the busy season of harvest, but says, “there is receipt for that. There’s a natural flow to it. Flow, seasons, it’s all cyclical and natural. That was not part of my life in New York or Philly; it was go go go. There wasn’t a rhythm. It’s so important to slow down. Some people don’t have a flow, and it’s easy to get lost. It’s good to have boundaries.” He also loves the comradery in the industry and speaks highly of the Hawke’s Bay wine community. “It’s the people. Talking about all of the things we do. We’re in it together; talk through it. There’s not a point of making wine in isolation.”

Music has always been a meaningful part of Dan’s life, and he credits a few important business lessons to his time managing the band. “I released a couple studio albums with them. It primed me for the idea of getting a wine finished and put out.” Through those experiences, he understood that “it makes sense to take your time and get it right. It’s a captured moment in time. People go on about the parallels of music and wine. The real part is the art and craft. Some are great artists. Some great song writers. Some are both. It’s the same in the wine industry. Some are technical winemakers. Some are artistic. Some have both.” Dan explains that sometimes, wines may not be considered technically right by certain critics but believes that more importantly, they should be loved when they’re consumed. “That’s what I prefer; it should be like song writing.”

When I asked Dan if it’s all worth it, he responded with, “I don’t have a choice. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

To learn more or purchase Decibel wines, visit https://www.decibelwines.com or follow on Instagram @decibelwines.

The Organised Chaos Story; Breaking the Boutique Wine Mould

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Hayden Penny is the owner and Winemaker of Organised Chaos, a brand that started quite differently to most others. Contradictory to many boutique producers I’ve met, Hayden took some coaxing in order to start his label. More on that later; first, let’s get to know Hayden a bit.

Hayden is the second eldest in a family of five kids. He was born in Paeroa, which he explained for the non-Kiwis in the room as the famous town known through the soda, L&P. He was 8 years old when his parents moved the family to Hawke’s Bay. Because Hayden has a serious interest in sports and couldn’t stand the thought of working in an office, he chose to pursue physiotherapy. He went to Dunedin for Uni, and was recruited onto the Dunedin Rugby Football Club, which ended up keeping him in Dunedin, even after deciding physiotherapy wasn’t for him. He was eventually offered a contract to play Rugby in Dunfermline, Scotland and played a season over there, at the time unaware that the country would later have a sweet significance in his life.

While in Dunedin, he met Bryce Edmonds of Zaria Wines, who offered him work on his family’s vineyard in Hawke’s Bay over the holidays; that turned into an annual job for three years. That time brought to light Hayden’s passion for the vineyard, so he decided to enter EIT. He had unfortunately missed the entrance date that year, so he worked on a farm doing a table grape harvest in Bourke, Aussie in the meantime. He then came back to NZ in 2003 to go to EIT; he remembered his passion for being in Bryce’s family vineyard, and his experience on the farm had given him more familiarity with it. For these two reasons, he was most interested in the Viticulture side of the program. He comments, “I hadn’t really drank much wine other than cask wine at Uni, but thought, ‘why not? I’ll enroll in both of them,’” and signed up for Wine Science too. It didn’t go so well at the start though.

“First tasting class, we all sat down and all the wines came out. Everyone else is saying ‘bubble gum this and spice in that,’ and I thought, ‘that’s not what it tastes like or smells like at all to me. This is not for me. It’s too hard out.’ I went to talk to the lecturer and said, ‘I’m going to pull out. I don’t get those flavors and aromas. I was getting this and this, so I’m obviously wrong.’ He said that the thing with wine is everyone is different. You can’t be wrong. If you smell that and taste that then that’s what it tastes like, other than faults.’ I was learning that wine is this thing that is so social yet it’s so personal as far as the aroma and the flavor profiles. From then on it gave me the confidence to say what I smell and taste.”
Hayden Penny

With those critical lessons learned, Hayden stuck with it and went on to graduate first in his class for Viticulture, and second for Winemaking. He won an EIT scholarship to go to Italy, the Romeo Bragato Exchange, and while there he was often told by people in the vineyards not to try the grapes because of the sprays on them and the withholding period until they were safe. He says, “after that, I knew I wanted to work organically.” Hayden comments about Italy that, “on that trip I was introduced to skin fermented wines, which has become a real thing for me.” He now sits on the interview panel to determine the student who receives that same scholarship. After graduating, Hayden did some “season hopping,” as he describes it, to gain exposure to different ways of doing things. He tried to work for as many organic producers as he could, but says that in order to fund his travel, he had to work for “the big guys” as well; it was all experience none the less.

Meanwhile, Hayden’s wife Tarryn was growing up in her native country of Scotland. In her early 20s, she decided to leave Scotland and see a bit of the world. She ended up in New Zealand, and made some lasting friends, one of whom happened to be Hayden’s cousin, Shelley. Later, when Tarryn was back in the U.K., Shelley came to visit. As fate would have it, Hayden was visiting his brother in London. Shelley asked both Tarryn and Hayden to come out for dinner one night, and due to a long day of beer and cricket, Tarryn almost cancelled! Thankfully, she didn’t, because she and Hayden hit it off right away, and have been a couple ever since. Although their relationship has consisted of lots of long distance, they stayed committed to each other and eventually bought their house, finally moving in together in 2011. They had their son, Otis, in 2016. Hayden is a huge fan of the Bay and says that other than his family being here, “in all of the regions I’ve worked in, I couldn’t see myself getting behind the styles they were making other than Hawke’s Bay.” His 15 year old daughter, Carys, also lives here, so being in the Bay is a win win.

Hayden had done 20 vintages for other people before he started his own label, and he comments, “I don’t wish I had done it sooner. It came at a good time.” He says, “it always made me laugh when people at EIT would graduate and say, ‘yeah, I’m a Winemaker.’ I never felt like that. It takes 10 or 15 vintages to know what you’re doing. I’ve learned so much through working for other people, and you’re always learning. Even if it’s something you definitely don’t want to do, you’re still learning.” He has held positions like Assistant Winemaker at Te Awa in 2006 and 2007, and has done vintages in Calistoga, the Yarra Valley, Marlborough, Spain and Bulgaria. He returned to NZ to take up the role of Winemaker and Viticulturist at William Murdoch in 2010. In 2013 he was working at William Murdoch, and Supernatural Wine Co. approached him to see if he’d make wines for them; he stayed on at Murdoch while making wines for Supernatural in 2013 and 2014. When Supernatural offered for him to make the change full time in 2015 to make the wine, and run the vineyards, he happily obliged. With them being the biggest skin ferment producer in the country, the first producer of a Pet Nat Sauv Blanc, and a big Pet Nat producer, the job was right up his alley. Ironically, he and Tarryn were married at the same vineyard, before he joined the team.

Hayden is still at Supernatural, so how did Organised Chaos come about? His achievements were recognized by Kemp Fine Wines, a boutique wine distributor, who approached him to see if he could fill some gaps in their portfolio. They desired to add a small producer, who could make Hawke’s Bay wines with care and attention; they wanted the wines to be fruit forward, pleasing to the palate, and ready to drink now. Over several conversations with Kemp, and Tarryn, Hayden had to decide if this was something he wanted to do. It’s not necessarily his “passion project” like so many other Winemakers have in the Bay, but he realized that “the hardest thing to do is sell wine when you’re starting a label,” and he had the sales people coming to him. All he had to do was make it.

He was unwilling to compromise his personal philosophy and knew that the wine would have to be something he was proud to put his name on, so through multiple chats with Kemp, they came to an agreement, and Organised Chaos became a reality. “For me, it’s an expression of me. I’m not going to squeeze margins. I’m not in wine for a business. I’m in wine because I love growing and making wine.” Hayden describes the wines as a “fresh, vibrant and textural expression of a modern-day Hawke’s Bay.” Tarryn says when they discussed the label they realized, “we can do this with integrity and to Hayden’s beliefs.” Hayden comments, “I always thought when I introduced a label it would be organic and blah blah. At the end of the day, we haven’t got any leg up or land or anything. Maybe I can do a passion project further down the line. We can’t do it now, but we also can’t do it if we sit in our 9 to 5’s either. We have to take a risk and try something.”

2019 was the first vintage of this very new label, and Hayden made 2 tonnes of each. He’s adding a Gamay Noir, and possibly Chenin Blanc this year, so he’ll produce 8-10 tonnes in 2020. The Gamay and Chenin will come from the Two Terraces Vineyard in Maraekakaho. Stylistically, the wines are made to be “fruit forward, with not much winemaker influences. They’re all stainless steel fermented, with not much oak influence. Hawke’s Bay [in general] is pretty heavy on the oak. They’re released on the 14th of October from that vintage, and I want them drinking well then, [in a] super fresh and super vibrant fruity style.”

The labels represent the name beautifully. Every label has an edgy, black and white design of its own pattern. They’re similar, yet different. The whites feature horizontal lines, and the reds have verticals. To show organised chaos on the 2-dimensional label, they used designs inspired by Franco Grigani, an Italian optical artist. The logo is “creating chaos but using straight lines; it’s a play with angles.” The name is from a memory Hayden has of working in the vineyard at William Murdoch one very complicated vintage. He remembers saying, “this is just organised chaos.” He had suggested Murdoch use it as a secondary label at the time, but in hindsight, Hayden’s grateful they turned it down.

Hayden is stylistically most proud of the Syrah, because it was the biggest challenge. Organised Chaos Syrah is light, fresh, and fruit forward. The pepper comes as a secondary, well-integrated component. Hayden uses the MS clone, which is “superior” in his opinion. The most shocking trait of his Syrah though, is that it’s a 2019, and we’re already drinking it. It was released in October of 2019.

Releasing a Syrah in the same year it was harvested has lead to Hayden receiving more than his fair share of criticism. “’Oh you can’t do that,’ people say. Well why? Who’s making that rule? I’ve got my distributor saying people want this style.” I must admit that I too was skeptical of what a 2019 Syrah would taste like before I tried it, but I was pleasantly surprised and couldn’t wait to share it with my wine loving friends. Hayden has truly had an uphill battle with the naysayers with this wine, but his attitude about it is inspirational. “To me, it was a personal challenge. Everyone says you can’t. I thought I’d try it and see. Hawke’s Bay has the traditional wines already. I want to do something different. Push the boundaries slightly, but why not? Where are the boundaries? Who sets the boundaries? Stylistically it’s so different. It was a roll of the dice to go that way. I was fairly confident I could get it ready on time.”

He really enjoyed seeing people’s reactions to it being a 2019, and then positive responses after trying it. He comments that “on launch day, people were genuinely intrigued.” He loved “seeing the reaction of people enjoying it and loving the brand,” but clarifies that he’s proud of all the wines. Tarryn says that she’s been “blown away by the support of friends and family and word of mouth through colleagues, etc. It makes me proud that people genuinely love the wines.” Hayden says he’s not a huge believer in shows and awards, but the wines have been recognized by Steven Wong and Bob Campbell.

Hayden has faced challenges other than just how his young Syrah is perceived. He explains, “natural wine gets slugged off all the time by conventional producers. We don’t do it the other way. You do what you want to do and I will too. There’s this negativity towards the natural wine sector. There is some hatred for it.” He found that in creating a young Syrah, people saw him to be “breaking tradition with the vintage thing. Breaking the mould,” but mentions, “I haven’t even found that a problem really because it’s been made for that. There’s not one type of person it appeals to. This is targeted at anyone that’s just keen to try something different, or fun wines.”

As for the winemaking philosophy for Organised Chaos, Hayden quotes, “these wines are a celebration of the chaos that is, and a tip of the cap to the chaos that was. They are a reflection of the moments, inspirations and influences, of my journey throughout the world of wine-growing, organised into my personal expression of the wines that Hawke’s Bay does best.” I love and identify so much with Hayden’s life philosophy and how he believes that “things don’t have to be as they’re told they have to be. What’s wrong with embracing imperfection? Who dictates perfection?” He doesn’t label them as organic or natural but makes them as naturally as he can. He uses yeast for the whites for “purity of fruit and to keep them fresh,” and minimal sulphur is the only addition. The wines are “styled to be enjoyable for everyone.” The more I spoke with Hayden, the more I realized how creative and artistic he is; he is confident to take risks and use his ingenuity to go against the grain, regardless of critics, and that is inspiring.

Organised Chaos’ fruit comes from two key producers in Hawke’s Bay. The Pinot Gris is from the Petane vineyards. Hayden met Philip through making wine at Askerne, and Philip had brought him on as a consultant. As they worked together, Hayden respected what he saw in Philip’s growing philosophy. When choosing fruit for Organised Chaos, he knew he loved Petane’s Pinot Gris, and wanted to stay away from the big, popular microclimates of Hawke’s Bay and champion for the minor ones, like Esk Valley. Hayden explains, “the beauty of Hawke’s Bay is the huge variety that we have. Why can’t we champion that? Why do we have to have our ‘Marlborough Sauv?’ That’s a cop out. If we explored the Hawke’s Bay regions more, each has amazing things that should be highlighted in them if they’d have the right things planted.” The Chardonnay and Syrah come from Pieter Koopman’s Hopes Grove vineyard in the Pakipaki area of the Havelock Hills. This region, another minor one in the Bay, is another Hayden wants to champion for because of its limestone soils; he admires the particular aspect of Pieter’s vineyard, as well as the organic growing techniques he follows.

The vineyards that supply the fruit are, not surprisingly, very important to Hayden. “I don’t find speaking about them hard. I know them inside and out. I use environmentally focused growers. I feel good about that. It’s working with those smaller growers. It’s slightly tougher because the grapes are more expensive, but I’m okay with that. I’d much rather have the full story of the grapes being from Petane and Hopes Grove than that I bought them off the bulk market. I have the freedom to hand pick when I want and get the fruit that I want. I can’t cut corners. I need to keep a relationship with the growers to keep the integrity of the wine.”

Hayden makes the wine at Hawke’s Bay Wine Company and goes in to taste it every single day through harvest. That’s right; he’s there seven days a week, every week, back and forth from the vineyard for his full-time job. He says, “the wine industry is not as glamorous as a lot of people think. Admin is also of the not so glamorous side of things. Spreadsheets. If you’re in the wine industry you can spreadsheet!”

Being largely passionate for the vineyard, I wondered why he became a Winemaker and Viticulturist, rather than pursuing the vineyard route alone. He regaled me with a story of a time when he realized he knew so little after graduating, other than the basics. “I was sitting with Jenny [Dobson] and in passing conversation, I asked, ‘how do you choose which blocks go through malo and which don’t?’ Two hours later we were still talking coppers and this and that. It’s amazing that she knows that, but that’s for that vineyard and those yeast. You go next door and it’s different again. There’s the concept of it being this endless spectrum of input from fruit growing conditions, Winemaker, etc. I was intrigued with it ever since.” He also explains how wine-making is art to him. “I’m a bit of a chemistry nerd and what goes on is incredible. Ten Winemakers can be given the same grapes and come out with different wine. That’s artistic; it’s maybe not from a wine lover’s point of view, but it intrigued me. Through that intrigue, it taught me to love it.”

Hayden has learned a lot from his experience in the industry. His biggest lessons are that “wine can be personal as well as sociable.” He gives the advice to “back yourself. You have to back yourself in a tasting environment.” He has learned to “not sweat nature. You can complain all you want but at the end of the day it’s out of your control. Mother Nature is just a beast and you’ve got to hold on for the ride.” He says about his career, “I certainly never knew I’d be doing this but I’m loving it. It’s the perfect balance of science, growing and being outdoors, sales, chat. It’s pretty cool when you can be driving a tractor one day and in Auckland the next holding dinner over a tasting. Variety scares a lot of people, but I’ve had some of my best ideas sitting in a tractor.”

He says without hesitation that starting Organised Chaos has been worth it. “The hardest thing was doing it this way, and leaving the passion project for another day.” Kemp wasn’t offering him a “vanity project,” but a “business opportunity.” He says, “it’s a totally different way of thinking about your own label.” Hayden’s humility shone through during our conversation; even though it came about in a way he didn’t expect, he seized the opportunity, took the challenges head on, and now produces wines and a label he is very proud of. He has proven that he can more than meet the specifications set out to him for the label and make well priced wine that people enjoy, with fruit sourced from high quality vineyards. Most importantly, he’s proven that he can rise above the challenges and doubts of others and do all the above with integrity to release a product that’s true to what he believes is right. I highly encourage you to try one of Hayden Penny’s Organised Chaos wines as soon as you get the chance!

To purchase Organised Chaos, head to their website, www.organisedchaos.co.nz, or find them on Instagram @organisedchaosnz. They also have a wine club, #jointhechaos where you can receive the wines regularly for 15% off and free freight. Great Little Vineyards and Kemp Fine Wines in Auckland distribute the label and there’s some on-premise places you may see it as well.

So cheers to trying something new and enjoying the Organised Chaos.

The Hancock & Sons Story: Creating Family Legacy Through Wine

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John Hancock grew up on a farm in Australia, that although in the Coonawara wine region, had nothing to do with wine. His parents gained interest in wine only once John entered the industry. One day, John was on his daily commute into the town school, when he began browsing some books on the bus, and as fate would have it, he came across a book about how to make wine at home. Intrigued, he decided to give making fruit wine a go. John finished his high school years at a boarding school, where he happened upon a chemistry teacher who shared about his hobby of making mead. Still fascinated by the process of fermenting, John began making cider from apples he took from the school dinner tables. He joked that he had a “semi commercial operation of slightly sparkling cider!” His business of slightly sparkling cider lead to a fully sparkling passion to make wine; after graduating, he enrolled at Roseworthy College, Australia’s first agricultural college, founded in the late 1880s. Although agriculturally based, Roseworthy offered a winemaking component, and their website still boasts that many of the best-known names in winemaking have passed through their doors. John went straight to work upon graduation, and as of 2020, he has done an amazing fifty vintages, with seven in Australia, two in France, and forty-one in New Zealand.

In 1972, John did his first harvest in the Barossa. He described how different it was to today’s industry. “There were lots of people there forever, forking grapes off a truck for ten hours a day. There was no way of tipping. You would smoke and drink as much as you wanted to. It wouldn’t happen these days! We would spend three or four hours plunging Barossa Cab and Shiraz. You could bloody walk across the top of it.” John went on to describe the astronomical gap in quality he’s witnessed in his fifty years. “You don’t want to know how wine was made back then. They would add almost anything: sugar or water to skins and ferment and add more, etc. to make different wines or fortified wine. They would turn over a ton of grapes four times. The fruit was terrible. We were processing more than the whole of New Zealand at that time, seven thousand ton a day of grapes. Brandy and spirits and fortified wines were big. The guy who was head winemaker had a philosophy that above ten degrees, it all went to distillation.” John just laughed as he told this story and said, “now we know different.”

In 1979, Jim Delegat had posted a winemaker job for advertisement in Australia, and John applied. Jim drove to Berri to interview him and ended up offering him an eighteen-month contract that brought John over to New Zealand. John has fond memories of Jim, who “paid for a ten-week trip around Europe with my partner to learn the wine industries. Just fantastic. Delegat was making less than one thousand ton a year at that time.” He commented that he “loved working there because I had free creative reign to try new things,” and as we know, it’s experiences that foster some of the best learning. John did four harvests for Delegat, before helping to start Morton Estate. There, he implemented the practice of commercial barrel fermentation of Chardonnay, as one of the first places to do it in Australasia. He had been to Burgundy during the harvest of 1981 and witnessed it there. He remembers thinking it was “really bizarre” but saw it work; he came back to New Zealand and slowly edged his way into it, becoming slightly known for it. For example, Delegat won their first gold medal for Chardonnay in 1981, with their 1982 Chard winning Wine of the Show at the precursor to the Air NZ Wine Awards in 1983. It was at Morton where John made his first barrel fermented Chardonnay, their Black Label Chardonnay. He had wanted to be a winemaker since that childhood bus ride and was finally living that dream. “I have never done any other job and don’t want to. It’s too late now,” he joked.

He is also the founder of the well-known winery and wine brand in New Zealand, Trinity Hill. He was in London in 1987 at Bleeding Heart Restaurant, and ran into some friends, who believed in him as a winemaker and said to him, “look, if you’d like to start something on your own, we’d like to invest.” He spent years searching for the ideal vineyard sites and had some great experiences with the Gimblett Gravels. In 1993, he said, “let’s do it,” and bought the land. In 1994, he planted Trinity Hill’s first vineyards, leaning largely on Bordeaux varietals for blends, and the ever popular Hawke’s Bay Syrah. John is no longer involved with the brand today, but it was a large part of his career to which he owes much experience.

Hancock & Sons was founded in November of 2017. John’s got two sons; he points out that only Willy is involved with the business right now, but it’s called Hancock & Sons because he’s got them both, and the door is always open to either of them to be involved. The fruit for this label specifically comes from the Bridge Pa Triangle, and not the Gravels, as in John’s opinion, that’s where you need to be in Hawke’s Bay to produce great Chardonnay. He’s formed a lot of relationships in fifty years, so going into this label, he already knew who he wanted to source fruit from. He keeps a small number of growers, and commented, “I’ve known them for a long time and I know good growers.” He wanted to produce Hancock & Sons in Hawke’s Bay, because he’s had “quite interesting experience with fruit from Hawke’s Bay and I think it’s quite good!”

You’ll find three wines in the Handcock & Sons portfolio, a Rosé, Chardonnay and a Cabernet Franc. The Rosé is made from Cab Franc, not Merlot, and they have done nothing to change its natural colour. The label and name of the Rosé, the inaugural Hancock & Sons wine, represent the legacy from which the family came. John’s great great grandparents migrated to South Australia from Cornwall on a ship called “Lillies.” Willy explained that “coincidentally at the time of harvest, there were lilies in the vineyard where we got our fruit.” The Hancock’s wanted their first wine to be one that many could appreciate and enjoy, not something for a niche market, hence their debut with Lillies Rosé. You’ll find their family crest on all their wines, representing John’s history in the industry and the family legacy. After all, John started Hancock & Sons to be about family and legacy, with the intention of leaving it to the boys. Trinity Hill wasn’t suitable for that, as he was in partnership with other investors; Hancock & Sons is a small label that’s just for them.

As for the winemaking philosophies they hold, they’ve blended new world with a bit of old-world knowledge. John speaks of working with a viticulturist from Burgundy, who used to “taste the fruit from top to bottom… and taste through all the barrels. He would open bottles from all over the world. Fantastic guy.” John learned from him to try everything, and to be open minded. John also notes that “we’ve both done harvests in France. That’s had an influence on the way I’ve approached wines. Rhone. Paul Jaboulet. I admired La Chapelle’s top Syrah. Trinity Hill Homage was made with that in mind. He gave us cuttings of Syrah and Viognier to bring back to New Zealand.”

Willy was born in 1993, the year Trinity Hill was being built up, giving him mainly childhood memories of family life at the vineyard and winery. He says fondly, “I grew up at Trinity Hill.” His first memories are when the winery was being built in 1996 for the 1997 harvest. He remembers Tip, the dog, and getting to help with “little jobs here and there.” It wasn’t until the end of high school though, that Willy decided to make his own way in the industry. “You’ll never make any money in the wine industry. Be a lawyer,” John says he had advised Willy. Willy just responded with, “You always seem to have a lot of fun though!” Willy continued, “Dad always said ‘don’t get into wine. You won’t have money.’ I guess what I saw is that you can have a lot of fun. The places you end up travelling to are invariably beautiful and you meet amazing people.”

Willy worked in the Trinity Hill Cellar Door, and at a restaurant, The Don, that his godparents owned in London as an Assistant Sommelier. He recalls them having four to five hundred bottles from all around the world on their wine list. “You get to taste everything. Huge amount of wines you can’t try in New Zealand.” He’d been on a two-year Working Holiday Visa for the U.K. and when it ran out, he wasn’t ready to leave. “There was a college for winemaking in the U.K., and I thought, ‘should I give it a go? Should I not?’ I studied for three years over there.” He then went through California and worked for Bob Linquist at a place in the Central Coast Valley growing Rhone varieties. He was provided with a car and house, as well as wine in exchange for getting no pay. After, he got in touch with Craig Thomas at Church Road in Hawke’s Bay, and landed a harvest job there, working on the front end as a Harvest Supervisor in 2019. Willy said about Church Road, “I loved working there. They have a great crew.” He’s chosen to continue his career in the industry, and notes “there was never any pressure [from his Dad]. If anything, there was the opposite! Do what you want to do. But this is what I want to do.” One of the rewards Willy has already experienced is the many relationships built in this industry, as well as “building bridges. Getting invited back to a place is pretty cool.”

One of the challenges they’ve have had to overcome relates to sales. “To have the time with a full-time day job to do the bits and pieces that need to be done,” has been hard work. John currently works at Moana Park, where he also produces Hancock & Sons, and Willy is a Cellarhand at Hawke’s Bay Wine Company. Their full time jobs require them to be creative to meet their goal to sell directly to the consumer as much as possible. There are some retailers outside of the Bay that sell their wines, but it’s important to John to keep this label small. “I don’t want to get too big,” he said, as he knows where that leads. “I’ve done the big business thing. If you own vineyards and a winery you never make any money.” Size is less important than the success of the business that’s to be the legacy he leaves to his sons.

An additional challenge is the way consumers buy, as John explained. “It’s so trend driven, the wine industry. People want to drink something else. So you dig it out and plant new, but it’s three years before you can make the wines and try to sell them. If you want to plant something that doesn’t exist in New Zealand at the moment, you have to bring it in from Europe, do the quarantine, etc. From the time you have the brainwave to do it, it’s ten years.” By then, the trend has shifted, and people want something else; or do they? Willy’s learned that “people are fickle. We don’t know what we want and if we do, we can’t articulate it. We’re not prepared to pay what we need to pay for what we want. You go to Cellar Doors and talk to people. They don’t know what they want. They think they like something but don’t actually know.” John added that he “underestimated how little wines at $35 actually sell. At least 80% of wines that are sold have been under $20.”

He’s learned that there is a sizable gap between making wine that is an art form to the winemaker, and making wine that consumers actually want to drink. “Wines with minerality; the average person who drinks a wine doesn’t care. “There’s a generation that hasn’t gotten into wine yet. They’ll get into it. We have to incorporate the millennials and make wine that people are going to drink.” Over the course of John’s career he’s learned an invaluable lesson. “I used to think if we’ve made wines that I like, then people are going to like them too. But now I’ve changed that. We’ve learned that we have to think about what other people like too.”

In watching the evolution of the industry in the last fifty years, John was able to comment on some new challenges for up and coming winemakers. In his day, “you had to complete two harvests and get a good report at Roseworthy before you could graduate.” With the increase of wine’s popularity and prestige, many people are entering the industry with naivety. He says, “everyone wants to be a winemaker,” but cautions, “do a harvest before you go to school. It’s not glamorous. I’ve been involved with designing three wineries now.” He’s also noticed that “very few people leave their jobs, so the succession is low.” This leads to a lack of winemaking jobs for new grads. John graduated from Roseworthy in 1973, and describes that at that time, “you had to have a degree or do another Ag degree before Winemaking. There was an average of ten people graduating each year. They were in huge demand. It was not paying well. $7000 a year was my opening salary, but we were in demand. How many now in the Southern Hemisphere are graduating?” When he graduated, he got a job right away. “Now you’ve got to spend ten years dragging hoses. I missed all that.”

To sit down with someone who has spent his entire career in this industry and has contributed so much to its development, was an honour, to say the least. John’s gained wisdom about winemaking, and about life. “Work ethic is probably the most important thing of the whole lot,” John said, and added, “even if you don’t know what you’re doing, work hard. Past a point, you can’t learn that.” Willy mentioned that he’s taken that lesson to heart and he’s really had to prove himself, coming into the industry as John Hancock’s son. “Even if you don’t know what you’re doing if you can work hard, people really respect that. You have to work harder to prove them wrong as a winemaker’s son.” John reflected on his relationships as well. “I’ve been divorced twice. It really gets under your skin and becomes the driving factor in your life. If you want to be successful in the wine industry you can have one mistress. Your family suffers. I spent so much time away from home.”

In asking John and Willy why they continue to work in this industry, their answers clearly show they both have passion that drives them. “It’s the greatest job in the world but not the highest paid,” John said. “It’s a really interesting industry. If people were in this situation in the used car industry they would be gone tomorrow. People rarely leave the industry.” Willy responded with, “that’s a good point. From the outside, you’re being wet and cold and hungry and tired. But you still want to do it.” John agreed with, “gets under your skin, doesn’t it?” Willy regaled me with the story of his longest shift yet. “Everything in Sancerre, it’s all Sauvignon. We had to get it all in in ten days. It was nuts. I did a thirty-six-hour shift. You get into this twilight zone where the fruit comes in and you press it. What other job could you do that in? You wouldn’t do it if you didn’t love it because you couldn’t. You’re going to see two sunrises on this shift and get no money for it,” Willy joked. “You couldn’t tell a car salesman that.” John agreed and added that his longest shift was fifty-four hours. “It’s a buzz. Adrenaline rush. You’re creating. That’s the thing.”

In sitting down with them both, the respect that Willy has for John was apparent, and his desire to learn from his Dad, and soak in his stories and wisdom is refreshing. John has those years of lessons to pass on, and he has lived through the largest growth of the New Zealand wine industry yet. He’s seen it all, from turning over fruit and adding sugar to make fortified wines, to now, when New Zealand is producing wines that compete with the best in the world.

John isn’t in wine for the fluff. He isn’t full of dramatic, romantic comments and goals. John has been through that already, and he has learned what works and what doesn’t. He has seen the change, and he accepts the new generation and the ideas and insights that come with that, which is why he wants to involve his sons. This label really is designed to be a legacy. John and Willy work well together and enjoy their working relationship. Willy commented, “my number one goal is to learn everything I can from my Dad. I’d be an idiot not to!”

I found their wines to be unique, flavoursome, soft, aromatic and interesting. The nose of each struck me because their intriguing aromas invited me to think about them in further depth. As we neared the end of the evening, John commented to Willy, “they open up so well these wines; that’s what I really like about them.” When you purchase Hancock & Sons wines, you’re buying a label that is made with care, attention, purpose and a sense of family pride. “You’re always proud of the next one coming along,” John said about their wines.

You can purchase Hancock & Sons wines through their website, hancockandsons.co.nz, or find them on Instagram @hancock_and_sons. They are working on getting a fortnightly blog up to share more of their story with followers, and are currently on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Some Glengarry’s and Liquor Kings stock their wines, but John and Willy are happy to courier them to you or drop them off personally on their way around the Bay, in order to sell directly to you as much as possible. Follow them on Instagram to stay in the know, and to get some of the 50th Anniversary vintages of John’s wines. Vintage 2020 is wrapping up, and previous vintages of all three wines are ready to buy and are drinking beautifully. So choose a wine, or all three from Hancock & Sons, and sip on fifty years of winemaking experience, perfectly blended with a young winemaker’s aspiration, finished off with the touch of a New Zealand legend, and the legacy of a family.

The 3Sixty2 Story; Sustainable Boutique Marlborough Wines

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Alice Rule is the face behind 3Sixty2, a boutique wine label producing small batch Marlborough wines. Along with Cooper, the dog, who has a big piece of Alice’s heart, Alice spends her free time paddle boarding, or catching up with friends.

Growing up as the oldest child in her split family, Alice knew no other life as a kid than to work hard, help her Dad around the dairy farm on which she was raised, and watch out for her younger sister. Born and raised in a rural area in the Bay of Islands, Alice and her sister would choose between who would feed the calves and who would make their lunches before racing to catch the bus to Kawakawa School. After school, she went straight back to work to help her Dad finish up anything that needed to be done on the farm. She was no where near wine then; it wasn’t a part of her upbringing.

School wasn’t a big priority to Alice as a teen, and she was kicked out of high school at the age of 17. Her parents finally had enough and told her she needed to get herself together and do something meaningful with her life. She decided that training as a chef sounded intriguing, so she enrolled in the course at the Culinary Institute of NZ. Part of her requirements was a 3 day per week job in a restaurant. As chance would have it, she came across a job at Marsden Estate, a small, family owned winery. Every day, the whole family (even Grandma, Alice notes) sat down for coffee together at 10.00am, and included the staff. One morning, a contractor called Hobo said to everyone at coffee, “why do you have Alice working in the kitchen? Do you know who her Dad is?” He recognized the farm skill and pure hard work ethic she had and moved her into the vineyard instead. Alice comments that “from there, there was no looking back. I knew wine was for me. They shipped me off to EIT to study wine.”

Once she graduated, she returned to Northland to work there; however, during her time at EIT, she worked part time for Hoggle, the Vineyard Manager of Moana Park. She asked if she could help after she was done school for the day, and he said, “I can’t pay you, but yeah.” Alice says about Hoggle that “he became a real mentor of mine, so I learned as much as I could. And he’d pay me in this wine called ‘Hog Snort’ he made himself. Hog Snort was a real luxury as a student and I had to work really hard for it cause I only got a few bottles!”

Alice has worked 10 vintages now, at a wide range of New Zealand wineries. She’s worked at some smaller places, like Marsden Estate, Omata and Fat Pig in Northland, Craggy Range and Church Road in Hawke’s Bay, as well as huge ones like Indivin and Corban’s. She’s even done 2 vintages in the same season, starting in Aussie, and finishing that same autumn at Moana Park in New Zealand. She was a Technical Viticulturist at Te Mata too, which was a great expression of her vineyard passions.

So why did she start her own label? In 2016, she realized that even with her experience and education, the vineyard she was at paid the bird scarer the same wage as they paid her.

She was over working for little to make someone else’s wine dreams come true; it was time for her to take the leap and start building towards her own dream. She called up her good friend, Phil, who is a winemaker in Marlborough to see if he would partner with her to produce the kinds of wines she wanted to make. Even as a small start up, she had her long term vision of being an international brand in mind, and knew that Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc was key. With a personal love for Chardonnay, she wanted to produce it as well. Phil agreed, and they were off.

With Phil and the winery Alice uses being in Marlborough, and her desire to make a Marlborough Sauv, it makes perfect sense that all her fruit comes from that region as well. She lives and works in Hawke’s Bay, because she feels it’s the place to be with its accessibility to Auckland and Wellington, the two main centres that distribute her brand. She travels to Marlborough monthly to personally check in on the wines, is there during harvest, and communicates daily with her winemaking partner, Phil.

Her day job is with a tech company out of Auckland, and she is currently working on a project for NZ Wine Growers on the Technical Advisory Committee for Sustainable Wine Growers. Sustainability is a huge passion of Alice’s, and she dedicates her heart and soul to not only the sustainability of her brand, but on creating ways to improve the sustainability of the industry across the country. She says about her job that her “hours are all over the place,” but it “gives flexibility to spend on the wine” and to work with her customers.

The 3Sixty2 name pays homage to the land where Alice is from, as well as the history of the industry in the country. She had won a Young Viticulture award when she was in EIT, and instead of a trophy she received a copy of “Chances and Visionaries” by Keith Stuart, who wrote about the history of New Zealand wine. Alice says she “always refers back to that book,” and there was the story of how James Busby brought cuttings into New Zealand and was teaching orphans to grow grapes. He had taken over 500 cuttings from Europe, but only 362 survived the journey. Alice explains that the name “pays homage to a visionary that I have great respect for.”

As well as sustainability, focusing on reducing carbon emissions, and going plastic free as much as possible, Alice’s company mandate revolves around “driving the circular economy.” She gives the example of glass to explain. “Glass is circular. It’s made out of natural products and the bottles I use are, on average, 67% recycled glass.”

She makes the point that often, conventional wines are criticized for not being as sustainable as organic ones, but with all of her research and experience in the industry, she has found that the best wines are grown with a mixture of the two. There have to be certain practices taken into account to make a wine sustainable. Alice explains, “the best vineyards I have worked in grow cover crops, reduce pesticide, use fewer chemicals, and do less passes through the vineyard. This is because the sprays are more efficient, support microbial activity in the soil, compost, and typically use less copper, which I quite firmly believe is the most toxic chemical to soil health and is less likely to cultivate.”

On the somewhat controversial topic of organics, she comments, “I think organics has taught conventional producers a great deal and is an important part of the wine-producing biosphere and how we treat our land. But I challenge the common perception that organic grape production is kinder on the soil.” She wants to bring greater awareness to sustainability in all schools of winemaking.

Many producers focus on making wine as naturally as possible, but Alice feels “the packaging the wine comes in should be as natural as the wine itself,” and therefore pays lots of attention to hers. As well as advocating for low weight bottles, she uses no cellotape, only FSA, New Zealand made boxes, and Environmark Gold certified labels from a specific producer. She has also created “362 Trees for Bees” and partners with an initiative supporting New Zealand native plantings.

Similarly, in taking responsibility and care for her environmental impact, she wants to care for those that she contracts with, and says that if she can make her wines better, she can pay her staff better. “I never want to pay anyone as little as I was paid. There’s got to be a better way.” She points out that “it’s an element of sustainability we often forget about.”

As of 2016, you’ll be able to find 3Sixty2 Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay. Most recently, in 2019, Alice added a red to her label, Pinot Noir. She describes it as “not delicate or floral,” and because of the smaller berries she got, she was able to give it “more concentrated skin contact.” Like Alice’s other wines, it’s unique in that it’s a “kick you in the face Pinot Noir.”

She does partial wild ferment on all of her wines, which contribute to more complex and interesting flavours. Even her Marlborough Sauv is 25% wild fermented. She “loves the character of what it brings and how it expresses the terroir.” For the rest, she prefers to inoculate with a 5-in-1 yeast that brings out more complexity.

She doesn’t like too much reduction in Chardonnay, and prefers a restrained version, similar to the styles she was helping make in Northland. She uses hand harvested fruit, presses it in whole bunches and ferments it in old oak barrels for a subtle flinty character. She has been experimenting with oak marbles from Tony Bish too. She loves some oak in a Chardonnay, but as sustainability is key, she poses the question of, “what am I going to do with all these barrels after I’m done with them?” If she can find a way to impart similar character, that’s more sustainable, that’s her number one goal.

She produced just over 3000 bottles in 2016. 2017 was around the same, but she faced the same challenges as many did in 2018 with a less than desirable vintage and decided not to produce that year. She’s had other challenges as well, like her original brand not standing out on the shelves. She was in a difficult relationship that was taking its toll when she released her first label, and admits that it didn’t get the thought it should have. She has completely rebranded since and is proud of her new branding.

Her labels showcase the honour she pays to the history of New Zealand wine. On the Chardonnay label you’ll see the pattern that was on the original, hand written treatise that Busby documented. The circle represents the official stamp on the original documents, a symbol of authority. Alice loves that her labels represent not only where wine began for her, in Northland, but where it began for the country.

In addition to overcoming the rebrand challenge, Alice explains how difficult it can be as a solo, woman founder. She is supporting herself and her brand in a region away from her family. “We work our guts off in this industry and the days are hard and expensive.” Is it worth it? Alice joked that “if you’d asked me last week, I’d have sold it to you! But this week, yeah, it’s worth it.” Her jestful response shows how difficult and emotional this industry can be. Despite that, she says, “I love 3Sixty2. I love making wines. I love being in the industry and I love making blends.” She clearly has a lot of love for what she does, and also realizes it’s her art. “I’m a creative person. I love talking with my winemaker and looking at interesting components, and next steps.” Both wines have done her proud, with the Sauv getting a Silver Medal through Bob Campbell’s Real Review, and the Chardonnay getting Bronze.

When I asked her what she’s learned being in this industry, she responded with the word “grit.” She’s realized the biggest lesson is that “you’ve just got to take the punches and carry on going.” She comments that “the business part is intimidating and sales are hard,” but she’s proactive in facing the challenge head on; she’s enrolled in a weekly business course to help her grow in those areas. Alice is determined and when she faces challenges, she chooses to “find the motivation to carry on. You’ve got to sink or swim.”

She is grateful to see that “there are good people in the industry fighting tooth and nail for their dream and it is not easy.” Alice comments that “the most magical thing” is the “good people that support your dream,” and seeing customers love her wine. “There’s nothing more exciting than seeing your wines loved. There’s nothing more satisfying than that.” She comments about industry people and customers alike, that “the people have made all of the challenges totally worth their while.”

You can find 3Sixty2 wines at boutique wine stores in Auckland and Wellington, as well as Milk and Honey in Hawke’s Bay. If you want to enjoy them at home, find her on Instagram @3sixty2 or order online at http://www.3sixty2.com.

The de la terre Story; Boutique Hawke’s Bay Winemakers

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“de la terre:” from the earth.

Those three words sum up what Tony and Kaye Prichard of de la terre are all about: provenance.

“Own what’s in the glass, grow your own grapes, do it yourself. That’s really important to us.” – Tony

When you pull up to Tony and Kaye’s winery, after a relaxing, beautiful drive through the winding country-side of Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, you’ll instantly notice you’re somewhere special.

You will feel like you’re a visitor to an old, French country cottage. Gracie, the friendly dog, will greet you as you begin walking the path to the solid cedar double doors. You will hear the gravel crunch underneath your feet, and as you survey the hilly landscape, you’ll take in the scent of freshly cut grass, blooming flowers, and clean air. You’ll also notice the aroma of a warm loaf of Kaye’s home made bread, or a from-scratch pizza baking in the clay oven, and take note to pop over to the cafe as soon as you’re finished your tasting.

As you set foot inside the earth brick winery, you will meet Tony himself, who will take you through your selected choices from 13 of his 16 wines, kept fresh in his personally designed and home-made wine dispensing machine. He’ll explain how he has made each of the unique and distinctive wines he produces, and you’ll be amazed at the exceptional quality, depth and complexity of each of them. When you purchase your wine, you’ll notice that each bottle has been hand numbered by Kaye, just one example of the incredible detail that goes into every single element of what de la terre does.

After your degustation, you will partake in a beautiful meal or platter of Kaye’s delicious, home made food, perfectly paired with the de la terre wines of your choice. While you eat, the three-tiered pergola water feature above you (that Tony built himself) or a crackling log fire in the pizza oven will bring calm serenity to relax you before you head off . . . until next time. You already know you’ll be back.

So how did Tony and Kaye create this incredibly special place for their customers to experience?

It all began when they met each other in their early 20’s as Food Tech students at Massey University in Palmerston North. Kaye was enrolled in the product development side of the programme and Tony was enrolled in the engineering side. On their first days of school, neither Tony or Kaye thought they’d graduate from a Food Tech programme and eventually own their own winery, but low and behold, that’s what happened.

Kaye had been raised visiting the vineyards of her father’s winemaker friends, and remembers really liking a popular, sweet, sparkling wine as a young girl. Tony had also tried a sparkling in his early years at his brother’s wedding, in an old-style goblet, and remembers not liking it, yet being mesmerized by it; he was curious as to how it was made.

They give the real credit though, for the spark of their wine journey, to an influential lecturer, Malcolm Reeves, co-founder of Crossroad Winery, who used to put on wine tastings for his students on Friday’s. As you can imagine, wine tastings on Friday afternoons were very well received by the students, so Tony and Kaye began attending. Tony recalls one afternoon where Malcolm poured a Chardonnay, a Sauvignon Blanc and a Riesling, then put them in bags to disguise them before pouring them again, blind. Tony guessed them correctly, and thought to himself, “this winemaking stuff is easy. I can do this!”

He couldn’t picture himself as a food tech engineer, wearing a white uniform in a dairy factory somewhere for the rest of his life. He knew in his soul that he was a “maker of things,” and wanted to make wine.

Upon graduating, Tony found an advertisement in the paper for an Assistant Winemaker position at the Montana Winery in Gisborne. Many people in his class applied, but Tony was chosen for the job. When I asked him why, he said he isn’t sure, but it could have been to do with his passion. Knowing how passionate and skilled he is today, I would agree that Montana made the right choice. Tony explains that in those days, there weren’t winemaking degrees like there are now. Two of the decision makers for Montana also had Food Tech degrees, like Tony, and perhaps wanted someone without any winemaking ideas of his own, who could be trained and moulded. His Food Tech course had indeed prepared him quite well for the science of winemaking; everything else he learned on the job.

The two were married in 1983.

Tony worked as Assistant Winemaker for Montana for 3 years, doing huge volumes (for example, 15,000 tonne vintages). He was promoted to Chief Winemaker in 1986. As Tony began working at Montana, Kaye completed a Cordon Bleu Certificate Course in Auckland.

In 1989, Montana bought Church Road Winery and re-opened it, making Tony the Chief Winemaker at both the Gisborne Winery, and Church Road. Running both places in two locations was exhausting. Tony and Kaye moved to Hawke’s Bay in 1990 so Tony could focus solely on Church Road, where he spent 15 years in total.

He remembers many of the early years at Church Road with fondness. “It was family and fun in the early days,” Tony says, but unfortunately, through a couple of ownership changes, Tony eventually tired of the increasing corporate reporting and compliance in those companies; he also tired of not being able to see the wines he made into the bottle, as the bottling plant was in Auckland.

Tony and Kaye remember a specific afternoon drive they took, where through the conversation, Tony realized that he was ready to move on. He had always told his staff, “if you’re driving to work and you’re not happy, and you don’t want to be going here, you should be looking for something else.” Tony realized he needed to take his own advice; they both already knew what to do.

They had visited Burgundy in 1995, and remember it vividly.

We would be “driving through little streets, and see a small house and underground cellars and there’s a press and some barrels and a few tanks, and you go along and there’s another one, and here were people living and breathing wine, and that was their livelihood and that struck a chord. Even before that we’ve always been makers of things. Having been trained in winemaking it seemed like a logical progression to make our own.”

Tony and Kaye had previously found their property in 1992, when it was just a green paddock with nothing on it. Being the makers of things that they are, they had built their house and workshop from scratch. After Tony left Church Road in 2005, he started a successful wine consulting business, and set about designing and building the winery. Ever since Tony can remember, he’s been building and making anything from furniture to beer; he wanted to make the winery too. It took them 4 years to get the winery up, and although Tony had begun producing some wines in the meantime with some of his consulting clients’ grapes, de la terre’s first vintage in the new winery was in 2009.

The name “de la terre” doesn’t just represent the way Tony makes his wine. The principle of using what is from the earth (de la terre) is weaved throughout the whole place. The winery is built with “earth bricks” that came from a local earth brick maker, who uses highly compressed soil to make them. Tony and Kaye’s house is built in the sustainable “rammed earth” style, and is made completely of raw, natural materials. Tony built both himself, along with the wine dispensing machine he uses to serve his tasting wines.

The couple believes in doing as much as they can themselves, by hand, and not relying on other people; they wanted the control to determine how the winery was shaped, as well as how the wine turns out. Tony’s currently just finished the three-tiered water feature pergola that sits above their cafe patio, and the pizza oven that acts as centrepiece. This time though, now that the recent projects are done, he said he’ll “never build again.” Kaye just laughed and said, “I’ve heard that before!”

As for the vineyards, they took over the lease on their Hill Country Vineyard in 2013, which is 5.5 hectares in the Havelock North area, and they also lease a 0.5 hectare satellite vineyard down the road. All of their grapes come from those vineyards, and they employ a Vineyard Manager and some part time staff to ensure premium grape quality. The main vineyard is a unique terroir of very steep limestone terraces that create an individualized minerality in de la terre wines. Tony explains that “it’s less obvious in the reds, but people can pick it in the whites,” and he purposely tries to highlight the land and its minerality in the wine.

Tony and Kaye stand out in Hawke’s Bay for more than just their sustainable earth brick buildings and their terrior. Tony believes there are enough Bordeaux blends and Pinots around, and prides himself on producing unique varietals. “The last thing we need is another Merlot,” he says. He produces some really rare wines in New Zealand, like Tannat, Barbara, Tempranillo, Montepulciano, and a Chablis-style Chardonnay. Although you’ll find a few Viogniers in the Bay, Tony’s is quite different. He also makes late harvest and Noble wines from Viognier grapes.

While at Church Road, Tony had the opportunity to work closely with some French winemakers, and one of the key things he learned from them is to let the wine speak for itself. He believes that provenance, representing the land on which it was grown, is the most important thing for wine, rather than trying to manipulate it into what that varietal is “supposed” to taste like. It is for that reason that Tony chooses not to enter wine shows.

Despite not entering shows, de la terre wines are still highly reviewed by the best in the business, and often receive points well into the 90’s, and 5 stars, by writers like Bob Campbell and Michael Cooper.

Tony’s also launched a relatively new series called “The Cloud Series,” that is particularly unique, and actually started as a joke in 2016, with Chardonnay. It’s made almost in complete opposition to most Chards in the Bay, being unfined, and unfiltered, with “its own personality.” To make it, he did a hard press on Reserve quality grapes, wild fermented the must, used huge amounts of fully toasted Hungarian oak from his favourite producer… and couldn’t keep it on the shelves! It was wildly popular with its rich butterscotch, and savoury burnt butter character. It reminded me of popcorn, and I loved it! He has now added a Viognier to the Cloud Series, and the name is there to remind people that if it looks a little cloudy, that’s okay.

Tony uses many traditional winemaking techniques, and he is of the opinion that most winemakers these days use too many fining ingredients. As of 2014, he also doesn’t filter any of his reds. He prefers to do the more natural process of racking his wines every few months, as it increases the intensity and mouthfeel of them. He’s even done some unfiltered whites. Tony is entirely confident in what he puts into the bottle, and pours into each glass in the Cellar Door. Kaye quipped that the wines “don’t get into the bottle unless he’s completely happy with them.”

He’s most proud of his Reserve Viognier, for a reason most wouldn’t suspect. “It doesn’t taste anything like Viognier, and to me, that’s a beautiful thing.” His Montepulciano is a pride and joy because of its “brooding black fruit, black olive” character, and its tannin structure that “isn’t over-polished, but rough with coarseness.” Bob Campbell also seemed to like it, as it was his wine of the week in early September.

Tony’s favourite wine to make though, is his Blanc de Blancs! He makes it old-school like they do in Champagne, right down to the traditional riddling racks, and even disgorges à la volée, or “on the fly,” as the French monks once did. When I asked him how long it took to get the hang of that process, he said there’s definitely a trick to it, and proceeded to show me how precise he has to be with the bottle and the tools.

Although Tony makes a wide range of wines, de la terre is still quite small in production. He makes about 2500 to 3000 cases (of 12) per year, and jokes that at Church Road, he “used to spill that much before lunch time.” Being small, Tony and Kaye find it can be a challenge to get the de la terre name out. They don’t want to sell in supermarkets, but they do have a distributor who arranges en premise, fine wine and liquor store contracts for them throughout the country. They have been known to export a few wines to China, the UK, America, and even Canada! The sales side of the business, and promoting themselves, has been one of the biggest challenges they’ve had to overcome. They never know when the next sale will be. There are other stresses that they face, like losing staff, or having people move on that they love. With such a small team, training new people, or finding those that have aligning philosophies can prove to be a challenge too.

They’ve learned some important lessons over the years, one being that despite experience, you can never be sure of exactly what’s going to happen. Tony phrased it so genuinely.

“You start as a beginner, learn some stuff, think you’re red hot…your ego goes through the roof. The lesson is on the other side. You can never know it all. There are always so many variables that you don’t know about. You can very easily convince yourselves that you’re smarter than you are. You’re not. The more you make wine, the easier you think it will get. Well it doesn’t. We’re always fine tuning techniques. I look at what’s happened in the past and if it’s not where I want to be, [I use] my best guess in my experience and push the odds. If you have a problem and you’re not sure what to do, you throw a swack of things to it and try to fix it.”

I was awed by his attitude to become humble, realize what he doesn’t know, yet stay determined and persistent, and continue to deal with what comes at him; he chooses to learn from his past experience and do the best he knows how, while never giving up. I find this to be great advice for all of us, no matter what stage of life or industry we may be in.

Tony remembers the first Monday after he resigned at Church Road, when he had a moment that so many of us have amidst a big life change: did I make a mistake? Despite any challenges, Tony and Kaye feel in their hearts that it’s all been completely worth it. “I can’t think of doing anything else,” Tony says. “We’d be a lot wealthier, but would we be happier? I can’t ever imagine going back… everything you have, every ounce, goes into it. It’s very passionate.” They are truly living their passion.

I believe it is that passion that makes visiting Tony and Kaye so much more than just any winery visit. As Tony explains, “once people drive into de la terre, it goes beyond what’s just in the glass. It’s about a winery experience.” He loves hosting people in the Cellar Door, and pouring his wines himself. It’s a beautiful, “rustic and artisan” space to be in, that he’s created with his own hands. Tony describes the Cellar Door and his winery as his “happy place.”

Tony and Kaye invite you to head out to de la terre this season to experience the many things they can offer you from the earth. They are open from 10:00am to 5:00pm, Friday’s through Sunday’s, and most public holidays, from the first weekend in October to the first weekend in June. Visit their website at delaterre.co.nz for more info on the winery, wines or special events. You can purchase wine on their website as well, or contact them at sales@delaterre.co.nz.

So make the beautiful drive to experience de la terre for yourself. From the earth brick Cellar Door and restaurant, to Tony’s personalized tasting of his terroir driven wines, paired exceptionally at the cafe with Kaye’s fresh, home-made food . . . you really will experience de la terre.

#nzv19

New Zealand Vintage 2019… is done.

The end of vintage brings mixed feelings. On one hand, it’s sad to say goodbye to the time of year when everything the industry people have been working towards for the rest of the year is finally realized. It’s also time for all the vintage staff to be on their way back to their home countries, or on to the Northern Hemisphere for the next vintage. Saying goodbye to a team of people who have spent more time with each other than anyone else for the last 6 to 8 weeks can be difficult, especially if it was a great team that got along well and bonded over late nights and long days.

On the other hand, for all the Cellar Hands out there, vintage is exhausting, stressful, and can be all consuming, so it’s a relief to get back to a normal schedule, start sleeping again, and get the occasional day off. The “wine widows” are happy to have their partners back too.

As promised, I’ll outline briefly what our experiences of our first vintage were, and better explain some of the photos you saw on our social media profiles in the last 2 months.

Vintage for my winery started on the 26th of February. I’ll remind you here that I work in the Cellar Door, not the winery, (which my boss had to remind me of a couple times – sorry Mitch) so any time I got to spend in the winery was really special to me. I didn’t personally have the long days, no time off, and night shifts that all the Cellar Hands did (and wow, do I admire them for their work). I certainly did clock some hours out there when the Cellar Door was slow, on my days off, and after work, to hang out with the crew and get my hands on everything I was allowed to touch.

I was fortunate to be able to participate in the annual First Crush Ceremony, which was an unexpected honour for me. The grapes were loaded into the hopper, and before it was turned on, we had a speech with some high-ups in the company, and some of our Blanc de Noir (Champagne-style wine). Traditionally, everyone has a sip or two, and then throws the remainder of their wine into the hopper over the grapes. It’s a way of “blessing,” if you will, the next harvest with some wine from previous harvests. Ceremonies like this are practiced all over the world, and have been for years. Traditionally, the ceremony shows thanksgiving for the vineyards, the grapes, the workers, and begins the new vintage with a united team, hopeful for the vintage ahead.

My face when one of the Cellar Hands told me not to throw the entire wine glass in! 😂 Obviously.

I stuck around to watch the first crush, and tried some of the juice straight out of the press. It was a great day! I had no idea then just how many things I was actually going to experience this vintage.

The team began by bringing in Chardonnay for our bubbles, as well as some aromatic whites, like Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc, and then moved onto Chardonnay. Whites lasted for weeks, and I made sure to try each type of grape as they came in, and each grape juice as it was pressed out of the tanks.

During this time, I learned how the hopper, auger, crusher and presses work in a lot more detail, how to rack a tank, how the barrels are filled, and got to try my hand at some Battonage (yeast lees stirring). I also got to learn about the process of several loads of grapes arriving in both trucks and in bins, and how the winery coordinates with the vineyards, pickers and truck drivers to manage it all.

Hand harvested Sauvignon Blanc being loaded up into the press

Meanwhile, Greg was doing his own vintage at his workplace. After seeing our first crush ceremony, Greg suggested his team do one as well; they took his suggestion and involved everyone there, including the Cellar Door team, to launch the vintage with Champagne. Greg’s First Crush Ceremony was on the 14th of March, when they brought in some Merlot for Rose. For his very first crush, he mostly cleaned equipment and learned how to do a thorough job of that. He helped run pumps, move hoses, de-stem and get the juice off of the skins.

Two weeks later, Greg’s winery brought in some whites. Greg had lots of different roles; sometimes he drove the tractor from the vineyard into the winery with loads of grapes, other times he helped operate the press. As his place is an Estate winery, everything is grown on site. With their small team, they often enlisted the help of picking gangs to come harvest the grapes on the days they were ready. Greg began doing more involved jobs, like loading the press, and continuing with that all important cleaning and sanitizing. He enjoyed harvesting the Chardonnay the most, but loved the taste of the Gewertztraminer grapes the best.

I got to experience my first harvest, and Greg’s second, when Greg and I helped our friends at Saorsa wines with their Viognier. I was so slow at first, but eventually got the hang of it!

As exciting as the whites were, I was thrilled when the reds began coming in. Merlot for Rose was the first red that came into our winery on the 24th of March, and the reds continued until the end of April.

Greg’s Winery brought in their first official red, Pinotage, on the 25th of March. He enjoyed harvesting the reds more than the whites, because although the reds require a lot more work in the winery over the next several months, the harvest day process is simpler. With the reds, Greg learned to do everything from pour overs, punch downs and rummages (to continually mix the juice and skins all together while they’re fermenting) to taking and recording data of temperature and Brix (sugar) levels in the active ferments every day.

His small team lead to some extra long days, as they had to finish processing the grapes that came in before they could go home. That same small team had some benefits for me though, as I was welcomed to come participate in some of the cellar work. I loved doing punch-downs, and helping with anything they’d set me up working on.

Meanwhile, at my own workplace, I was still taking every chance to be out in the winery. I witnessed a few dig outs (emptying skins from the tanks after fermentation is done) and got to try everything from taking the temperature of the cap of grape skins at the top of the tanks, to testing Brix (sugar) levels in wine, rummages (blowing compressed air into the tanks to mix up the skins through the juice and regulate the temperature of the ferment), and even running the hopper (with much needed and excessive supervision)!

Taking the temperature of the cap of grape skins

Learning to run the hopper with a load of red grapes

Greg and I helped our friends at Element Wines harvest their Merlot, and got another little harvest under our belts.

Greg did his first dig out on his birthday!

A big highlight for me was when Alex of Saorsa allowed me to help him foot stomp his Syrah! This had been a dream of mine for years, and it was so amazing to actually get to do it.

Greg has also had the incredible and special opportunity to make his own wines. He’s got the mentorship of his Assistant Winemaker every step of the way, to help him create the style of wine he wants, and the benefit of the winery’s fruit and equipment. He is making a “field blend,” which is a mix of any and all grape types that come from the same block; his has 8 varietals in it, and will be a red wine. He’s also making a Chardonnay, and a Rose. He is learning to be a Winemaker on his own wines, which is an amazing way to learn. We’re so excited to try the finished products.

Greg tasting his field blend in the early stages

Greg’s field blend during the first week of fermenting

All of the grapes have been brought in now, but there is still much to do to tend to the wines, as they will be in the winery for months to years before they’re ready to be bottled. Greg continues to work on those tasks, and is doing some big jobs independently now. He continues to learn new things every day, and will soon be getting into pruning the vines with his Assistant Winemaker.

I’m spending more time back in the Cellar Door, and less in the winery now, but I’m reminded that it’s where I wanted to be, and still want to be – talking to people about wine, touring them around, and educating them about this passion of mine. There’s so much Greg and I have learned, and even more we want to learn. At the end of this first vintage we’ve gotten to be part of, the whole process of growing grapes and making wine is even more alive and exciting for us than ever before.

Three Amazing Must-Do Travel Bike Tours

We love traveling, seeing the sights, and being active, so it’s no wonder we’ve chosen to do bike tours on several of our trips. I also appreciate efficiency, and getting some wheels can greatly increase the amount of ground that can be covered in a short amount of time! We’ve biked in many places of the world, but these three experiences are all somewhat or fully guided, have given us the best bang for our buck, have offered very scenic exercise opportunities, and have provided amazing memories that we will cherish for life.

The Paris Night Bike Tour – 4 hours

http://www.fattiretours.com offers it for $69.95 and I recommend booking well in advance or it will be sold out! It’s got a 5 star rating on their site and I’m not surprised, as it is absolutely fantastic.

This tour was recommended to me by a friend before I had been to Paris for the first time, as it’s a great way to get some bearings on the layout of some popular tourist spots, and some general information. I recommend doing the tour close to the beginning of your trip for that reason. We did it, loved it, and have recommended it ever since. My sister and her friends booked it on my recommendation and highly enjoyed it as well.

We arrived on time, just after supper, at the address given to us upon booking, where we met our tour guide. We were set up with bikes and safety vests that were adjusted to fit us properly, and then we were taught how to use the bike. Paris is a very busy city, and we were going to be driving on the roads, with the traffic, so our tour guide taught us how to drive as safely as possible and how to keep up with the group.

Disclaimer: If you have never ridden a bike before, I wouldn’t recommend a bike tour in any large city as the place to learn. You don’t need to be an avid biker, but you do need to have some pre-established comfort on a bike.

Once we were ready to go, we set off into the evening! We biked at a relatively quick pace, and stopped every so often to view a monument, take some pictures, and learn a bit about what we were seeing. We stopped at places like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, the Latin Quarter, and we even stopped for an ice cream at Berthillon, a place they claim is most famous in Paris.

Then we made our way to the river, where we locked up our bikes, and jumped on a boat for a Seine River Cruise. The river cruise is one of my absolute favourite things to do in Paris, as you can see so many of the city’s famous places from the water, sail under its intricately ornate bridges, and admire all the locals that gather to relax and socialize along the riverbank. The timing of the boat ride was perfect for us to see the sunset, and the Eiffel Tower sparkle in the dusk from the water.

Oh, and did I mention the bike tour guide gives you free wine on the boat ride? Yes. Free wine. As much as you want. 🍷✔️

Once we got off the boat, we resumed our biking, perhaps a little wobblier than before the free wine, and made one more stop to see the Eiffel Tower again before heading back to the Fat Tire shop.

What a fantastic use of 4 hours in Paris!

Brooklyn Bridge Bike Tour
in New York – 2 hours

http://www.centralparksightseeing.com offers this tour for about $45, depending on what time and day you’re going.

Nobody had recommended this to me, but I wanted to do a bike tour in NYC, for the same reasons as on other trips: we cover ground so quickly, we get to meet other people, and we get some information about what we’re seeing, all while being active!

We were almost late for this one as we got lost on the Subway (so leave earlier than you think you need to), but we got there just before our group left. They quickly fitted us with bikes and we were on our way with our tour guide.

We biked at a reasonable pace, but we also stopped quite frequently on this tour to learn for a couple of minutes about what we were seeing. We rode through several old neighbourhoods that were the beginnings of Manhattan, down by the harbour, through the south end of Broadway, and China Town, while learning about some of NYC’s history. We pedalled across the Brooklyn bridge, breaking for some photos on the top!

Then we explored Brooklyn Heights and learned about the bridge and the area, before heading to the water’s edge near Jane’s Carousel to get a fantastic view of Manhattan, the bridge, and of course, some photos.

We made our way back across the Manhattan Bridge before ending the tour back at the shop.

This was an affordable and very informative tour with a friendly, personable and knowledgeable tour guide (ours happened to also be a college professor who was passionate about his city’s history), that left us feeling like we learned and saw so much that we just couldn’t have on our own.

They offer many different bike tours other than this one, so if you’re interested in other areas of the city, or want to do more than one tour, you could learn and see a lot!

Biking the Vineyard Trails of Burgundy
in France – full day

We booked rental bikes ahead of time through http://www.burgundy-by-bike.com for the very reasonable price of €20/day.

My heart smiles when I remember this day. It was easily not only one of the best biking experiences, but the best travel experiences – I’ll even say best life experiences – I’ve ever had.

We had watched some YouTube videos and read a few articles in our preparation to visit Burgundy (Bourgogne in French) and we’d seen a few recommendations to do the bike trails through the vineyards. As we love wine, we were going for wine, and we enjoy biking, we knew this was an absolute must for us.

There are a few companies that do guided tours, but we chose to rent our bikes in the town of Beaune, follow the maps they gave us of the bike trails and winery stops, and go independently of a guide. We didn’t know how long we’d want to be out, but we didn’t want to be limited by a group for this one, and I’m glad we weren’t, because we took the whole day!

We were fitted to our bikes, and given great directions and a map to get us through Beaune, and onto the bike path. Our map also explained exactly how many kilometres apart each of the towns were, so we could decide if we wanted to go the full distance or not.

We had the most beautiful, magical day. This was my Disneyland! Biking through the vineyards of Burgundy is just breathtaking! For one, the views are stunning, and the history is ancient; these vineyards and wineries have survived wars, and the stories of the families are generations long. Secondly, Burgundy is not flat! Our breath was taken away many times on this hilly ride! We were there in June, and it happened to be a very hot, sunny day. There is little shade on the ride, so make sure you bring lots of water. There are a few towns that you can purchase food and water in along the ride as well.

We started off at the famous entry to the vineyards.

We rode through several towns in the morning, stopping at a small Chateau in Pommard for a wine tasting in their below ground cave.

It was stunning, but the details of this are for another article!

We then rode through the villages of Volnay, Monthelle, and into Mersault, where we bought some beer and water and had a picnic lunch in the town square. It was scenic and quaint, with the church tower chiming away noon, and the small shop keepers closing up to enjoy the lunch hour by the trickling fountain. The town was alive with locals on their daily routes, and other bikers like us, stopping to enjoy the moment and some rest in the shade.

Once we were finished our storybook perfect lunch, we headed on towards Puligny-Montrachet, where we did another wine tasting. We then biked to Chassagne-Montrachet and finally Santenay, before deciding to turn around. We enjoyed little stops along the way to look closer at the vineyards and take photos, as well as to observe the village homes and businesses.

We also made sure to stop and smell the roses!

Biking in Burgundy felt so picturesque, so peaceful and so surreal that I had to keep reminding myself that I was really there, and it was really happening! I soaked up every minute of the experience and it couldn’t have been more perfect.

We put on 40kms on the bikes that day, so we were pretty tired by the evening, and it was so worth it!

So there you have it; these are my top three biking memories. If you are ever in any of those places, I highly encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities, and all they can offer you!

Happy travels!

Organic and Biodynamic Wineries in Kelowna

Organic wine is becoming more and more of a trend in the new world. It’s quite commonly found in Europe, but it’s still a rarity in Canada. Kelowna has several wineries that use some organic practices and that claim to be organic, but there are only two that are actually certified Organic, and one that has a Demeter biodynamic certification. We visited both of them, and loved our experiences at each! I’m pleased to share with you what we learned about their practices and what we thought of the wines at Summerhill Pyramid Winery and Rollingdale Winery. First, it will help to understand what makes a winery organic and biodynamic.

There are several reasons why people are growing fond of organic wines, such as their low sulphite content, and environmentally sustainable practices. Many wineries may use organically grown grapes, but as nice as this theory is, if the winery isn’t organic in the rest of its production, it’s not putting out an organic product. In order to be certified organic, there’s actually quite a process that a winery has to successfully complete. Each country has its own specific regulations for certification, but they all focus on producing the purest wine possible. Grapes need to be grown organically, with no chemical sprays used. The organic vintner doesn’t add commercial yeast, but rather, lets the natural yeast in the air and on the grapes do the work. Sulphur naturally occurs on grapes in small amounts, and it is often used to sanitize bottles, but an organic winery is not permitted to add sulphur to their wines to stop the fermentation process, and they have specified maximum sulphur amounts on reds and whites. This means that sulphites (the buggers blamed for those nasty headaches and hangovers) are going to be minimal compared to commercial wines. Many organic wineries often don’t do fining or filtering, which means they’re not putting animal protein by-products (like fish bladders or egg or milk proteins) into the wine to clear out the sediment; you’ll notice some chunks at the bottom of your bottle of organic wine. This is the leftover tartaric and other acids, dead yeast and bacteria. It sounds kind of gross, but this is part of the wine making process, and they’re in all wines during fermentation. Most commercial wines take them out using chemicals or all those animal parts I mentioned (the sediment coagulates onto them), so I’m fine with seeing the sediment in my glass to know it’s a cleaner product.

The biodynamic movement is gaining more traction as people are studying it and starting to notice positive effects in the vineyards and the wine. The movement basically involves using the lunar calendar to determine the best days for vineyard practices, as well as some other beliefs that certain plants and natural practices increase the overall health of the vineyard, and therefore the final product that it produces. Biodynamic wineries are always organic wineries first; biodynamics is a way of being even more environmentally friendly, and additionally, these types of wineries are usually paying attention to sustainable practices to reduce their footprint on the earth as much as possible.

Now, to the wineries!

Summerhill Pyramid Winery is located just outside of Kelowna on a hillside overlooking the mountains and Okanagan Lake. Summerhill is certified organic and biodynamic. All of their wines are organic, and two are biodynamic. They are a large winery with lots of room for tasting, special events, and enjoying the beautiful view from inside and out. They have a large patio area that is part of their restaurant. We started with a tasting of several wines before we made our way to the patio to relax with a glass.

We started with their sparkling wine, which is made from Chardonnay and tastes as similar to Champagne as we had in the Okanagan valley, anywhere. It is made in the traditional method, with a traditional Champagne grape varietal, and we were quite impressed with it. It has notes of crisp green apples and citrus, and a slight yeasty bready nose and flavour.

Their Viognier was also notable as it was quite floral and aromatic, and was a great expression of what the grape should taste like, as was their Alive Rose.

This is a benefit to organic wine, with little intervention; it can taste like what the grape actually offers, rather than what the winemaker did to it to alter the taste to what he or she believes consumers may want. We tried several more wines, and weren’t in love with all of them, but overall, we were pleasantly surprised. Our sommelier was an Italian man who recently spent some time in South America, and he had lots of experience and knowledge to offer about wine.

On the patio, we enjoyed Syrah and Merlot, two more that we felt were great representations of the grapes and well done. Our service here was also excellent!

Rollingdale Winery is special to us because we’ve gotten to know their wine maker over the course of our visits in which we’ve connected on lots of common ground. We therefore know even more about Rollingdale’s practices than we do about Summerhill’s. Rollingdale is certified organic, and is currently in process of becoming biodynamic. All of their wines are organic.

Rollingdale is set up in a very casual, minimalistic style. It’s rustic-industrial-chic, if you will! They’re using a shop as their winery and tasting room, and they don’t have a restaurant or a fancy patio, but visitors get the sense of being on a family farm, and that’s how they treat you there – like family. Everyone is so welcoming and friendly. They have a little cheese and cracker set up when you come in, and juice boxes for kids, and when they go through the wines, you can tell they’re passionate about what they do, not just punching a clock.

Our sommelier took us through several wines with an explanation of each, what they were made of and how, and a bit of the stories behind the names. He was knowledgable about the wines and the winery.

After our tasting, we ran into the winemaker who took us on a long walk through the vineyard and showed us where they were at in the season. He also explained how they’re in the process of getting their Demeter biodynamic certification. We went and took a look at the biodynamic block to compare the crop with the others, and it was immediately clear how much bigger, more ripe and abundant the fruit was. After going through the process, he really believes in the practices, now that he’s seen them for himself.

He has to keep a daily log of everything he does to those grapes and vines to get the certification. There are only certain days on which he can water and harvest, and he has to track exactly how much water the vines get. There are other days they’re permitted to prune and trim the vines. There are certain plants that need to be growing on the property to increase the health of the whole vineyard’s ecosystem. They have been taking measures to draw certain birds to the area to control pests naturally. They spray the crop with steeped teas of particular herbs and plants. There’s so much going into it, but it’s going to be worth it based on how those grapes looked yesterday! I’ll be excited to try their 2018 biodynamic Chardonnay!

(Pictured above: smelling hops, and taking a look at some of their fruit plants)

If you’re in the Kelowna area, and looking for a fabulous tasting experience, try either Summerhill or Rollingdale, or both! I highly recommend them, as you’ll be supporting more environmentally friendly wineries, and getting a more pure product in addition. If you have never tried organic or biodynamic wines, I encourage you to do so. See what you think of them, and how they make you feel.

Happy organic wine-ing!

How We Rode a Willy’s Jeep through the Vineyards of Chablis

We recently took a trip to the wine regions of Chablis, Bourgogne, the Cote Rotie, and Hermitage. We celebrated our 10th anniversary in Paris, and as my husband and I just recently took our WSET Level 2, he planned this nice, five-day wine tasting add-on as a surprise that I must say was very, very pleasantly received. Today, I’ll discuss one special tasting in Chablis.

First things first – the cutest little red and white Citroen!

Trains are a great way to travel around Europe; they get you easily out of and into the hearts of the cities. If you’re going wine tasting though, you need to have some method of getting into the wineries, which are often in small towns, or out of town. You have a few options of hiring drivers or signing up for wine tour vans and mini-buses, but we like to be independent, so we usually prefer a car of our own. We knew from research that the French don’t appreciate it if you swallow their wine at a tasting. “You taste wine with your mouth, not your stomach,” is a common French philosophy, and we get it. They’re pouring you some really nice wines, and if you’ve consumed the first five at their place, and who knows how many others at the place before, they know your palate isn’t exactly what it was when you woke up that morning, nor is your mental clarity. As we were clearly planning to befriend the spittoon at every facility, driving was not going to be an issue.

We flew from our small city in the prairies to Toronto in the afternoon, then took the red eye from Toronto to Paris, arriving around 8am. We had to drive through Chablis on our way to Dijon, the town we had our Airbnb booked in. I’ve travelled enough now that I know myself pretty well; I said to my husband prior to the trip that no matter how tired I’d be from flying, as soon as we got there, and were driving through Chablis (me saying, “oh my gosh, we’re in Chablis right now!” over and over), I was going to want to stop at a winery, or a chateau as they call them, and stat! I knew I wouldn’t want to wait a day, so we made a couple of bookings for Chablis before we flew out (more on bookings later).

We rented the Citroen, and once we figured out how to change the GPS from German into English, we were on our way to Chablis! After filling up on baguettes and prosciutto from a grocery store off the highway, we arrived at Clotilde Davenne where we were in for a real treat. They recently began offering a Willy’s Jeep tour through the vineyards of Chablis, and we were their first customers to book the experience. We climbed up into the old Jeep, with Arnaud, the winemaker and owner’s son driving, my husband riding shot-gun, and myself in the back, hanging onto whatever I could find as to not fall over the side, and boy was it a ride! If you’ve ever seen pictures of Chablis, it’s not flat; I had some moments of sheer terror where I was bounced off the seat, or I imagined going over the edge or us rolling, but I was so thrilled to be riding in Chablis that I got over it pretty quickly.

First of all, this jeep was used in WWII to transport soldiers, and if that wasn’t amazing enough, we were driving between rows and rows of perfect Chablis vines, setting our eyes on the very slopes of the Premier and Grand Cru grapes of arguably the most reputable Chardonnay in the world, with a second generation French winemaker as our guide. “Here are some Premeir Cru plots, and over here are the Grand Cru plots…” If you wonder why Grand Cru is so expensive, it’s because out of the 6000 hectares of vineyards in Chablis, only 100 hectares are Grand Cru plots, meaning that only the grapes that come from those specific 100 hectares can be labelled as Grand Cru. The land is Grand Cru because of several reasons, some of which include the direction it faces which affects sun exposure, the slope of the hill affecting sunshine and water uptake, the soil make-up, the depth of the roots, the age of the vines, and the history that those particular vines have in producing the best quality Chablis. Arnaud took us to a viewpoint at which we could overlook the vineyards, and see a map of Chablis on a stone plaque that labelled all of the individual plots and their level of quality in an easy to read, color coded system.

Once we finished our tour of the land, Arnaud took us back to the chateau for a tour of the grounds, a history lesson on his family and how they started in the industry, and a tasting. He spoke fairly good English, which was great for us, as we speak little to no French. We began with about six wines on the table, and once he saw that we were spitting them out, asking detailed questions and taking the tasting seriously, we ended up with another four. We tried all four levels of Chablis: Petit Chablis, Chablis Villages, Premier Cru Chablis, and Grand Cru Chablis. These are all quality, Chablis Chardonnays, but they’ve been aged differently, and for different lengths of time, and they come from the specific plots of land that coordinate with their specific level of quality.

If you’ve ever had a bad Chardonnay, or heard the saying, “ABC – Anything But Chardonnay,” you’ve probably had experience with super oaky ones, or butter bombs, but Chablis is nothing like that. It’s crisp and refreshing at all levels, and the higher levelled ones are extremely complex, with multiple smells, and tastes that linger in your mouth and change over the course of the next 15 or so seconds after you’ve swallowed (or spat). You’ll get lemon, crisp green apple, citrus and floral blossoms on the nose, and there is a distinct minerality to it, kind of like a wet stone, limestone taste to Chablis that comes from the limestone soil the vines call home.

We also got to try some wines from other plots in the family that were really interesting, like some Pinot Noir Roses, a sparkling Cremant (made in the same way as Champagne, but wine can’t be called Champagne if it’s not grown in Champagne), and the Bourgogne Aligote, which is the only other white grape that’s allowed to be grown in the Bourgogne region, and is used often as a table wine or a blending grape. The most interesting wild card we tried was the Roman grape that Caesar used to drink, and was therefore named after him. This is grown in the Irancy region, therefore the wine is called Irancy, (regions are how France labels their wines), although it’s 10% Caesar and 90% Pinot Noir.

ALL of this – for the very reasonable price of €20 each.

Needless to say, we picked up a few of our favourite bottles to take with us, and gave Arnaud and Clotilde Davenne a spectacular review on Google. I would send anyone there, so if you’re ever in Chablis, look them up!

A note on bookings in France:

Always book ahead at the chateaus in France. The website that we used, ruedesvignerons.com, helped immensely. I did have a couple of glitches with their app when trying to cancel or change a reservation, so it’s not perfect, but it is a great starting point for booking. It shows which wineries are visitor friendly, because not all are open for tastings to the public. It also lists information such as the different times available, types of tastings, and the costs.

We found that when we showed up at most chateaus in France for our bookings, we were the only ones there. The families live and work on the property, and they’re the ones that run lots of the tastings and tours. They’ve got work to do; they’re not sitting around waiting for people to walk in the door. If you don’t book, there’s a chance the door will be locked, and nobody will be around. If you do book, they’ll be there waiting for you, having already learned your names and set up the tasting, just for you. Be sure to let them know if you need to cancel!

If you ever have the opportunity to taste in Chablis, or to taste anywhere in this world for that matter, go for it. You can meet some of the greatest people, and get to share in a small piece of their story, their craft, and their passion. Especially in Europe, it’s an amazing thing to be a part of.

Happy wine-ing!